gdb/mi: remove warning about mi1
[binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 13
5
6 * The AArch64 'org.gnu.gdb.aarch64.pauth' Pointer Authentication feature string
7 has been deprecated in favor of the 'org.gnu.gdb.aarch64.pauth_v2' feature
8 string.
9
10 * GDB now has some support for integer types larger than 64 bits.
11
12 * Removed targets and native configurations
13
14 GDB no longer supports AIX 4.x, AIX 5.x and AIX 6.x. The minimum supported
15 AIX version is now AIX 7.1.
16
17 * Multi-target feature configuration
18
19 GDB now supports the individual configuration of remote targets' feature
20 sets. Based on the current selection of a target, the commands 'set remote
21 <name>-packet (on|off|auto)' and 'show remote <name>-packet' can be used to
22 configure a target's feature packet and to display its configuration,
23 respectively.
24
25 The individual packet sizes can be configured and shown using the commands
26 ** 'set remote memory-read-packet-size (number of bytes|fixed|limit)'
27 ** 'set remote memory-write-packet-size (number of bytes|fixed|limit)'
28 ** 'show remote memory-read-packet-size'
29 ** 'show remote memory-write-packet-size'.
30
31 The configuration of the packet itself, as well as the size of a memory-read
32 or memory-write packet applies to the currently selected target (if
33 available). If no target is selected, it applies to future remote
34 connections. Similarly, the show commands print the configuration of the
35 currently selected target. If no remote target is selected, the default
36 configuration for future connections is shown.
37
38 * MI version 1 has been removed.
39
40 * GDB has initial built-in support for the Debugger Adapter Protocol.
41 This support requires that GDB be built with Python scripting
42 enabled.
43
44 * For the break command, multiple uses of the 'thread' or 'task'
45 keywords will now give an error instead of just using the thread or
46 task id from the last instance of the keyword. E.g.:
47 break foo thread 1 thread 2
48 will now give an error rather than using 'thread 2'.
49
50 * For the watch command, multiple uses of the 'task' keyword will now
51 give an error instead of just using the task id from the last
52 instance of the keyword. E.g.:
53 watch my_var task 1 task 2
54 will now give an error rather than using 'task 2'. The 'thread'
55 keyword already gave an error when used multiple times with the
56 watch command, this remains unchanged.
57
58 * The 'set print elements' setting now helps when printing large arrays.
59 If an array would otherwise exceed max-value-size, but 'print elements'
60 is set such that the size of elements to print is less than or equal
61 to 'max-value-size', GDB will now still print the array, however only
62 'max-value-size' worth of data will be added into the value history.
63
64 * For both the break and watch commands, it is now invalid to use both
65 the 'thread' and 'task' keywords within the same command. For
66 example the following commnds will now give an error:
67 break foo thread 1 task 1
68 watch var thread 2 task 3
69
70 * The printf command now accepts a '%V' output format which will
71 format an expression just as the 'print' command would. Print
72 options can be placed withing '[...]' after the '%V' to modify how
73 the value is printed. E.g:
74 printf "%V", some_array
75 printf "%V[-array-indexes on]", some_array
76 will print the array without, or with array indexes included, just
77 as the array would be printed by the 'print' command. This
78 functionality is also available for dprintf when dprintf-style is
79 'gdb'.
80
81 * When the printf command requires a string to be fetched from the
82 inferior, GDB now uses the existing 'max-value-size' setting to the
83 limit the memory allocated within GDB. The default 'max-value-size'
84 is 64k. To print longer strings you should increase
85 'max-value-size'.
86
87 * The Ada 2022 Enum_Rep and Enum_Val attributes are now supported.
88
89 * The Ada 2022 target name symbol ('@') is now supported by the Ada
90 expression parser.
91
92 * The 'list' command now accepts '.' as an argument, which tells GDB to
93 print the location where the inferior is stopped. If the inferior hasn't
94 started yet, the command will print around the main function.
95
96 * Using the 'list' command with no arguments in a situation where the
97 command would attempt to list past the end of the file now warns the
98 user that the end of file has been reached, refers the user to the
99 newly added '.' argument
100
101 * Breakpoints can now be inferior-specific. This is similar to the
102 existing thread-specific breakpoint support. Breakpoint conditions
103 can include the 'inferior' keyword followed by an inferior id (as
104 displayed in the 'info inferiors' output). It is invalid to use the
105 'inferior' keyword with either the 'thread' or 'task' keywords when
106 creating a breakpoint.
107
108 * New commands
109
110 set debug breakpoint on|off
111 show debug breakpoint
112 Print additional debug messages about breakpoint insertion and removal.
113
114 maintenance print record-instruction [ N ]
115 Print the recorded information for a given instruction. If N is not given
116 prints how GDB would undo the last instruction executed. If N is negative,
117 prints how GDB would undo the N-th previous instruction, and if N is
118 positive, it prints how GDB will redo the N-th following instruction.
119
120 maintenance info frame-unwinders
121 List the frame unwinders currently in effect, starting with the highest
122 priority.
123
124 maintenance wait-for-index-cache
125 Wait until all pending writes to the index cache have completed.
126
127 set always-read-ctf on|off
128 show always-read-ctf
129 When off, CTF is only read if DWARF is not present. When on, CTF is
130 read regardless of whether DWARF is present. Off by default.
131
132 info main
133 Get main symbol to identify entry point into program.
134
135 * New convenience function "$_shell", to execute a shell command and
136 return the result. This lets you run shell commands in expressions.
137 Some examples:
138
139 (gdb) p $_shell("true")
140 $1 = 0
141 (gdb) p $_shell("false")
142 $2 = 1
143 (gdb) break func if $_shell("some command") == 0
144
145 * MI changes
146
147 ** mi now reports 'no-history' as a stop reason when hitting the end of the
148 reverse execution history.
149
150 ** When creating a thread-specific breakpoint using the '-p' option,
151 the -break-insert command would report the 'thread' field twice in
152 the reply. The content of both fields was always identical. This
153 has now been fixed; the 'thread' field will be reported just once
154 for thread-specific breakpoints, or not at all for breakpoints
155 without a thread restriction. The same is also true for the 'task'
156 field of an Ada task-specific breakpoint.
157
158 ** It is no longer possible to create a thread-specific breakpoint for
159 a thread that doesn't exist using '-break-insert -p ID'. Creating
160 breakpoints for non-existent threads is not allowed when using the
161 CLI, that the MI allowed it was a long standing bug, which has now
162 been fixed.
163
164 ** The '--simple-values' argument to the '-stack-list-arguments',
165 '-stack-list-locals', '-stack-list-variables', and '-var-list-children'
166 commands now takes reference types into account: that is, a value is now
167 considered simple if it is neither an array, structure, or union, nor a
168 reference to an array, structure, or union. (Previously all references were
169 considered simple.) Support for this feature can be verified by using the
170 '-list-features' command, which should contain "simple-values-ref-types".
171
172 ** The -break-insert command now accepts a '-g thread-group-id' option
173 to allow for the creation of inferior-specific breakpoints.
174
175 ** The bkpt tuple, which appears in breakpoint-created notifications,
176 and in the result of the -break-insert command can now include an
177 optional 'inferior' field for both the main breakpoint, and each
178 location, when the breakpoint is inferior-specific.
179
180 * Python API
181
182 ** gdb.ThreadExitedEvent added. Emits a ThreadEvent.
183
184 ** The gdb.unwinder.Unwinder.name attribute is now read-only.
185
186 ** The name argument passed to gdb.unwinder.Unwinder.__init__ must
187 now be of type 'str' otherwise a TypeError will be raised.
188
189 ** The gdb.unwinder.Unwinder.enabled attribute can now only accept
190 values of type 'bool'. Changing this attribute will now
191 invalidate GDB's frame-cache, which means GDB will need to
192 rebuild its frame-cache when next required - either with, or
193 without the particular unwinder, depending on how 'enabled' was
194 changed.
195
196 ** New methods added to the gdb.PendingFrame class. These methods
197 have the same behaviour as the corresponding methods on
198 gdb.Frame. The new methods are:
199
200 - gdb.PendingFrame.name: Return the name for the frame's
201 function, or None.
202 - gdb.PendingFrame.is_valid: Return True if the pending frame
203 object is valid.
204 - gdb.PendingFrame.pc: Return the $pc register value for this
205 frame.
206 - gdb.PendingFrame.language: Return a string containing the
207 language for this frame, or None.
208 - gdb.PendingFrame.find_sal: Return a gdb.Symtab_and_line
209 object for the current location within the pending frame, or
210 None.
211 - gdb.PendingFrame.block: Return a gdb.Block for the current
212 pending frame, or None.
213 - gdb.PendingFrame.function: Return a gdb.Symbol for the
214 current pending frame, or None.
215
216 ** The frame-id passed to gdb.PendingFrame.create_unwind_info can
217 now use either an integer or a gdb.Value object for each of its
218 'sp', 'pc', and 'special' attributes.
219
220 ** A new class gdb.unwinder.FrameId has been added. Instances of
221 this class are constructed with 'sp' (stack-pointer) and 'pc'
222 (program-counter) values, and can be used as the frame-id when
223 calling gdb.PendingFrame.create_unwind_info.
224
225 ** It is now no longer possible to sub-class the
226 gdb.disassembler.DisassemblerResult type.
227
228 ** The Disassembler API from the gdb.disassembler module has been
229 extended to include styling support:
230
231 - The DisassemblerResult class can now be initialized with a list
232 of parts. Each part represents part of the disassembled
233 instruction along with the associated style information. This
234 list of parts can be accessed with the new
235 DisassemblerResult.parts property.
236
237 - New constants gdb.disassembler.STYLE_* representing all the
238 different styles part of an instruction might have.
239
240 - New methods DisassembleInfo.text_part and
241 DisassembleInfo.address_part which are used to create the new
242 styled parts of a disassembled instruction.
243
244 - Changes are backwards compatible, the older API can still be
245 used to disassemble instructions without styling.
246
247 ** New function gdb.execute_mi(COMMAND, [ARG]...), that invokes a
248 GDB/MI command and returns the output as a Python dictionary.
249
250 ** New function gdb.block_signals(). This returns a context manager
251 that blocks any signals that GDB needs to handle itself.
252
253 ** New class gdb.Thread. This is a subclass of threading.Thread
254 that calls gdb.block_signals in its "start" method.
255
256 ** gdb.parse_and_eval now has a new "global_context" parameter.
257 This can be used to request that the parse only examine global
258 symbols.
259
260 ** gdb.Inferior now has a new "arguments" attribute. This holds the
261 command-line arguments to the inferior, if known.
262
263 ** gdb.Inferior now has a new "main_name" attribute. This holds the
264 name of the inferior's "main", if known.
265
266 ** gdb.Inferior now has new methods "clear_env", "set_env", and
267 "unset_env". These can be used to modify the inferior's
268 environment before it is started.
269
270 ** gdb.Value now has the 'assign' method.
271
272 ** gdb.Value now has the 'to_array' method. This converts an
273 array-like Value to an array.
274
275 ** gdb.Progspace now has the new method "objfile_for_address". This
276 returns the gdb.Objfile, if any, that covers a given address.
277
278 ** gdb.Breakpoint now has an "inferior" attribute. If the
279 Breakpoint object is inferior specific then this attribute holds
280 the inferior-id (an integer). If the Breakpoint object is not
281 inferior specific, then this field contains None. This field can
282 be written too.
283
284 ** gdb.Type now has the "is_array_like" and "is_string_like"
285 methods. These reflect GDB's internal idea of whether a type
286 might be array- or string-like, even if they do not have the
287 corresponding type code.
288
289 *** Changes in GDB 13
290
291 * MI version 1 is deprecated, and will be removed in GDB 14.
292
293 * GDB now supports dumping memory tag data for AArch64 MTE. It also supports
294 reading memory tag data for AArch64 MTE from core files generated by
295 the gcore command or the Linux kernel.
296
297 When a process uses memory-mapped pages protected by memory tags (for
298 example, AArch64 MTE), this additional information will be recorded in
299 the core file in the event of a crash or if GDB generates a core file
300 from the current process state. GDB will show this additional information
301 automatically, or through one of the memory-tag subcommands.
302
303 * "info breakpoints" now displays enabled breakpoint locations of
304 disabled breakpoints as in the "y-" state. For example:
305
306 (gdb) info breakpoints
307 Num Type Disp Enb Address What
308 1 breakpoint keep n <MULTIPLE>
309 1.1 y- 0x00000000000011b6 in ...
310 1.2 y- 0x00000000000011c2 in ...
311 1.3 n 0x00000000000011ce in ...
312
313 * Support for Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on FreeBSD arm and
314 aarch64 architectures.
315
316 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on FreeBSD/Aarch64.
317
318 * Remove support for building against Python 2, it is now only possible to
319 build GDB against Python 3.
320
321 * DBX mode has been removed.
322
323 * GDB now honours the DWARF prologue_end line-table entry flag the compiler can
324 emit to indicate where a breakpoint should be placed to break in a function
325 past its prologue.
326
327 * Completion now also offers "NUMBER" for "set" commands that accept
328 a numeric argument and the "unlimited" keyword. For example:
329
330 (gdb) set width <TAB>
331 NUMBER unlimited
332
333 and consequently:
334
335 (gdb) complete set width
336 set width NUMBER
337 set width unlimited
338
339 * Disassembler styling using libopcodes. GDB now supports
340 disassembler styling using libopcodes. This is only available for
341 some targets (currently x86 and RISC-V). For unsupported targets
342 Python Pygments is still used. For supported targets, libopcodes
343 styling is used by default.
344
345 * The Windows native target now supports target async.
346
347 * gdb now supports zstd compressed debug sections (ELFCOMPRESS_ZSTD) for ELF.
348
349 * The format of 'disassemble /r' and 'record instruction-history /r'
350 has changed. The instruction bytes could now be grouped together,
351 and displayed in the endianness of the instruction. This is the
352 same layout as used by GNU objdump when disassembling.
353
354 There is now 'disassemble /b' and 'record instruction-history /b'
355 which will always display the instructions bytes one at a time in
356 memory order, that is, the byte at the lowest address first.
357
358 For both /r and /b GDB is now better at using whitespace in order to
359 align the disassembled instruction text.
360
361 * The TUI no longer styles the source and assembly code highlighted by
362 the current position indicator by default. You can however
363 re-enable styling using the new "set style tui-current-position"
364 command.
365
366 * New convenience variable $_inferior_thread_count contains the number
367 of live threads in the current inferior.
368
369 * When a breakpoint with multiple code locations is hit, GDB now prints
370 the code location using the syntax <breakpoint_number>.<location_number>
371 such as in:
372 Thread 1 "zeoes" hit Breakpoint 2.3, some_func () at zeoes.c:8
373
374 * When a breakpoint is hit, GDB now sets the convenience variables $_hit_bpnum
375 and $_hit_locno to the hit breakpoint number and code location number.
376 This allows to disable the last hit breakpoint using
377 (gdb) disable $_hit_bpnum
378 or disable only the specific breakpoint code location using
379 (gdb) disable $_hit_bpnum.$_hit_locno
380 These commands can be used inside the command list of a breakpoint to
381 automatically disable the just encountered breakpoint (or the just
382 encountered specific breakpoint code location).
383 When a breakpoint has only one location, $_hit_locno is set to 1 so that
384 (gdb) disable $_hit_bpnum.$_hit_locno
385 and
386 (gdb) disable $_hit_bpnum
387 are both disabling the breakpoint.
388
389 * New commands
390
391 maintenance set ignore-prologue-end-flag on|off
392 maintenance show ignore-prologue-end-flag
393 This setting, which is off by default, controls whether GDB ignores the
394 PROLOGUE-END flag from the line-table when skipping prologue. This can be
395 used to force GDB to use prologue analyzers if the line-table is constructed
396 from erroneous debug information.
397
398 set print nibbles [on|off]
399 show print nibbles
400 This controls whether the 'print/t' command will display binary values
401 in groups of four bits, known as "nibbles". The default is 'off'.
402
403 maintenance set libopcodes-styling on|off
404 maintenance show libopcodes-styling
405 These can be used to force off libopcodes based styling, the Python
406 Pygments styling will then be used instead.
407
408 set style disassembler comment
409 show style disassembler comment
410 set style disassembler immediate
411 show style disassembler immediate
412 set style disassembler mnemonic
413 show style disassembler mnemonic
414 set style disassembler register
415 show style disassembler register
416 set style disassembler address
417 show style disassembler address
418 set style disassembler symbol
419 show style disassembler symbol
420 For targets that support libopcodes based styling, these settings
421 control how various aspects of the disassembler output are styled.
422 The 'disassembler address' and 'disassembler symbol' styles are
423 aliases for the 'address' and 'function' styles respectively.
424
425 maintenance print frame-id [ LEVEL ]
426 Print GDB's internal frame-id for the frame at LEVEL. If LEVEL is
427 not given, then print the frame-id for the currently selected frame.
428
429 set debug infcall on|off
430 show debug infcall
431 Print additional debug messages about inferior function calls.
432
433 set debug solib on|off
434 show debug solib
435 Print additional debug messages about shared library handling.
436
437 set style tui-current-position [on|off]
438 Whether to style the source and assembly code highlighted by the
439 TUI's current position indicator. The default is off.
440
441 set print characters LIMIT
442 show print characters
443 This new setting is like 'set print elements', but controls how many
444 characters of a string are printed. This functionality used to be
445 covered by 'set print elements', but it can be controlled separately
446 now. LIMIT can be set to a numerical value to request that particular
447 character count, to 'unlimited' to print all characters of a string,
448 or to 'elements', which is also the default, to follow the setting of
449 'set print elements' as it used to be.
450
451 print -characters LIMIT
452 This new option to the 'print' command has the same effect as a temporary
453 use of 'set print characters'.
454
455 * Changed commands
456
457 document user-defined
458 It is now possible to document user-defined aliases.
459 When a user-defined alias is documented, the help and apropos commands
460 use the provided documentation instead of the documentation of the
461 aliased command.
462 Documenting a user-defined alias is particularly useful when the alias
463 is a set of nested 'with' commands to avoid showing the help of
464 the with command for an alias that will in fact launch the
465 last command given in the nested commands.
466
467 maintenance info line-table
468 Add a PROLOGUE-END column to the output which indicates that an
469 entry corresponds to an address where a breakpoint should be placed
470 to be at the first instruction past a function's prologue.
471
472 * Removed commands
473
474 set debug aix-solib on|off
475 show debug aix-solib
476 set debug solib-frv on|off
477 show debug solib-frv
478 Removed in favor of "set/show debug solib".
479
480 maintenance info program-spaces
481 This command now includes a 'Core File' column which indicates the
482 name of the core file associated with each program space.
483
484 * New targets
485
486 GNU/Linux/LoongArch (gdbserver) loongarch*-*-linux*
487
488 GNU/Linux/CSKY (gdbserver) csky*-*linux*
489
490 AMDGPU amdgcn-*-*
491
492 * MI changes
493
494 ** The async record stating the stopped reason 'breakpoint-hit' now
495 contains an optional field locno giving the code location number
496 when the breakpoint has multiple code locations.
497
498 * Python API
499
500 ** GDB will now reformat the doc string for gdb.Command and
501 gdb.Parameter sub-classes to remove unnecessary leading
502 whitespace from each line before using the string as the help
503 output.
504
505 ** New function gdb.format_address(ADDRESS, PROGSPACE, ARCHITECTURE),
506 that formats ADDRESS as 'address <symbol+offset>', where symbol is
507 looked up in PROGSPACE, and ARCHITECTURE is used to format address.
508 This is the same format that GDB uses when printing address, symbol,
509 and offset information from the disassembler.
510
511 ** New function gdb.current_language that returns the name of the
512 current language. Unlike gdb.parameter('language'), this will
513 never return 'auto'.
514
515 ** New method gdb.Frame.language that returns the name of the
516 frame's language.
517
518 ** New Python API for wrapping GDB's disassembler:
519
520 - gdb.disassembler.register_disassembler(DISASSEMBLER, ARCH).
521 DISASSEMBLER is a sub-class of gdb.disassembler.Disassembler.
522 ARCH is either None or a string containing a bfd architecture
523 name. DISASSEMBLER is registered as a disassembler for
524 architecture ARCH, or for all architectures if ARCH is None.
525 The previous disassembler registered for ARCH is returned, this
526 can be None if no previous disassembler was registered.
527
528 - gdb.disassembler.Disassembler is the class from which all
529 disassemblers should inherit. Its constructor takes a string,
530 a name for the disassembler, which is currently only used in
531 some debug output. Sub-classes should override the __call__
532 method to perform disassembly, invoking __call__ on this base
533 class will raise an exception.
534
535 - gdb.disassembler.DisassembleInfo is the class used to describe
536 a single disassembly request from GDB. An instance of this
537 class is passed to the __call__ method of
538 gdb.disassembler.Disassembler and has the following read-only
539 attributes: 'address', and 'architecture', as well as the
540 following method: 'read_memory'.
541
542 - gdb.disassembler.builtin_disassemble(INFO, MEMORY_SOURCE),
543 calls GDB's builtin disassembler on INFO, which is a
544 gdb.disassembler.DisassembleInfo object. MEMORY_SOURCE is
545 optional, its default value is None. If MEMORY_SOURCE is not
546 None then it must be an object that has a 'read_memory' method.
547
548 - gdb.disassembler.DisassemblerResult is a class that can be used
549 to wrap the result of a call to a Disassembler. It has
550 read-only attributes 'length' and 'string'.
551
552 ** gdb.Objfile now has an attribute named "is_file". This is True
553 if the objfile comes from a file, and False otherwise.
554
555 ** New function gdb.print_options that returns a dictionary of the
556 prevailing print options, in the form accepted by
557 gdb.Value.format_string.
558
559 ** gdb.Value.format_string now uses the format provided by 'print',
560 if it is called during a 'print' or other similar operation.
561
562 ** gdb.Value.format_string now accepts the 'summary' keyword. This
563 can be used to request a shorter representation of a value, the
564 way that 'set print frame-arguments scalars' does.
565
566 ** New Python type gdb.BreakpointLocation.
567 The new attribute 'locations' of gdb.Breakpoint returns a list of
568 gdb.BreakpointLocation objects specifying the locations where the
569 breakpoint is inserted into the debuggee.
570
571 ** The gdb.register_window_type method now restricts the set of
572 acceptable window names. The first character of a window's name
573 must start with a character in the set [a-zA-Z], every subsequent
574 character of a window's name must be in the set [-_.a-zA-Z0-9].
575
576 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
577
578 ** GDBserver is now supported on LoongArch GNU/Linux.
579
580 ** GDBserver is now supported on CSKY GNU/Linux.
581
582 * LoongArch floating-point support
583
584 GDB now supports floating-point on LoongArch GNU/Linux.
585
586 * AMD GPU ROCm debugging support
587
588 GDB now supports debugging programs offloaded to AMD GPUs using the ROCm
589 platform.
590
591 *** Changes in GDB 12
592
593 * DBX mode is deprecated, and will be removed in GDB 13
594
595 * GDB 12 is the last release of GDB that will support building against
596 Python 2. From GDB 13, it will only be possible to build GDB itself
597 with Python 3 support.
598
599 * The disable-randomization setting now works on Windows.
600
601 * Improved C++ template support
602
603 GDB now treats functions/types involving C++ templates like it does function
604 overloads. Users may omit parameter lists to set breakpoints on families of
605 template functions, including types/functions composed of multiple template types:
606
607 (gdb) break template_func(template_1, int)
608
609 The above will set breakpoints at every function `template_func' where
610 the first function parameter is any template type named `template_1' and
611 the second function parameter is `int'.
612
613 TAB completion also gains similar improvements.
614
615 * The FreeBSD native target now supports async mode.
616
617 * Configure changes
618
619 --enable-threading
620
621 Enable or disable multithreaded symbol loading. This is enabled
622 by default, but passing --disable-threading or --enable-threading=no
623 to configure will disable it.
624
625 Disabling this can cause a performance penalty when there are a lot of
626 symbols to load, but is useful for debugging purposes.
627
628 * New commands
629
630 maint set backtrace-on-fatal-signal on|off
631 maint show backtrace-on-fatal-signal
632 This setting is 'on' by default. When 'on' GDB will print a limited
633 backtrace to stderr in the situation where GDB terminates with a
634 fatal signal. This only supported on some platforms where the
635 backtrace and backtrace_symbols_fd functions are available.
636
637 set source open on|off
638 show source open
639 This setting, which is on by default, controls whether GDB will try
640 to open source code files. Switching this off will stop GDB trying
641 to open and read source code files, which can be useful if the files
642 are located over a slow network connection.
643
644 set varsize-limit
645 show varsize-limit
646 These are now deprecated aliases for "set max-value-size" and
647 "show max-value-size".
648
649 task apply [all | TASK-IDS...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
650 Like "thread apply", but applies COMMAND to Ada tasks.
651
652 watch [...] task ID
653 Watchpoints can now be restricted to a specific Ada task.
654
655 maint set internal-error backtrace on|off
656 maint show internal-error backtrace
657 maint set internal-warning backtrace on|off
658 maint show internal-warning backtrace
659 GDB can now print a backtrace of itself when it encounters either an
660 internal-error, or an internal-warning. This is on by default for
661 internal-error and off by default for internal-warning.
662
663 set logging on|off
664 Deprecated and replaced by "set logging enabled on|off".
665
666 set logging enabled on|off
667 show logging enabled
668 These commands set or show whether logging is enabled or disabled.
669
670 exit
671 You can now exit GDB by using the new command "exit", in addition to
672 the existing "quit" command.
673
674 set debug threads on|off
675 show debug threads
676 Print additional debug messages about thread creation and deletion.
677
678 set debug linux-nat on|off
679 show debug linux-nat
680 These new commands replaced the old 'set debug lin-lwp' and 'show
681 debug lin-lwp' respectively. Turning this setting on prints debug
682 messages relating to GDB's handling of native Linux inferiors.
683
684 maint flush source-cache
685 Flush the contents of the source code cache.
686
687 maint set gnu-source-highlight enabled on|off
688 maint show gnu-source-highlight enabled
689 Whether GDB should use the GNU Source Highlight library for adding
690 styling to source code. When off, the library will not be used, even
691 when available. When GNU Source Highlight isn't used, or can't add
692 styling to a particular source file, then the Python Pygments
693 library will be used instead.
694
695 set suppress-cli-notifications (on|off)
696 show suppress-cli-notifications
697 This controls whether printing the notifications is suppressed for CLI.
698 CLI notifications occur when you change the selected context
699 (i.e., the current inferior, thread and/or the frame), or when
700 the program being debugged stops (e.g., because of hitting a
701 breakpoint, completing source-stepping, an interrupt, etc.).
702
703 set style disassembler enabled on|off
704 show style disassembler enabled
705 If GDB is compiled with Python support, and the Python Pygments
706 package is available, then, when this setting is on, disassembler
707 output will have styling applied.
708
709 set ada source-charset
710 show ada source-charset
711 Set the character set encoding that is assumed for Ada symbols. Valid
712 values for this follow the values that can be passed to the GNAT
713 compiler via the '-gnati' option. The default is ISO-8859-1.
714
715 tui layout
716 tui focus
717 tui refresh
718 tui window height
719 These are the new names for the old 'layout', 'focus', 'refresh',
720 and 'winheight' tui commands respectively. The old names still
721 exist as aliases to these new commands.
722
723 tui window width
724 winwidth
725 The new command 'tui window width', and the alias 'winwidth' allow
726 the width of a tui window to be adjusted when windows are laid out
727 in horizontal mode.
728
729 set debug tui on|off
730 show debug tui
731 Control the display of debug output about GDB's tui.
732
733 * Changed commands
734
735 print
736 Printing of floating-point values with base-modifying formats like
737 /x has been changed to display the underlying bytes of the value in
738 the desired base. This was GDB's documented behavior, but was never
739 implemented correctly.
740
741 maint packet
742 This command can now print a reply, if the reply includes
743 non-printable characters. Any non-printable characters are printed
744 as escaped hex, e.g. \x?? where '??' is replaces with the value of
745 the non-printable character.
746
747 clone-inferior
748 The clone-inferior command now ensures that the TTY, CMD and ARGS
749 settings are copied from the original inferior to the new one.
750 All modifications to the environment variables done using the 'set
751 environment' or 'unset environment' commands are also copied to the new
752 inferior.
753
754 set debug lin-lwp on|off
755 show debug lin-lwp
756 These commands have been removed from GDB. The new command 'set
757 debug linux-nat' and 'show debug linux-nat' should be used
758 instead.
759
760 info win
761 This command now includes information about the width of the tui
762 windows in its output.
763
764 layout
765 focus
766 refresh
767 winheight
768 These commands are now aliases for the 'tui layout', 'tui focus',
769 'tui refresh', and 'tui window height' commands respectively.
770
771 * GDB's Ada parser now supports an extension for specifying the exact
772 byte contents of a floating-point literal. This can be useful for
773 setting floating-point registers to a precise value without loss of
774 precision. The syntax is an extension of the based literal syntax.
775 Use, e.g., "16lf#0123abcd#" -- the number of "l"s controls the width
776 of the floating-point type, and the "f" is the marker for floating
777 point.
778
779 * MI changes
780
781 ** The '-add-inferior' with no option flags now inherits the
782 connection of the current inferior, this restores the behaviour of
783 GDB as it was prior to GDB 10.
784
785 ** The '-add-inferior' command now accepts a '--no-connection'
786 option, which causes the new inferior to start without a
787 connection.
788
789 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 4 (-i=mi4).
790
791 ** The "script" field in breakpoint output (which is syntactically
792 incorrect in MI 3 and below) has changed in MI 4 to become a list.
793 This affects the following commands and events:
794
795 - -break-insert
796 - -break-info
797 - =breakpoint-created
798 - =breakpoint-modified
799
800 The -fix-breakpoint-script-output command can be used to enable
801 this behavior with previous MI versions.
802
803 * New targets
804
805 GNU/Linux/LoongArch loongarch*-*-linux*
806
807 * Removed targets
808
809 S+core score-*-*
810
811 * Python API
812
813 ** New function gdb.add_history(), which takes a gdb.Value object
814 and adds the value it represents to GDB's history list. An
815 integer, the index of the new item in the history list, is
816 returned.
817
818 ** New function gdb.history_count(), which returns the number of
819 values in GDB's value history.
820
821 ** New gdb.events.gdb_exiting event. This event is called with a
822 gdb.GdbExitingEvent object which has the read-only attribute
823 'exit_code', which contains the value of the GDB exit code. This
824 event is triggered once GDB decides it is going to exit, but
825 before GDB starts to clean up its internal state.
826
827 ** New function gdb.architecture_names(), which returns a list
828 containing all of the possible Architecture.name() values. Each
829 entry is a string.
830
831 ** New function gdb.Architecture.integer_type(), which returns an
832 integer type given a size and a signed-ness.
833
834 ** New gdb.TargetConnection object type that represents a connection
835 (as displayed by the 'info connections' command). A sub-class,
836 gdb.RemoteTargetConnection, is used to represent 'remote' and
837 'extended-remote' connections.
838
839 ** The gdb.Inferior type now has a 'connection' property which is an
840 instance of gdb.TargetConnection, the connection used by this
841 inferior. This can be None if the inferior has no connection.
842
843 ** New 'gdb.events.connection_removed' event registry, which emits a
844 'gdb.ConnectionEvent' when a connection is removed from GDB.
845 This event has a 'connection' property, a gdb.TargetConnection
846 object for the connection being removed.
847
848 ** New gdb.connections() function that returns a list of all
849 currently active connections.
850
851 ** New gdb.RemoteTargetConnection.send_packet(PACKET) method. This
852 is equivalent to the existing 'maint packet' CLI command; it
853 allows a user specified packet to be sent to the remote target.
854
855 ** New function gdb.host_charset(), returns a string, which is the
856 name of the current host charset.
857
858 ** New gdb.set_parameter(NAME, VALUE). This sets the gdb parameter
859 NAME to VALUE.
860
861 ** New gdb.with_parameter(NAME, VALUE). This returns a context
862 manager that temporarily sets the gdb parameter NAME to VALUE,
863 then resets it when the context is exited.
864
865 ** The gdb.Value.format_string method now takes a 'styling'
866 argument, which is a boolean. When true, the returned string can
867 include escape sequences to apply styling. The styling will only
868 be present if styling is otherwise turned on in GDB (see 'help
869 set styling'). When false, which is the default if the argument
870 is not given, then no styling is applied to the returned string.
871
872 ** New read-only attribute gdb.InferiorThread.details, which is
873 either a string, containing additional, target specific thread
874 state information, or None, if there is no such additional
875 information.
876
877 ** New read-only attribute gdb.Type.is_scalar, which is True for
878 scalar types, and False for all other types.
879
880 ** New read-only attribute gdb.Type.is_signed. This attribute
881 should only be read when Type.is_scalar is True, and will be True
882 for signed types, and False for all other types. Attempting to
883 read this attribute for non-scalar types will raise a ValueError.
884
885 ** It is now possible to add GDB/MI commands implemented in Python.
886
887 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
888
889 ** GDBserver is now supported on OpenRISC GNU/Linux.
890
891 * New native configurations
892
893 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
894
895 *** Changes in GDB 11
896
897 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
898 for the ARC target.
899
900 * GDB now supports general memory tagging functionality if the underlying
901 architecture supports the proper primitives and hooks. Currently this is
902 enabled only for AArch64 MTE.
903
904 This includes:
905
906 - Additional information when the inferior crashes with a SIGSEGV caused by
907 a memory tag violation.
908
909 - A new modifier 'm' for the "x" command, which displays allocation tags for a
910 particular memory range.
911
912 - Display of memory tag mismatches by "print", for addresses and
913 pointers, if memory tagging is supported by the architecture.
914
915 * Building GDB now requires GMP (The GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic
916 Library).
917
918 * MI changes
919
920 ** '-break-insert --qualified' and '-dprintf-insert --qualified'
921
922 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
923 new "--qualified" option that makes GDB interpret a specified
924 function name as a complete fully-qualified name. This is the
925 equivalent of the CLI's "break -qualified" and "dprintf
926 -qualified".
927
928 ** '-break-insert --force-condition' and '-dprintf-insert --force-condition'
929
930 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
931 '--force-condition' flag to forcibly define a condition even when
932 the condition is invalid at all locations of the breakpoint. This
933 is equivalent to the '-force-condition' flag of the CLI's "break"
934 command.
935
936 ** '-break-condition --force'
937
938 The MI -break-condition command now supports a '--force' flag to
939 forcibly define a condition even when the condition is invalid at
940 all locations of the selected breakpoint. This is equivalent to
941 the '-force' flag of the CLI's "cond" command.
942
943 ** '-file-list-exec-source-files [--group-by-objfile]
944 [--basename | --dirname]
945 [--] [REGEXP]'
946
947 The existing -file-list-exec-source-files command now takes an
948 optional REGEXP which is used to filter the source files that are
949 included in the results.
950
951 By default REGEXP is matched against the full filename of the
952 source file. When one of --basename or --dirname is given then
953 REGEXP is only matched against the specified part of the full
954 source filename.
955
956 When the optional --group-by-objfile flag is used the output
957 format is changed, the results are now a list of object files
958 (executable and libraries) with the source files that are
959 associated with each object file.
960
961 The results from -file-list-exec-source-files now include a
962 'debug-fully-read' field which takes the value 'true' or 'false'.
963 A 'true' value indicates the source file is from a compilation
964 unit that has had its debug information fully read in by GDB, a
965 value of 'false' indicates GDB has only performed a partial scan
966 of the debug information so far.
967
968 * GDB now supports core file debugging for x86_64 Cygwin programs.
969
970 * GDB will now look for the .gdbinit file in a config directory before
971 looking for ~/.gdbinit. The file is searched for in the following
972 locations: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.config/gdb/gdbinit,
973 $HOME/.gdbinit. On Apple hosts the search order is instead:
974 $HOME/Library/Preferences/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.gdbinit.
975
976 * GDB now supports fixed point types which are described in DWARF
977 as base types with a fixed-point encoding. Additionally, support
978 for the DW_AT_GNU_numerator and DW_AT_GNU_denominator has also
979 been added.
980
981 For Ada, this allows support for fixed point types without requiring
982 the use of the GNAT encoding (based on information added to the type's
983 name following a GNAT-specific format).
984
985 * GDB will now load and process commands from ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit
986 or ~/.gdbearlyinit if these files are present. These files are
987 processed earlier than any of the other initialization files and
988 can affect parts of GDB's startup that previously had already been
989 completed before the initialization files were read, for example
990 styling of the initial GDB greeting.
991
992 * GDB now has two new options "--early-init-command" and
993 "--early-init-eval-command" with corresponding short options "-eix"
994 and "-eiex" that allow options (that would normally appear in a
995 gdbearlyinit file) to be passed on the command line.
996
997 * For RISC-V targets, the target feature "org.gnu.gdb.riscv.vector" is
998 now understood by GDB, and can be used to describe the vector
999 registers of a target. The precise requirements of this register
1000 feature are documented in the GDB manual.
1001
1002 * For ARM targets, the "org.gnu.gdb.arm.m-profile-mve" feature is now
1003 supported by GDB and describes a new VPR register from the ARM MVE
1004 (Helium) extension. See the GDB manual for more information.
1005
1006 * TUI improvements
1007
1008 ** TUI windows now support mouse actions. The mouse wheel scrolls
1009 the appropriate window.
1010
1011 ** Key combinations that do not have a specific action on the
1012 focused window are passed to GDB. For example, you now can use
1013 Ctrl-Left/Ctrl-Right to move between words in the command window
1014 regardless of which window is in focus. Previously you would
1015 need to focus on the command window for such key combinations to
1016 work.
1017
1018 * New commands
1019
1020 set debug event-loop
1021 show debug event-loop
1022 Control the display of debug output about GDB's event loop.
1023
1024 set print memory-tag-violations
1025 show print memory-tag-violations
1026 Control whether to display additional information about memory tag violations
1027 when printing pointers and addresses. Architecture support for memory
1028 tagging is required for this option to have an effect.
1029
1030 maintenance flush symbol-cache
1031 maintenance flush register-cache
1032 These new commands are equivalent to the already existing commands
1033 'maintenance flush-symbol-cache' and 'flushregs' respectively.
1034
1035 maintenance flush dcache
1036 A new command to flush the dcache.
1037
1038 maintenance info target-sections
1039 Print GDB's internal target sections table.
1040
1041 maintenance info jit
1042 Print the JIT code objects in the inferior known to GDB.
1043
1044 memory-tag show-logical-tag POINTER
1045 Print the logical tag for POINTER.
1046 memory-tag with-logical-tag POINTER TAG
1047 Print POINTER with logical tag TAG.
1048 memory-tag show-allocation-tag ADDRESS
1049 Print the allocation tag for ADDRESS.
1050 memory-tag set-allocation-tag ADDRESS LENGTH TAGS
1051 Set the allocation tag for [ADDRESS, ADDRESS + LENGTH) to TAGS.
1052 memory-tag check POINTER
1053 Validate that POINTER's logical tag matches the allocation tag.
1054
1055 set startup-quietly on|off
1056 show startup-quietly
1057 When 'on', this causes GDB to act as if "-silent" were passed on the
1058 command line. This command needs to be added to an early
1059 initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to
1060 affect GDB.
1061
1062 set print type hex on|off
1063 show print type hex
1064 When 'on', the 'ptype' command uses hexadecimal notation to print sizes
1065 and offsets of struct members. When 'off', decimal notation is used.
1066
1067 set python ignore-environment on|off
1068 show python ignore-environment
1069 When 'on', this causes GDB's builtin Python to ignore any
1070 environment variables that would otherwise affect how Python
1071 behaves. This command needs to be added to an early initialization
1072 file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to affect GDB.
1073
1074 set python dont-write-bytecode auto|on|off
1075 show python dont-write-bytecode
1076 When 'on', this causes GDB's builtin Python to not write any
1077 byte-code (.pyc files) to disk. This command needs to be added to
1078 an early initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in
1079 order to affect GDB. When 'off' byte-code will always be written.
1080 When set to 'auto' (the default) Python will check the
1081 PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE environment variable.
1082
1083 * Changed commands
1084
1085 break [PROBE_MODIFIER] [LOCATION] [thread THREADNUM]
1086 [-force-condition] [if CONDITION]
1087 This command would previously refuse setting a breakpoint if the
1088 CONDITION expression is invalid at a location. It now accepts and
1089 defines the breakpoint if there is at least one location at which
1090 the CONDITION is valid. The locations for which the CONDITION is
1091 invalid, are automatically disabled. If CONDITION is invalid at all
1092 of the locations, setting the breakpoint is still rejected. However,
1093 the '-force-condition' flag can be used in this case for forcing GDB to
1094 define the breakpoint, making all the current locations automatically
1095 disabled. This may be useful if the user knows the condition will
1096 become meaningful at a future location, e.g. due to a shared library
1097 load.
1098
1099 condition [-force] N COND
1100 The behavior of this command is changed the same way for the 'break'
1101 command as explained above. The '-force' flag can be used to force
1102 GDB into defining the condition even when COND is invalid for all the
1103 current locations of breakpoint N.
1104
1105 flushregs
1106 maintenance flush-symbol-cache
1107 These commands are deprecated in favor of the new commands
1108 'maintenance flush register-cache' and 'maintenance flush
1109 symbol-cache' respectively.
1110
1111 set style version foreground COLOR
1112 set style version background COLOR
1113 set style version intensity VALUE
1114 Control the styling of GDB's version number text.
1115
1116 inferior [ID]
1117 When the ID parameter is omitted, then this command prints information
1118 about the current inferior. When the ID parameter is present, the
1119 behavior of the command is unchanged and have the inferior ID become
1120 the current inferior.
1121
1122 maintenance info sections
1123 The ALLOBJ keyword has been replaced with an -all-objects command
1124 line flag. It is now possible to filter which sections are printed
1125 even when -all-objects is passed.
1126
1127 ptype[/FLAGS] TYPE | EXPRESSION
1128 The 'ptype' command has two new flags. When '/x' is set, hexadecimal
1129 notation is used when printing sizes and offsets of struct members.
1130 When '/d' is set, decimal notation is used when printing sizes and
1131 offsets of struct members. Default behavior is given by 'show print
1132 type hex'.
1133
1134 info sources
1135 The info sources command output has been restructured. The results
1136 are now based around a list of objfiles (executable and libraries),
1137 and for each objfile the source files that are part of that objfile
1138 are listed.
1139
1140 * Removed targets and native configurations
1141
1142 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1143
1144 * New remote packets
1145
1146 qMemTags
1147 Request the remote to send allocation tags for a particular memory range.
1148 QMemTags
1149 Request the remote to store the specified allocation tags to the requested
1150 memory range.
1151
1152 * Guile API
1153
1154 ** Improved support for rvalue reference values:
1155 TYPE_CODE_RVALUE_REF is now exported as part of the API and the
1156 value-referenced-value procedure now handles rvalue reference
1157 values.
1158
1159 ** New procedures for obtaining value variants:
1160 value-reference-value, value-rvalue-reference-value and
1161 value-const-value.
1162
1163 ** Temporary breakpoints can now be created with make-breakpoint and
1164 tested for using breakpoint-temporary?.
1165
1166 * Python API
1167
1168 ** Inferior objects now contain a read-only 'connection_num' attribute that
1169 gives the connection number as seen in 'info connections' and
1170 'info inferiors'.
1171
1172 ** New method gdb.Frame.level() which returns the stack level of the
1173 frame object.
1174
1175 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.level() which returns the stack level
1176 of the frame object.
1177
1178 ** When hitting a catchpoint, the Python API will now emit a
1179 gdb.BreakpointEvent rather than a gdb.StopEvent. The
1180 gdb.Breakpoint attached to the event will have type BP_CATCHPOINT.
1181
1182 ** Python TUI windows can now receive mouse click events. If the
1183 Window object implements the click method, it is called for each
1184 mouse click event in this window.
1185
1186 *** Changes in GDB 10
1187
1188 * There are new feature names for ARC targets: "org.gnu.gdb.arc.core"
1189 and "org.gnu.gdb.arc.aux". The old names are still supported but
1190 must be considered obsolete. They will be deprecated after some
1191 grace period.
1192
1193 * Help and apropos commands will now show the documentation of a
1194 command only once, even if that command has one or more aliases.
1195 These commands now show the command name, then all of its aliases,
1196 and finally the description of the command.
1197
1198 * 'help aliases' now shows only the user defined aliases. GDB predefined
1199 aliases are shown together with their aliased command.
1200
1201 * GDB now supports debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF
1202 debugging information as well as source code.
1203
1204 When built with debuginfod, GDB can automatically query debuginfod
1205 servers for the separate debug files and source code of the executable
1206 being debugged.
1207
1208 To build GDB with debuginfod, pass --with-debuginfod to configure (this
1209 requires libdebuginfod, the debuginfod client library).
1210
1211 debuginfod is distributed with elfutils, starting with version 0.178.
1212
1213 You can get the latest version from https://sourceware.org/elfutils.
1214
1215 * Multi-target debugging support
1216
1217 GDB now supports debugging multiple target connections
1218 simultaneously. For example, you can now have each inferior
1219 connected to different remote servers running in different machines,
1220 or have one inferior debugging a local native process, an inferior
1221 debugging a core dump, etc.
1222
1223 This support is experimental and comes with some limitations -- you
1224 can only resume multiple targets simultaneously if all targets
1225 support non-stop mode, and all remote stubs or servers must support
1226 the same set of remote protocol features exactly. See also "info
1227 connections" and "add-inferior -no-connection" below, and "maint set
1228 target-non-stop" in the user manual.
1229
1230 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1231
1232 ** GDBserver is now supported on ARC GNU/Linux.
1233
1234 ** GDBserver is now supported on RISC-V GNU/Linux.
1235
1236 ** GDBserver no longer supports these host triplets:
1237
1238 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1239 powerpc-*-lynxos*
1240 i[34567]86-*-nto*
1241 bfin-*-*linux*
1242 crisv32-*-linux*
1243 cris-*-linux*
1244 m32r*-*-linux*
1245 tilegx-*-linux*
1246 arm*-*-mingw32ce*
1247 i[34567]86-*-mingw32ce*
1248
1249 * Debugging MS-Windows processes now sets $_exitsignal when the
1250 inferior is terminated by a signal, instead of setting $_exitcode.
1251
1252 * Multithreaded symbol loading has now been enabled by default on systems
1253 that support it (see entry for GDB 9, below), providing faster
1254 performance for programs with many symbols.
1255
1256 * The $_siginfo convenience variable now also works on Windows targets,
1257 and will display the EXCEPTION_RECORD of the last handled exception.
1258
1259 * TUI windows can now be arranged horizontally.
1260
1261 * The command history filename can now be set to the empty string
1262 either using 'set history filename' or by setting 'GDBHISTFILE=' in
1263 the environment. The effect of setting this filename to the empty
1264 string is that GDB will not try to load any previous command
1265 history.
1266
1267 * On Windows targets, it is now possible to debug 32-bit programs with a
1268 64-bit GDB.
1269
1270 * New commands
1271
1272 set exec-file-mismatch -- Set exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
1273 show exec-file-mismatch -- Show exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
1274 Set or show the option 'exec-file-mismatch'. When GDB attaches to a
1275 running process, this new option indicates whether to detect
1276 a mismatch between the current executable file loaded by GDB and the
1277 executable file used to start the process. If 'ask', the default,
1278 display a warning and ask the user whether to load the process
1279 executable file; if 'warn', just display a warning; if 'off', don't
1280 attempt to detect a mismatch.
1281
1282 tui new-layout NAME WINDOW WEIGHT [WINDOW WEIGHT]...
1283 Define a new TUI layout, specifying its name and the windows that
1284 will be displayed.
1285
1286 maintenance print xml-tdesc [FILE]
1287 Prints the current target description as an XML document. If the
1288 optional FILE is provided (which is an XML target description) then
1289 the target description is read from FILE into GDB, and then
1290 reprinted.
1291
1292 maintenance print core-file-backed-mappings
1293 Prints file-backed mappings loaded from a core file's note section.
1294 Output is expected to be similar to that of "info proc mappings".
1295
1296 set debug fortran-array-slicing on|off
1297 show debug fortran-array-slicing
1298 Print debugging when taking slices of Fortran arrays.
1299
1300 set fortran repack-array-slices on|off
1301 show fortran repack-array-slices
1302 When taking slices from Fortran arrays and strings, if the slice is
1303 non-contiguous within the original value then, when this option is
1304 on, the new value will be repacked into a single contiguous value.
1305 When this option is off, then the value returned will consist of a
1306 descriptor that describes the slice within the memory of the
1307 original parent value.
1308
1309 * Changed commands
1310
1311 alias [-a] [--] ALIAS = COMMAND [DEFAULT-ARGS...]
1312 The alias command can now specify default args for an alias.
1313 GDB automatically prepends the alias default args to the argument list
1314 provided explicitly by the user.
1315 For example, to have a backtrace with full details, you can define
1316 an alias 'bt_ALL' as
1317 'alias bt_ALL = backtrace -entry-values both -frame-arg all
1318 -past-main -past-entry -full'.
1319 Alias default arguments can also use a set of nested 'with' commands,
1320 e.g. 'alias pp10 = with print pretty -- with print elem 10 -- print'
1321 defines the alias pp10 that will pretty print a maximum of 10 elements
1322 of the given expression (if the expression is an array).
1323
1324 * New targets
1325
1326 GNU/Linux/RISC-V (gdbserver) riscv*-*-linux*
1327 BPF bpf-unknown-none
1328 Z80 z80-unknown-*
1329
1330 * Python API
1331
1332 ** gdb.register_window_type can be used to implement new TUI windows
1333 in Python.
1334
1335 ** Dynamic types can now be queried. gdb.Type has a new attribute,
1336 "dynamic", and gdb.Type.sizeof can be None for a dynamic type. A
1337 field of a dynamic type may have None for its "bitpos" attribute
1338 as well.
1339
1340 ** Commands written in Python can be in the "TUI" help class by
1341 registering with the new constant gdb.COMMAND_TUI.
1342
1343 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.architecture () to retrieve the
1344 architecture of the pending frame.
1345
1346 ** New gdb.Architecture.registers method that returns a
1347 gdb.RegisterDescriptorIterator object, an iterator that returns
1348 gdb.RegisterDescriptor objects. The new RegisterDescriptor is a
1349 way to query the registers available for an architecture.
1350
1351 ** New gdb.Architecture.register_groups method that returns a
1352 gdb.RegisterGroupIterator object, an iterator that returns
1353 gdb.RegisterGroup objects. The new RegisterGroup is a way to
1354 discover the available register groups.
1355
1356 * Guile API
1357
1358 ** GDB can now be built with GNU Guile 3.0 and 2.2 in addition to 2.0.
1359
1360 ** Procedures 'memory-port-read-buffer-size',
1361 'set-memory-port-read-buffer-size!', 'memory-port-write-buffer-size',
1362 and 'set-memory-port-write-buffer-size!' are deprecated. When
1363 using Guile 2.2 and later, users who need to control the size of
1364 a memory port's internal buffer can use the 'setvbuf' procedure.
1365
1366 *** Changes in GDB 9
1367
1368 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
1369
1370 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
1371 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
1372 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
1373 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
1374 such as in system-wide init files.
1375
1376 * New built-in convenience functions $_gdb_setting, $_gdb_setting_str,
1377 $_gdb_maint_setting and $_gdb_maint_setting_str provide access to values
1378 of the GDB settings and the GDB maintenance settings. They are handy
1379 for changing the logic of user defined commands depending on the
1380 current GDB settings.
1381
1382 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
1383 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
1384 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
1385 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
1386
1387 * Support for Pointer Authentication (PAC) on AArch64 Linux. Return
1388 addresses that required unmasking are shown in the backtrace with the
1389 postfix [PAC].
1390
1391 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
1392 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
1393
1394 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
1395 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
1396 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
1397
1398 * The command define-prefix can now define user defined prefix commands.
1399 User defined commands can now be defined using these user defined prefix
1400 commands.
1401
1402 * Command names can now use the . character.
1403
1404 * The RX port now supports XML target descriptions.
1405
1406 * GDB now shows the Ada task names at more places, e.g. in task switching
1407 messages.
1408
1409 * GDB can now be compiled with Python 3 on Windows.
1410
1411 * New convenience variable $_ada_exception holds the address of the
1412 Ada exception being thrown. This is set by Ada-related catchpoints.
1413
1414 * GDB can now place breakpoints on nested functions and subroutines in
1415 Fortran code. The '::' operator can be used between parent and
1416 child scopes when placing breakpoints, for example:
1417
1418 (gdb) break outer_function::inner_function
1419
1420 The 'outer_function::' prefix is only needed if 'inner_function' is
1421 not visible in the current scope.
1422
1423 * In addition to the system-wide gdbinit file, if configured with
1424 --with-system-gdbinit-dir, GDB will now also load files in that directory
1425 as system gdbinit files, unless the -nx or -n flag is provided. Files
1426 with extensions .gdb, .py and .scm are supported as long as GDB was
1427 compiled with support for that language.
1428
1429 * GDB now supports multithreaded symbol loading for higher performance.
1430 This feature is still in testing, so it is disabled by default. You
1431 can turn it on using 'maint set worker-threads unlimited'.
1432
1433 * Python API
1434
1435 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
1436 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
1437 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
1438 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
1439 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
1440
1441 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
1442 type was defined in.
1443
1444 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
1445 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
1446 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
1447 is given.
1448
1449 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
1450 symbols with static linkage.
1451
1452 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbols can be used to look up
1453 all static symbols with static linkage.
1454
1455 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
1456 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
1457
1458 ** gdb.Block now supports the dictionary syntax for accessing symbols in
1459 this block (e.g. block['local_variable']).
1460
1461 * New commands
1462
1463 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
1464 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
1465 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
1466 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
1467 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
1468 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
1469 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
1470
1471 define-prefix COMMAND
1472 Define or mark a command as a user-defined prefix command.
1473
1474 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
1475 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
1476 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
1477 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
1478 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
1479 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
1480 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
1481 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
1482 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
1483 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
1484 of array elements to print.
1485
1486 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
1487 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
1488
1489 set may-call-functions [on|off]
1490 show may-call-functions
1491 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
1492 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
1493 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
1494 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
1495 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
1496 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
1497 in the program.
1498
1499 set print finish [on|off]
1500 show print finish
1501 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
1502 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
1503 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
1504 default is `on'.
1505
1506 set print max-depth
1507 show print max-depth
1508 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
1509 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
1510 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
1511 the old behavior back.
1512
1513 set print raw-values [on|off]
1514 show print raw-values
1515 By default, GDB applies the enabled pretty printers when printing a
1516 value. This allows to ignore the enabled pretty printers for a series
1517 of commands. The default is 'off'.
1518
1519 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
1520 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
1521 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
1522
1523 set style title foreground COLOR
1524 set style title background COLOR
1525 set style title intensity VALUE
1526 Control the styling of titles.
1527
1528 set style highlight foreground COLOR
1529 set style highlight background COLOR
1530 set style highlight intensity VALUE
1531 Control the styling of highlightings.
1532
1533 maint set worker-threads
1534 maint show worker-threads
1535 Control the number of worker threads that can be used by GDB. The
1536 default is 0. "unlimited" lets GDB choose a number that is
1537 reasonable. Currently worker threads are only used when demangling
1538 the names of linker symbols.
1539
1540 set style tui-border foreground COLOR
1541 set style tui-border background COLOR
1542 Control the styling of TUI borders.
1543
1544 set style tui-active-border foreground COLOR
1545 set style tui-active-border background COLOR
1546 Control the styling of the active TUI border.
1547
1548 maint set test-settings KIND
1549 maint show test-settings KIND
1550 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
1551 infrastructure.
1552
1553 maint set tui-resize-message [on|off]
1554 maint show tui-resize-message
1555 Control whether GDB prints a message each time the terminal is
1556 resized when in TUI mode. This is primarily useful for testing the
1557 TUI.
1558
1559 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
1560 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
1561 show print frame-info
1562 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
1563 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
1564 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
1565 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
1566
1567 set tui compact-source
1568 show tui compact-source
1569
1570 Enable the "compact" display mode for the TUI source window. The
1571 compact display uses only as much space as is needed for the line
1572 numbers in the current file, and only a single space to separate the
1573 line numbers from the source.
1574
1575 info modules [-q] [REGEXP]
1576 Return a list of Fortran modules matching REGEXP, or all modules if
1577 no REGEXP is given.
1578
1579 info module functions [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
1580 Return a list of functions within all modules, grouped by module.
1581 The list of functions can be restricted with the optional regular
1582 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
1583 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the function type signature, and REGEXP
1584 matches against the function name.
1585
1586 info module variables [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
1587 Return a list of variables within all modules, grouped by module.
1588 The list of variables can be restricted with the optional regular
1589 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
1590 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the variable type, and REGEXP matches
1591 against the variable name.
1592
1593 set debug remote-packet-max-chars
1594 show debug remote-packet-max-chars
1595 Controls the number of characters to output in a remote packet when using
1596 "set debug remote".
1597 The default is 512 bytes.
1598
1599 info connections
1600 Lists the target connections currently in use.
1601
1602 * Changed commands
1603
1604 help
1605 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
1606 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
1607 command names.
1608
1609 apropos [-v] REGEXP
1610 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
1611 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
1612 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
1613 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
1614 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
1615
1616 printf
1617 eval
1618 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
1619 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
1620 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
1621 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
1622
1623 info sources [-dirname | -basename] [--] [REGEXP]
1624 This command has now optional arguments to only print the files
1625 whose names match REGEXP. The arguments -dirname and -basename
1626 allow to restrict matching respectively to the dirname and basename
1627 parts of the files.
1628
1629 show style
1630 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
1631 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
1632 the user visualize the different styles.
1633
1634 set print frame-arguments
1635 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
1636 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
1637
1638 set print raw-frame-arguments
1639 show print raw-frame-arguments
1640
1641 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
1642 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
1643 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
1644 release.
1645
1646 add-inferior [-no-connection]
1647 The add-inferior command now supports a "-no-connection" flag that
1648 makes the new inferior start with no target connection associated.
1649 By default, the new inferior inherits the target connection of the
1650 current inferior. See also "info connections".
1651
1652 info inferior
1653 This command's output now includes a new "Connection" column
1654 indicating which target connection an inferior is bound to. See
1655 "info connections" above.
1656
1657 maint test-options require-delimiter
1658 maint test-options unknown-is-error
1659 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
1660 maint show test-options-completion-result
1661 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
1662 framework.
1663
1664 focus, winheight, +, -, >, <
1665 These commands are now case-sensitive.
1666
1667 * New command options, command completion
1668
1669 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
1670 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
1671 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
1672 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
1673 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
1674 number of commands got support for new command options in this
1675 release:
1676
1677 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
1678 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
1679 set by "set print" subcommands:
1680
1681 -address [on|off]
1682 -array [on|off]
1683 -array-indexes [on|off]
1684 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
1685 -null-stop [on|off]
1686 -object [on|off]
1687 -pretty [on|off]
1688 -raw-values [on|off]
1689 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
1690 -static-members [on|off]
1691 -symbol [on|off]
1692 -union [on|off]
1693 -vtbl [on|off]
1694
1695 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
1696 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
1697 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
1698 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
1699
1700 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
1701 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
1702 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
1703
1704 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
1705 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
1706 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
1707 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
1708 |location-and-address|short-location
1709 -past-main [on|off]
1710 -past-entry [on|off]
1711
1712 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
1713 exposed as command options too:
1714
1715 -full
1716 -no-filters
1717 -hide
1718
1719 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
1720 support the following options:
1721
1722 -past-main [on|off]
1723 -past-entry [on|off]
1724
1725 ** The new "info sources" options -dirname and -basename options
1726 are using the standard '-OPT' infrastructure.
1727
1728 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
1729 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
1730 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
1731 like for example:
1732
1733 (gdb) p -ra -p -o 0 -- *myptr
1734
1735 The above is equivalent to:
1736
1737 (gdb) print -raw-values -pretty -object off -- *myptr
1738
1739 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
1740 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
1741 variables" and "info functions".
1742
1743 ** The "info variables", "info functions", and "whereis" commands
1744 now take a '-n' flag that excludes non-debug symbols (symbols
1745 from the symbol table, not from the debug info such as DWARF)
1746 from the results.
1747
1748 * Completion improvements
1749
1750 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
1751 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
1752 abbreviated.
1753
1754 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
1755 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
1756 commands.
1757
1758 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
1759 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
1760 completes on filenames.
1761
1762 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
1763 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
1764
1765 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
1766
1767 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
1768 elements unlimited".
1769
1770 * New MI commands
1771
1772 -complete
1773 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1774 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
1775 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
1776
1777 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
1778 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
1779 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
1780
1781 -symbol-info-functions, -symbol-info-types, and -symbol-info-variables
1782 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
1783 functions', 'info types', and 'info variables' respectively.
1784
1785 -symbol-info-modules, this is the MI equivalent of the CLI 'info
1786 modules' command.
1787
1788 -symbol-info-module-functions and -symbol-info-module-variables.
1789 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
1790 module functions' and 'info module variables'.
1791
1792 * Other MI changes
1793
1794 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
1795
1796 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
1797 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
1798 the following commands and events:
1799
1800 - -break-insert
1801 - -break-info
1802 - =breakpoint-created
1803 - =breakpoint-modified
1804
1805 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
1806 this behavior with previous MI versions.
1807
1808 ** Backtraces and frames include a new optional field addr_flags which is
1809 given after the addr field. On AArch64 this contains PAC if the address
1810 has been masked in the frame. On all other targets the field is not
1811 present.
1812
1813 * Testsuite
1814
1815 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
1816 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
1817 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
1818 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
1819
1820 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.82.
1821
1822 Using another implementation of the make program or an earlier version of
1823 GNU make to build GDB or GDBserver is not supported.
1824
1825 * Building GDB now requires GNU readline >= 7.0.
1826
1827 GDB now bundles GNU readline 8.0, but if you choose to use
1828 --with-system-readline, only readline >= 7.0 can be used.
1829
1830 * The TUI SingleKey keymap is now named "SingleKey". This can be used
1831 from .inputrc to bind keys in this keymap. This feature is only
1832 available when gdb is built against GNU readline 8.0 or later.
1833
1834 * Removed targets and native configurations
1835
1836 GDB no longer supports debugging the Cell Broadband Engine. This includes
1837 both debugging standalone Cell/B.E. SPU applications and integrated debugging
1838 of Cell/B.E. applications that use both the PPU and SPU architectures.
1839
1840 * New Simulators
1841
1842 TI PRU pru-*-elf
1843
1844 * Removed targets and native configurations
1845
1846 Solaris 10 i?86-*-solaris2.10, x86_64-*-solaris2.10,
1847 sparc*-*-solaris2.10
1848
1849 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
1850
1851 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
1852 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
1853 HTM registers.
1854
1855 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
1856 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
1857 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
1858 and operators.
1859
1860 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
1861 (the C++ plug-in).
1862
1863 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
1864 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
1865 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
1866
1867 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
1868 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
1869
1870 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
1871 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1872 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1873 in the GDB user manual.
1874
1875 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
1876 executed failed.
1877
1878 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
1879
1880 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
1881 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
1882 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
1883 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
1884 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
1885 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
1886 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
1887 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
1888 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
1889 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
1890 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
1891 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
1892
1893 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
1894 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
1895 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
1896 information.
1897
1898 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
1899 lucid.
1900
1901 * New commands
1902
1903 set debug compile-cplus-types
1904 show debug compile-cplus-types
1905 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
1906 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiling
1907 for other languages.
1908
1909 set debug skip
1910 show debug skip
1911 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
1912 displayed.
1913
1914 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
1915 Apply a command to some frames.
1916 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
1917 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
1918
1919 taas COMMAND
1920 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
1921 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
1922
1923 faas COMMAND
1924 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
1925 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
1926
1927 tfaas COMMAND
1928 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
1929 output).
1930 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
1931
1932 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
1933 maint show dwarf unwinders
1934 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
1935
1936 info proc files
1937 Display a list of open files for a process.
1938
1939 * Changed commands
1940
1941 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
1942 These commands all now take a frame specification which
1943 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
1944 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
1945 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
1946 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
1947 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
1948
1949 target remote FILENAME
1950 target extended-remote FILENAME
1951 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
1952 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
1953
1954 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
1955 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
1956 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
1957 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
1958 These commands can now print only the searched entities
1959 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
1960 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
1961 printing headers or informations messages.
1962
1963 info functions
1964 info types
1965 info variables
1966 rbreak
1967 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
1968 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
1969 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
1970 the shown entities.
1971
1972 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
1973 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
1974 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
1975 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
1976
1977 set tui tab-width NCHARS
1978 show tui tab-width NCHARS
1979 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
1980
1981 set style enabled [on|off]
1982 show style enabled
1983 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
1984 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
1985
1986 set style sources [on|off]
1987 show style sources
1988 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
1989 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
1990 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
1991
1992 set style filename foreground COLOR
1993 set style filename background COLOR
1994 set style filename intensity VALUE
1995 Control the styling of file names.
1996
1997 set style function foreground COLOR
1998 set style function background COLOR
1999 set style function intensity VALUE
2000 Control the styling of function names.
2001
2002 set style variable foreground COLOR
2003 set style variable background COLOR
2004 set style variable intensity VALUE
2005 Control the styling of variable names.
2006
2007 set style address foreground COLOR
2008 set style address background COLOR
2009 set style address intensity VALUE
2010 Control the styling of addresses.
2011
2012 * MI changes
2013
2014 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
2015 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
2016 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
2017 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
2018 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
2019
2020 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
2021 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
2022
2023 * New native configurations
2024
2025 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
2026 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
2027
2028 * New targets
2029
2030 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
2031 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
2032 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
2033 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
2034 NXP S12Z s12z-*-elf
2035 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
2036
2037 * Removed targets
2038
2039 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
2040 before Windows XP.
2041
2042 * Python API
2043
2044 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
2045
2046 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
2047 space associated to that inferior.
2048
2049 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
2050 of objfiles associated to that program space.
2051
2052 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
2053 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
2054 the gdb core.
2055
2056 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
2057 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
2058 correct and did not work properly.
2059
2060 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
2061 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
2062
2063 * Configure changes
2064
2065 --enable-ubsan
2066
2067 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
2068 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
2069 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
2070 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
2071 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
2072
2073 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
2074
2075 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
2076 for the MIPS target.
2077
2078 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
2079 offset to all sections.
2080
2081 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
2082 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
2083 address of individual sections using '-s'.
2084
2085 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
2086 (address of the text section).
2087
2088 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
2089 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
2090 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
2091 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
2092 default.
2093
2094 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
2095 for the rest of the current command.
2096
2097 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
2098 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
2099
2100 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
2101 files created on FreeBSD systems.
2102
2103 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
2104 alignof.
2105
2106 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
2107 the vector length while the process is running.
2108
2109 * New commands
2110
2111 set debug fbsd-nat
2112 show debug fbsd-nat
2113 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
2114
2115 set|show varsize-limit
2116 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
2117 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
2118 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
2119
2120 set|show record btrace cpu
2121 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
2122 branch trace decode.
2123
2124 maint check libthread-db
2125 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
2126 library
2127
2128 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
2129 maint show check-libthread-db
2130 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
2131 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
2132 perform such checks.
2133
2134 * Python API
2135
2136 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
2137
2138 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
2139 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
2140
2141 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
2142
2143 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
2144 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
2145 of convenience variables.
2146
2147 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
2148 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
2149 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
2150
2151 * New targets
2152
2153 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
2154
2155 * Removed targets and native configurations
2156
2157 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
2158 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
2159 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
2160 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
2161
2162 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
2163
2164 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
2165 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
2166 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
2167 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
2168 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
2169 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
2170 reported.
2171
2172 * Configure changes
2173
2174 --enable-codesign=CERT
2175 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
2176 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
2177 gdb to work properly.
2178
2179 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
2180 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
2181
2182 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
2183
2184 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
2185 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
2186 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
2187
2188 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
2189 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
2190
2191 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
2192 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
2193 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
2194 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
2195 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
2196
2197 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
2198 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
2199 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
2200 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
2201
2202 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
2203 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
2204
2205 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
2206 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
2207 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
2208
2209 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
2210 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
2211 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
2212
2213 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
2214 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
2215 environment" command.
2216
2217 * Completion improvements
2218
2219 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
2220 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
2221 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
2222 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
2223 correctly:
2224
2225 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
2226 (gdb) b function(int)
2227
2228 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
2229 C++ anonymous namespaces:
2230
2231 (gdb) b (anon[TAB]
2232 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
2233 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
2234 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
2235
2236 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
2237 completion support, that better understands what you're
2238 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
2239 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
2240 setting a breakpoint.
2241
2242 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
2243
2244 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
2245
2246 * New command line options (gcore)
2247
2248 -a
2249 Dump all memory mappings.
2250
2251 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
2252
2253 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
2254 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
2255 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
2256
2257 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
2258
2259 A::B::func()
2260 B::func()
2261
2262 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
2263 on both symbols.
2264
2265 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
2266 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
2267 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
2268 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
2269 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
2270 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
2271 a breakpoint from Python.
2272
2273 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
2274
2275 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
2276 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
2277 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
2278
2279 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
2280
2281 function[abi:cxx11](int)
2282 ^^^^^^^^^^^
2283
2284 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
2285 no tag, like:
2286
2287 (gdb) b function(int)
2288
2289 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
2290
2291 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
2292
2293 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
2294
2295 * Python Scripting
2296
2297 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
2298 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
2299 description of these.
2300
2301 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
2302 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
2303 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
2304
2305 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
2306 manual for a further description of this feature.
2307
2308
2309 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2310
2311 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
2312 specified initial working directory.
2313
2314 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
2315 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
2316
2317 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
2318 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
2319
2320 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
2321 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
2322
2323 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
2324 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
2325 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
2326 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
2327 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
2328
2329 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
2330 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
2331 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
2332
2333 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
2334 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
2335 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
2336 in the *stopped notification.
2337
2338 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
2339 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
2340
2341 * New remote packets
2342
2343 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
2344 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
2345 the inferior when starting it.
2346
2347 QEnvironmentUnset
2348 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
2349 before starting the remote inferior.
2350
2351 QEnvironmentReset
2352 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
2353 user-set environment variables should be unset).
2354
2355 QStartupWithShell
2356 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
2357
2358 QSetWorkingDir
2359 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
2360 working directory.
2361
2362 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
2363 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
2364
2365 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
2366 filter the tests to be run.
2367
2368 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
2369 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
2370
2371 * New commands
2372
2373 set|show cwd
2374 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
2375
2376 set|show compile-gcc
2377 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
2378 with the 'compile' commands.
2379
2380 set debug separate-debug-file
2381 show debug separate-debug-file
2382 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
2383
2384 set dump-excluded-mappings
2385 show dump-excluded-mappings
2386 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
2387 dumped when generating a core file.
2388
2389 maint info selftests
2390 List the registered selftests.
2391
2392 starti
2393 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
2394
2395 set|show debug or1k
2396 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
2397
2398 set|show print type nested-type-limit
2399 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
2400 type printer will show.
2401
2402 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
2403 `o' for nexti.
2404
2405 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
2406
2407 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
2408 'int'.
2409
2410 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
2411 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
2412 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
2413 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
2414
2415 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
2416 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
2417 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
2418 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
2419 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
2420 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
2421
2422 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
2423 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
2424 unless you tell it the variable's type:
2425
2426 (gdb) p var
2427 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
2428 (gdb) p (float) var
2429 $3 = 3.14
2430
2431 * New native configurations
2432
2433 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
2434 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
2435
2436 * New targets
2437
2438 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
2439 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
2440 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
2441
2442 * Removed targets and native configurations
2443
2444 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
2445
2446 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
2447
2448 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
2449 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
2450 available in future Intel CPUs.
2451
2452 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
2453
2454 * Python Scripting
2455
2456 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
2457 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
2458
2459 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
2460 instructions.
2461
2462 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
2463
2464 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
2465
2466 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
2467 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
2468 removed.
2469
2470 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
2471
2472 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
2473 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
2474
2475 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
2476
2477 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
2478 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
2479 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
2480 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
2481 features.
2482
2483 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
2484
2485 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
2486 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
2487 debugger.
2488
2489 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
2490
2491 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
2492 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
2493
2494 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
2495
2496 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
2497
2498 define mycommand
2499 set $i = 0
2500 while $i < $argc
2501 eval "print $arg%d", $i
2502 set $i = $i + 1
2503 end
2504 end
2505
2506 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
2507
2508 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
2509 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
2510
2511 * New native configurations
2512
2513 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
2514
2515 * New targets
2516
2517 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
2518 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
2519
2520 * Removed targets and native configurations
2521
2522 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2523 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
2524
2525 * New commands
2526
2527 flash-erase
2528 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
2529
2530 maint print arc arc-instruction address
2531 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
2532
2533 * New options
2534
2535 set disassembler-options
2536 show disassembler-options
2537 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
2538 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
2539 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
2540 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
2541 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
2542
2543 * New MI commands
2544
2545 -target-flash-erase
2546 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
2547 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
2548
2549 -file-list-shared-libraries
2550 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
2551 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
2552
2553 -catch-handlers
2554 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
2555 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
2556
2557 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
2558
2559 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
2560
2561 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
2562 default. One must now explicitly configure with
2563 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
2564 option will be removed in a future release.
2565
2566 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
2567 GDB connection.
2568
2569 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
2570 memory backward from the given address. For example:
2571
2572 (gdb) bt
2573 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
2574 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
2575 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
2576 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
2577 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
2578 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
2579 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
2580 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
2581 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
2582
2583 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
2584 arrays of dynamic types.
2585
2586 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
2587 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
2588 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
2589 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
2590 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
2591 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
2592
2593 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
2594 descriptions.
2595
2596 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
2597 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
2598 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
2599
2600 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
2601
2602 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
2603 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
2604 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
2605 signal received and code location.
2606
2607 For example:
2608
2609 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
2610 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
2611 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
2612 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
2613
2614 * Rust language support.
2615 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
2616 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
2617 Rust.
2618
2619 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
2620
2621 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
2622 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
2623 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
2624 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
2625 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
2626 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
2627 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
2628 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
2629 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
2630 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
2631 line.
2632
2633 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
2634
2635 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
2636 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
2637
2638 * New commands
2639
2640 skip -file file
2641 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
2642 skip -function function
2643 skip -rfunction regular-expression
2644 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
2645 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
2646 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
2647
2648 maint info line-table REGEXP
2649 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data structure.
2650
2651 maint selftest
2652 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
2653
2654 new-ui INTERP TTY
2655 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
2656 using the TTY file for input/output.
2657
2658 * Python Scripting
2659
2660 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
2661 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
2662 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
2663 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
2664 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
2665
2666 signal-event EVENTID
2667 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
2668 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
2669 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
2670 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
2671 signalling an event.
2672
2673 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
2674 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
2675 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
2676
2677 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
2678 been removed:
2679
2680 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
2681 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
2682 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
2683 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
2684 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
2685 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
2686
2687 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
2688 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
2689 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
2690 bytecode into native code.
2691
2692 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
2693 recording. For example:
2694
2695 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
2696
2697 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
2698
2699 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
2700
2701 * New targets
2702
2703 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
2704
2705 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
2706
2707 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
2708
2709 * Per-inferior thread numbers
2710
2711 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
2712 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
2713 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
2714
2715 (gdb) info threads
2716 Id Target Id Frame
2717 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
2718 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
2719 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
2720 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
2721
2722 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
2723 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
2724 are no longer unique between inferiors.
2725
2726 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
2727 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
2728 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
2729
2730 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
2731 IDs.
2732
2733 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
2734 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
2735
2736 (gdb) thread 2.1
2737 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
2738 (gdb)
2739
2740 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
2741 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
2742 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
2743 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
2744 threads 2.*".
2745
2746 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
2747 all threads.
2748
2749 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
2750 the current thread.
2751
2752 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
2753 current inferior.
2754
2755 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
2756 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
2757 example:
2758
2759 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
2760 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
2761
2762 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
2763
2764 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
2765
2766 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
2767 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
2768
2769 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
2770 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
2771 clients.
2772
2773 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2774 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
2775 at the same time.
2776
2777 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
2778 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
2779 into native code.
2780
2781 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2782
2783 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
2784 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
2785 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
2786
2787 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
2788 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
2789
2790 * New commands
2791
2792 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
2793 maint show target-non-stop
2794 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
2795 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
2796 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
2797
2798 maint set bfd-sharing
2799 maint show bfd-sharing
2800 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
2801
2802 set debug bfd-cache
2803 show debug bfd-cache
2804 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
2805
2806 set debug fbsd-lwp
2807 show debug fbsd-lwp
2808 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
2809
2810 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
2811 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
2812 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
2813
2814 set remote thread-events
2815 show remote thread-events
2816 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
2817
2818 set ada print-signatures on|off
2819 show ada print-signatures"
2820 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
2821 selection menus. It is activated (@code{on}) by default.
2822
2823 set max-value-size
2824 show max-value-size
2825 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
2826 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
2827 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
2828
2829 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
2830 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
2831 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
2832 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
2833 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
2834 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
2835
2836 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
2837 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
2838
2839 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
2840 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
2841
2842 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
2843
2844 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
2845 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
2846 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
2847 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
2848 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
2849 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
2850
2851 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
2852 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
2853
2854 catch handlers
2855 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
2856
2857 * New remote packets
2858
2859 exec stop reason
2860 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
2861
2862 exec-events feature in qSupported
2863 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
2864 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
2865 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
2866 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
2867
2868 vCtrlC
2869 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
2870 non-stop mode.
2871
2872 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
2873 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
2874
2875 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
2876 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
2877
2878 QThreadEvents
2879 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
2880 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
2881 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
2882 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
2883 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
2884 stop for that same thread.
2885
2886 N stop reply
2887 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
2888 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
2889 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
2890
2891 QCatchSyscalls
2892 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
2893 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
2894
2895 syscall_entry stop reason
2896 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
2897
2898 syscall_return stop reason
2899 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
2900
2901 * Extended-remote exec events
2902
2903 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
2904 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
2905 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
2906
2907 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
2908 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
2909 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
2910
2911 * Thread names in remote protocol
2912
2913 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
2914 thread.
2915
2916 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
2917
2918 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
2919 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
2920 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
2921 fork and exec catchpoints.
2922
2923 * Remote syscall events
2924
2925 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
2926 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
2927
2928 set remote catch-syscall-packet
2929 show remote catch-syscall-packet
2930 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
2931
2932 * MI changes
2933
2934 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
2935 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
2936 left.
2937
2938 * Python Scripting
2939
2940 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
2941 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
2942 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
2943 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
2944 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
2945 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
2946
2947 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
2948
2949 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
2950 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
2951 including advance SIMD instructions.
2952
2953 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
2954
2955 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
2956 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
2957 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
2958 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
2959 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
2960 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
2961 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
2962
2963 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2964 cpu information :
2965 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
2966
2967 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
2968 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
2969 remote serial I/O.
2970
2971 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
2972 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
2973 and may include things like its command line arguments.
2974
2975 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
2976 is now available on all platforms.
2977
2978 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
2979 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
2980 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
2981 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
2982 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
2983 backward compatibility.
2984
2985 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
2986 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
2987 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
2988 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
2989
2990 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
2991 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
2992 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
2993 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
2994 packets" below.
2995
2996 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
2997
2998 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
2999
3000 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
3001 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
3002 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
3003 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
3004 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
3005 See "New remote packets" below.
3006
3007 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
3008 available register groups, including target specific groups.
3009
3010 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
3011 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
3012 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
3013 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
3014 are ignored.
3015
3016 * Guile Scripting
3017
3018 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
3019
3020 * Python Scripting
3021
3022 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
3023 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
3024 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
3025 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
3026 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
3027 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
3028 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
3029 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
3030 "const" version of the value respectively.
3031
3032 * New commands
3033
3034 maint print symbol-cache
3035 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
3036
3037 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
3038 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
3039
3040 maint flush-symbol-cache
3041 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
3042
3043 record btrace bts
3044 record bts
3045 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
3046
3047 compile print
3048 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
3049
3050 tui enable
3051 tui disable
3052 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
3053
3054 show mpx bound
3055 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
3056 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
3057
3058 record btrace pt
3059 record pt
3060 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
3061
3062 maint info btrace
3063 Print information about branch tracing internals.
3064
3065 maint btrace packet-history
3066 Print the raw branch tracing data.
3067
3068 maint btrace clear-packet-history
3069 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
3070
3071 maint btrace clear
3072 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
3073 anew by the next "record" command.
3074
3075 * New options
3076
3077 set debug dwarf-die
3078 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
3079 show debug dwarf-die
3080 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
3081
3082 set debug dwarf-read
3083 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
3084 show debug dwarf-read
3085 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
3086
3087 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
3088 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
3089 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
3090 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
3091
3092 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
3093 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
3094 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
3095 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
3096
3097 set debug dwarf-line
3098 show debug dwarf-line
3099 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
3100
3101 set max-completions
3102 show max-completions
3103 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
3104 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
3105 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
3106 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
3107
3108 set history remove-duplicates
3109 show history remove-duplicates
3110 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
3111
3112 maint set symbol-cache-size
3113 maint show symbol-cache-size
3114 Control the size of the symbol cache.
3115
3116 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
3117 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
3118 BTS format.
3119 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
3120 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
3121
3122 set debug linux-namespaces
3123 show debug linux-namespaces
3124 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
3125
3126 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
3127 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
3128 Intel Processor Trace format.
3129 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
3130 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
3131
3132 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
3133 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
3134 packet history.
3135
3136 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
3137 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
3138
3139 * Python/Guile scripting
3140
3141 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
3142 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
3143
3144 * New remote packets
3145
3146 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
3147 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
3148
3149 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
3150 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
3151
3152 Qbtrace:pt
3153 Enable Intel Processor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
3154 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
3155 qSupported query.
3156
3157 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
3158 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
3159 Trace format.
3160
3161 swbreak stop reason
3162 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
3163 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
3164 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
3165 mode operation.
3166
3167 hwbreak stop reason
3168 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
3169 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
3170
3171 vFile:fstat:
3172 Return information about files on the remote system.
3173
3174 qXfer:exec-file:read
3175 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
3176 create a process running on the remote system.
3177
3178 vFile:setfs:
3179 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
3180 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
3181 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
3182 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
3183
3184 fork stop reason
3185 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
3186
3187 vfork stop reason
3188 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
3189
3190 vforkdone stop reason
3191 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
3192 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
3193
3194 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
3195 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
3196 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
3197 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
3198 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
3199 whether these features are enabled.
3200
3201 * Extended-remote fork events
3202
3203 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
3204 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
3205 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
3206 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
3207
3208 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
3209 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
3210 the btrace record target.
3211 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
3212
3213 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
3214 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
3215
3216 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
3217 targets.
3218
3219 * Removed command line options
3220
3221 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
3222
3223 * Removed targets and native configurations
3224
3225 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
3226 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3227
3228 * New configure options
3229
3230 --with-intel-pt
3231 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
3232 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
3233
3234 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
3235 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
3236 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
3237 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
3238
3239 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
3240
3241 * Python Scripting
3242
3243 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
3244
3245 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
3246
3247 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
3248
3249 * Python Scripting
3250
3251 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
3252 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
3253 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
3254 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
3255 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
3256 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
3257 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
3258 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
3259 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
3260 selecting a new file to debug.
3261 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
3262 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
3263
3264 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
3265 inferior.
3266
3267 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
3268 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
3269 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
3270 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
3271
3272 * New Python-based convenience functions:
3273
3274 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
3275 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
3276 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
3277 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
3278
3279 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
3280 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
3281 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
3282 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
3283 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
3284 interface with this new feature are:
3285
3286 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
3287 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
3288
3289 * New commands
3290
3291 demangle [-l language] [--] name
3292 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
3293 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
3294 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
3295 as "maint demangler-warning".
3296
3297 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
3298 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
3299
3300 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
3301 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
3302 scripts.
3303
3304 maint print user-registers
3305 List all currently available "user" registers.
3306
3307 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
3308 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
3309 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
3310
3311 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
3312 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
3313 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
3314 provided.
3315
3316 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
3317 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
3318 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
3319 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
3320 at resume time.
3321
3322 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
3323 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
3324 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
3325 switched threads meanwhile.
3326
3327 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
3328
3329 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
3330 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
3331 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
3332 is now the default mode.
3333
3334 * New options
3335
3336 set debug symbol-lookup
3337 show debug symbol-lookup
3338 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
3339
3340 * MI changes
3341
3342 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
3343 inferiors that have exited.
3344
3345 * New targets
3346
3347 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
3348
3349 * Removed targets
3350
3351 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
3352
3353 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
3354 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
3355 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
3356 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
3357 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
3358
3359 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
3360 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
3361 its alias "share", instead.
3362
3363 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
3364
3365 * New command line options
3366
3367 -D data-directory
3368 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
3369
3370 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
3371 as specified in ISO C99.
3372
3373 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
3374 with or without disassembly.
3375
3376 * Guile scripting
3377
3378 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
3379 available is determined at configure time.
3380 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
3381 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
3382
3383 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3384
3385 guile [code]
3386 gu [code]
3387 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
3388
3389 guile-repl
3390 gr
3391 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
3392
3393 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
3394 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
3395
3396 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
3397 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
3398
3399 * New options
3400
3401 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
3402 show print symbol-loading
3403 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
3404 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
3405 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
3406 becomes less useful.
3407
3408 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
3409 show guile print-stack
3410 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
3411
3412 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
3413 show auto-load guile-scripts
3414 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
3415
3416 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
3417 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
3418 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
3419 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
3420 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
3421 usage of this option.
3422
3423 set auto-connect-native-target
3424
3425 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
3426 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
3427 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
3428
3429 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
3430 show record btrace replay-memory-access
3431 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
3432
3433 maint set target-async (on|off)
3434 maint show target-async
3435 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
3436 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
3437 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
3438 occurring only in synchronous mode.
3439
3440 set mi-async (on|off)
3441 show mi-async
3442 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
3443 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
3444
3445 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
3446 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
3447
3448 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
3449 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
3450 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
3451 "set target-async on" command.
3452
3453 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3454
3455 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
3456 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
3457 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
3458 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
3459 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
3460
3461 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
3462 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
3463 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
3464
3465 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
3466 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
3467 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
3468 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
3469 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
3470 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
3471 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
3472
3473 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
3474 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
3475
3476 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
3477 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
3478 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
3479
3480 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
3481 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
3482 memory or registers.
3483
3484 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
3485
3486 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
3487 remote. It now works with all targets.
3488
3489 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
3490 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
3491 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
3492 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
3493 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
3494 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
3495 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
3496 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
3497 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
3498 target-stack".
3499
3500 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
3501 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
3502 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
3503
3504 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
3505
3506 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
3507 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
3508 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
3509
3510 * New remote packets
3511
3512 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
3513 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
3514 branch trace incrementally.
3515
3516 * Python Scripting
3517
3518 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
3519 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
3520 available.
3521 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
3522 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
3523 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
3524 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
3525 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
3526
3527 * New targets
3528 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
3529
3530 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
3531 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
3532 its alias "share", instead.
3533
3534 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
3535 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
3536 instead.
3537
3538 * MI changes
3539
3540 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
3541 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
3542 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
3543 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
3544 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
3545 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
3546 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
3547 commands and CLI execution commands.
3548
3549 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
3550
3551 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
3552 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
3553 recording has been added.
3554
3555 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
3556
3557 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
3558 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
3559
3560 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
3561 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
3562 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
3563 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
3564 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
3565 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
3566 "void".
3567
3568 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
3569
3570 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
3571
3572 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
3573 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
3574 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
3575 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
3576
3577 (gdb) p $rax
3578 $1 = <not saved>
3579
3580 (gdb) info registers rax
3581 rax <not saved>
3582
3583 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
3584 "*value not available*".
3585
3586 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
3587 to binaries.
3588
3589 * Python scripting
3590
3591 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
3592 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
3593 ** Line tables representation has been added.
3594 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
3595 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
3596 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
3597
3598 * New targets
3599
3600 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
3601 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
3602 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
3603
3604 * Removed native configurations
3605
3606 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
3607 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
3608
3609 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3610 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3611 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
3612 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
3613 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3614 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3615 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3616
3617 * New commands:
3618 catch rethrow
3619 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
3620 maint check-psymtabs
3621 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
3622 maint check-symtabs
3623 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
3624 maint expand-symtabs
3625 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
3626
3627 show configuration
3628 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
3629
3630 maint set|show per-command
3631 maint set|show per-command space
3632 maint set|show per-command time
3633 maint set|show per-command symtab
3634 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
3635
3636 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
3637 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
3638 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
3639 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
3640 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
3641
3642 info exceptions
3643 info exceptions REGEXP
3644 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
3645 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
3646 are listed.
3647
3648 * New options
3649
3650 set debug symfile off|on
3651 show debug symfile
3652 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
3653 symbol tables within those files
3654
3655 set print raw frame-arguments
3656 show print raw frame-arguments
3657 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
3658 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
3659
3660 set remote trace-status-packet
3661 show remote trace-status-packet
3662 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
3663
3664 set debug nios2
3665 show debug nios2
3666 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
3667
3668 set range-stepping
3669 show range-stepping
3670 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
3671
3672 set startup-with-shell
3673 show startup-with-shell
3674 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
3675 directly.
3676
3677 set code-cache
3678 show code-cache
3679 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
3680 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
3681
3682 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
3683 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
3684 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
3685 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
3686 "set height 0".
3687
3688 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
3689 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
3690 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
3691
3692 * New command-line options
3693 --configuration
3694 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
3695
3696 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
3697 buffer in Common Trace Format.
3698
3699 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
3700 GDB command gcore.
3701
3702 * GDB now implements the C++ 'typeid' operator.
3703
3704 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
3705 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
3706
3707 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
3708 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
3709
3710 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
3711 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
3712 due to an uncaught signal.
3713
3714 * MI changes
3715
3716 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
3717 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
3718 command, which should contain "language-option".
3719
3720 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
3721 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
3722
3723 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
3724 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
3725 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
3726 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
3727 "undefined-command-error-code".
3728
3729 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
3730 Trace Format now.
3731
3732 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
3733
3734 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
3735 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
3736 are displayed.
3737
3738 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
3739 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
3740
3741 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
3742 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
3743 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
3744
3745 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
3746 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
3747 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
3748 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
3749 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
3750 "exec-run-start-option".
3751
3752 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
3753 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
3754
3755 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
3756 the new "info exceptions" command.
3757
3758 * New system-wide configuration scripts
3759 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
3760 configuration scripts for the following systems:
3761 ** ElinOS
3762 ** Wind River Linux
3763
3764 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
3765 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
3766 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
3767 below.
3768
3769 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
3770 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
3771
3772 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
3773 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
3774 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
3775
3776 * New remote packets
3777
3778 vCont;r
3779
3780 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
3781 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
3782 involvemement at each single-step.
3783
3784 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
3785 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
3786 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
3787 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
3788 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
3789 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
3790 speedup.
3791
3792 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3793
3794 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
3795 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
3796
3797 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
3798 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
3799 trace state variables.
3800
3801 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
3802 target.
3803
3804 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
3805 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
3806
3807 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
3808
3809 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
3810 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
3811 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
3812 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3813
3814 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
3815
3816 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
3817 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
3818 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
3819 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
3820
3821 set|show record full insn-number-max
3822 set|show record full stop-at-limit
3823 set|show record full memory-query
3824
3825 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
3826 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
3827 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
3828 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
3829 This new recording method can be enabled using:
3830
3831 record btrace
3832
3833 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
3834 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
3835
3836 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
3837 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
3838 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
3839
3840 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
3841 instruction granularity
3842
3843 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
3844 function granularity
3845
3846 * New native configurations
3847
3848 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
3849 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
3850 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
3851 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
3852
3853 * New targets
3854
3855 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
3856 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
3857 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
3858 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
3859 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
3860
3861 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
3862 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
3863 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
3864 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
3865 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
3866 --data-directory command-line option.
3867
3868 * New command line options:
3869
3870 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
3871 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
3872
3873 * Removed command line options
3874
3875 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
3876 Emacs.
3877
3878 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
3879 type formatting.
3880
3881 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
3882
3883 * Python scripting
3884
3885 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
3886
3887 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
3888
3889 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
3890
3891 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
3892
3893 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
3894 of architecture in the Python API.
3895
3896 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
3897 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
3898
3899 * New Python-based convenience functions:
3900
3901 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
3902 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
3903 ** $_strlen(str)
3904 ** $_regex(str, regex)
3905
3906 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
3907 given an argument.
3908
3909 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
3910 default for GCC since November 2000.
3911
3912 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
3913
3914 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
3915 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
3916
3917 * New configure options
3918
3919 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
3920 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
3921 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
3922 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
3923 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
3924 options allow the user to override that default.
3925 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
3926 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
3927 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
3928
3929 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3930
3931 catch signal
3932 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
3933 conditions to be attached.
3934
3935 maint info bfds
3936 List the BFDs known to GDB.
3937
3938 python-interactive [command]
3939 pi [command]
3940 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
3941 and print the result of expressions.
3942
3943 py [command]
3944 "py" is a new alias for "python".
3945
3946 enable type-printer [name]...
3947 disable type-printer [name]...
3948 Enable or disable type printers.
3949
3950 * Removed commands
3951
3952 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
3953 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
3954 instead.
3955
3956 * New options
3957
3958 set print type methods (on|off)
3959 show print type methods
3960 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
3961 The default is to show them.
3962
3963 set print type typedefs (on|off)
3964 show print type typedefs
3965 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
3966 The default is to show them.
3967
3968 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
3969 show filename-display
3970 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
3971 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
3972
3973 set trace-buffer-size
3974 show trace-buffer-size
3975 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
3976
3977 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
3978 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
3979 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
3980
3981 set debug aarch64
3982 show debug aarch64
3983 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
3984 The default is off.
3985
3986 set debug coff-pe-read
3987 show debug coff-pe-read
3988 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
3989 exported symbols.
3990
3991 set debug mach-o
3992 show debug mach-o
3993 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
3994 processing.
3995
3996 set debug notification
3997 show debug notification
3998 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
3999
4000 * MI changes
4001
4002 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
4003 "=cmd-param-changed".
4004 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
4005 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
4006 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
4007 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
4008 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
4009 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
4010 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
4011 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
4012 "=memory-changed".
4013 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
4014 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
4015 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
4016 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
4017 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
4018 library load/unload events.
4019 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
4020 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
4021 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
4022 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
4023 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
4024 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
4025 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
4026 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
4027
4028 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
4029 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
4030 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
4031 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
4032
4033 * New remote packets
4034
4035 QTBuffer:size
4036 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
4037 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
4038
4039 Qbtrace:bts
4040 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
4041 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
4042 qSupported query.
4043
4044 Qbtrace:off
4045 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
4046 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
4047
4048 qXfer:btrace:read
4049 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
4050 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
4051
4052 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
4053
4054 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
4055 for more x32 ABI info.
4056
4057 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
4058
4059 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
4060
4061 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
4062 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
4063 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
4064 "info os files" lists file descriptors
4065 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
4066 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
4067 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
4068 "info os msg" lists message queues
4069 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
4070
4071 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
4072 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
4073 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
4074 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
4075 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
4076 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
4077
4078 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
4079 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
4080 record/replay support.
4081
4082 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
4083
4084 * Python scripting
4085
4086 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
4087 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
4088
4089 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
4090
4091 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
4092 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
4093
4094 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
4095
4096 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
4097 the source at which the symbol was defined.
4098
4099 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
4100 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
4101 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
4102 symbol's value.
4103
4104 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
4105 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
4106
4107 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
4108 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
4109 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
4110
4111 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
4112 object associated with a PC value.
4113
4114 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
4115 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
4116
4117 * Go language support.
4118 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
4119 language.
4120
4121 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
4122 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
4123
4124 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
4125 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
4126
4127 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
4128 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
4129 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
4130 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
4131 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
4132 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
4133
4134 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
4135 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
4136 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
4137 build/libcpp/expr.c.
4138
4139 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
4140 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
4141
4142 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
4143 since December 2007.
4144
4145 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
4146 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
4147 command does. For instance:
4148
4149 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
4150
4151 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
4152 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
4153 created, using the "condition" command.
4154
4155 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
4156 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
4157
4158 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
4159
4160 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
4161 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
4162 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
4163 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
4164 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
4165 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
4166 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
4167 files with older .gdb_index sections.
4168
4169 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
4170 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
4171 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
4172 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
4173 the .gdb_index section.
4174
4175 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
4176
4177 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
4178 target.
4179
4180 * MI changes
4181
4182 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
4183
4184 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
4185
4186 * New commands
4187
4188 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
4189 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
4190 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
4191
4192 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
4193 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
4194
4195 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
4196 several hits.
4197
4198 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
4199 C++ and Java objects.
4200
4201 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
4202 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
4203 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
4204 configured with '--with-python'.
4205
4206 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
4207 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
4208 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
4209 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
4210 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
4211 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
4212 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
4213
4214 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
4215 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
4216 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
4217 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
4218
4219 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
4220 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
4221 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
4222 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
4223
4224 ** "set print symbol"
4225 "show print symbol"
4226 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
4227 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
4228 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
4229
4230 * Deprecated commands
4231
4232 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
4233 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
4234
4235 * New targets
4236
4237 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
4238 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
4239
4240 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
4241 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
4242 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
4243 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
4244 evaluates to true.
4245
4246 * New options
4247
4248 set mips compression
4249 show mips compression
4250 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
4251 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
4252 mips16
4253 micromips
4254 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
4255
4256 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
4257 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
4258 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
4259 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
4260 available mode.
4261 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
4262 target.
4263
4264 set auto-load off
4265 Disable auto-loading globally.
4266
4267 show auto-load
4268 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
4269
4270 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
4271 show auto-load gdb-scripts
4272 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
4273
4274 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
4275 show auto-load python-scripts
4276 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
4277
4278 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
4279 show auto-load local-gdbinit
4280 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
4281
4282 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
4283 show auto-load libthread-db
4284 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
4285
4286 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
4287 show auto-load scripts-directory
4288 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
4289 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
4290 of the directories listed by this option.
4291 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
4292
4293 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
4294 show auto-load safe-path
4295 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
4296 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
4297
4298 set debug auto-load on|off
4299 show debug auto-load
4300 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
4301
4302 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
4303 show dprintf-style
4304 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
4305 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
4306 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
4307 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
4308
4309 set dprintf-function <expr>
4310 show dprintf-function
4311 set dprintf-channel <expr>
4312 show dprintf-channel
4313 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
4314 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
4315
4316 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
4317 show disconnected-dprintf
4318 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
4319 after GDB disconnects.
4320
4321 * New configure options
4322
4323 --with-auto-load-dir
4324 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
4325 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
4326 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
4327 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
4328 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
4329
4330 --with-auto-load-safe-path
4331 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
4332 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
4333
4334 --without-auto-load-safe-path
4335 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
4336 security feature.
4337
4338 * New remote packets
4339
4340 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
4341
4342 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
4343 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
4344 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
4345 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
4346
4347 QProgramSignals:
4348
4349 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
4350 program without GDB involvement.
4351
4352 * New command line options
4353
4354 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
4355 before loading inferior.
4356 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
4357 execute it before loading inferior.
4358
4359 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
4360
4361 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
4362 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
4363 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
4364 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
4365 inferior changes.
4366
4367 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
4368 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
4369
4370 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
4371 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
4372 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
4373 target hardware watchpoint.
4374
4375 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
4376 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
4377 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
4378 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
4379
4380 * Python scripting
4381
4382 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
4383 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
4384 existing one.
4385
4386 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
4387 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
4388 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
4389 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
4390 now "message", which just prints the error message without
4391 the stack trace.
4392
4393 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
4394 Python API.
4395
4396 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
4397 modules library. This module provides functionality for
4398 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
4399 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
4400 corresponding value.
4401
4402 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
4403 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
4404 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
4405 on GDB start-up.
4406
4407 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
4408 static_block will return the global and static blocks
4409 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
4410 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
4411
4412 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
4413
4414 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
4415 "gdb.breakpoints".
4416
4417 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
4418 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
4419 available in the CLI.
4420
4421 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
4422 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
4423 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
4424 "some_type.items()".
4425
4426 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
4427 new object file.
4428
4429 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
4430 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
4431 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
4432 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
4433 any anonymous fields.
4434
4435 * MI changes
4436
4437 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
4438 "solib-event".
4439
4440 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
4441 "=breakpoint-modified".
4442
4443 ** New command -ada-task-info.
4444
4445 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
4446 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
4447 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
4448 lives.
4449
4450 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
4451 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
4452 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
4453 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
4454 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
4455
4456 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
4457 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
4458
4459 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
4460 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
4461 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
4462 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
4463 use this option to specify where to find it.
4464
4465 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
4466 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
4467 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
4468 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
4469 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
4470 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
4471 section in the user manual for more details.
4472
4473 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
4474 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
4475 become available after that.
4476
4477 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
4478
4479 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
4480 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
4481 gcc version 4.7.
4482
4483 * New commands
4484
4485 !SHELL COMMAND
4486 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
4487 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
4488
4489 * Changed commands
4490
4491 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
4492 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
4493 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
4494
4495 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
4496 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
4497 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
4498
4499 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
4500 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
4501 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
4502 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
4503 name starts with a hyphen.
4504
4505 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
4506 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
4507 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
4508 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
4509 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
4510 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
4511 number of bytes that will be collected.
4512
4513 tstart [NOTES]
4514 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
4515 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
4516 setting the variable trace-notes.
4517
4518 tstop [NOTES]
4519 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
4520 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
4521 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
4522 trace-stop-notes.
4523
4524 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
4525 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
4526 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
4527 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
4528 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
4529 is running.
4530
4531 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
4532 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
4533 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
4534
4535 * New options
4536
4537 set debug dwarf2-read
4538 show debug dwarf2-read
4539 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
4540 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
4541
4542 set debug symtab-create
4543 show debug symtab-create
4544 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
4545 creation. The default is off.
4546
4547 set extended-prompt
4548 show extended-prompt
4549 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
4550 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
4551 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
4552 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
4553 prompt is displayed.
4554
4555 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
4556 show print entry-values
4557 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
4558 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
4559 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
4560
4561 set debug entry-values
4562 show debug entry-values
4563 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
4564 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
4565
4566 set basenames-may-differ
4567 show basenames-may-differ
4568 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
4569 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
4570 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
4571 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
4572 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
4573 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
4574 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
4575 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
4576
4577 set trace-user
4578 show trace-user
4579 set trace-notes
4580 show trace-notes
4581 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
4582 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
4583 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
4584 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
4585
4586 set trace-stop-notes
4587 show trace-stop-notes
4588 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
4589 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
4590 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
4591 started by someone else.
4592
4593 * New remote packets
4594
4595 QTEnable
4596
4597 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
4598
4599 QTDisable
4600
4601 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
4602
4603 QTNotes
4604
4605 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
4606
4607 qTP
4608
4609 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
4610
4611 qTMinFTPILen
4612
4613 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
4614 be placed.
4615
4616 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
4617 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
4618
4619 * New targets
4620
4621 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
4622
4623 * New Simulators
4624
4625 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
4626
4627 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
4628
4629 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
4630
4631 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
4632
4633 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
4634 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
4635 matches the given regular expression.
4636
4637 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
4638
4639 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
4640 dumping the instruction opcodes.
4641
4642 * New command line options
4643
4644 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
4645 This is mostly for testing purposes.
4646
4647 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
4648 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
4649
4650 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
4651 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
4652 source path list instead of augmenting it.
4653
4654 * GDB now understands thread names.
4655
4656 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
4657 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
4658
4659 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
4660 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
4661
4662 * OpenCL C
4663 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
4664 has been integrated into GDB.
4665
4666 * Python scripting
4667
4668 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
4669 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
4670 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
4671
4672 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
4673 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
4674 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
4675 and allows for more dynamic content.
4676
4677 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
4678 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
4679 have an is_valid method.
4680
4681 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
4682 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
4683 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
4684
4685 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
4686
4687 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
4688 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
4689 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
4690 that function like so:
4691
4692 result = some_value (10,20)
4693
4694 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
4695 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
4696 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
4697
4698 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
4699 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
4700 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
4701 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
4702 New function: register_pretty_printer.
4703
4704 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
4705 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
4706
4707 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
4708
4709 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
4710 selected thread.
4711
4712 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
4713 holds the thread's name.
4714
4715 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
4716 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
4717 occurring in the process being debugged.
4718 The following events are currently supported:
4719 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
4720 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
4721 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
4722
4723 * C++ Improvements:
4724
4725 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
4726 instantiation. For example, if you have:
4727
4728 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
4729
4730 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
4731 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
4732 was added to GCC 4.5.
4733
4734 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
4735 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
4736 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
4737 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
4738 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
4739 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
4740
4741 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
4742 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
4743 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
4744 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
4745 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
4746
4747 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
4748 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
4749 execution to a label.
4750
4751 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
4752 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
4753 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
4754 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
4755
4756 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
4757 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
4758 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
4759 of scope.
4760
4761 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
4762
4763 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
4764 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
4765 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
4766 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
4767 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
4768 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
4769
4770 (gdb) info threads
4771 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
4772
4773 While now you see this:
4774
4775 (gdb) info threads
4776 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
4777
4778 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
4779 dumps.
4780
4781 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
4782 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
4783 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
4784 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
4785
4786 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
4787 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
4788 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
4789 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
4790 section in the user manual for more details.
4791
4792 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
4793
4794 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
4795 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
4796
4797 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
4798
4799 * New native configurations
4800
4801 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
4802
4803 * New targets:
4804
4805 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
4806
4807 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
4808 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
4809 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
4810 in the GDB user manual.
4811
4812 * Guile support was removed.
4813
4814 * New features in the GNU simulator
4815
4816 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
4817
4818 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
4819
4820 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
4821
4822 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
4823
4824 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
4825 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
4826 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
4827 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
4828 was always disabled for such configurations.
4829
4830 * C++ Improvements:
4831
4832 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
4833
4834 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
4835 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
4836 For example:
4837 namespace A
4838 {
4839 class B { };
4840 void foo (B) { }
4841 }
4842 ...
4843 A::B b
4844 foo(b)
4845 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
4846 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
4847 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
4848
4849 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
4850
4851 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
4852 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
4853 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
4854 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
4855 entry.
4856 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
4857 mentioned flavors of operators.
4858
4859 ** static const class members
4860
4861 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
4862 class definition has been fixed.
4863
4864 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
4865
4866 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
4867 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
4868 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
4869 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
4870 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
4871 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
4872
4873 * Static tracepoints
4874
4875 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
4876 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
4877 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
4878 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
4879 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
4880 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
4881 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
4882 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
4883 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
4884 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
4885 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
4886 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
4887 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
4888 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
4889 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
4890 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
4891 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
4892 the "New remote packets" section below.
4893
4894 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
4895
4896 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
4897 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
4898 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
4899 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
4900
4901 * Observer mode
4902
4903 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
4904 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
4905 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
4906 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
4907 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
4908 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
4909 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
4910
4911 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
4912 current thread.
4913
4914 * New remote packets
4915
4916 qGetTIBAddr
4917
4918 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
4919
4920 qRelocInsn
4921
4922 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
4923 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
4924 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
4925 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
4926 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
4927 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
4928
4929 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
4930
4931 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
4932
4933 qTSTMat
4934
4935 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
4936 program.
4937
4938 qXfer:statictrace:read
4939
4940 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
4941 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
4942 to gdb's qSupported query.
4943
4944 QAllow
4945
4946 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
4947
4948 QTDPsrc
4949
4950 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
4951 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
4952
4953 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
4954 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
4955 a directory.
4956
4957 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
4958
4959 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
4960 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
4961 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
4962 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
4963
4964 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
4965 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
4966 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
4967 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
4968 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
4969 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
4970 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
4971
4972 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
4973 for static tracepoints support.
4974
4975 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
4976
4977 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
4978 it understands register description.
4979
4980 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
4981
4982 * X86 general purpose registers
4983
4984 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
4985 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
4986 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
4987 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
4988 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
4989
4990 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
4991 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
4992 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
4993 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
4994 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
4995 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
4996
4997 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
4998 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
4999 in the specified file.
5000
5001 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
5002 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
5003 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
5004 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
5005 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
5006 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
5007 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
5008 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
5009 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
5010 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
5011
5012 * New commands
5013
5014 eval template, expressions...
5015 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
5016 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
5017
5018 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
5019 show target-file-system-kind
5020 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
5021 names.
5022
5023 save breakpoints <filename>
5024 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
5025 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
5026 definitions, use the `source' command.
5027
5028 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
5029 is now deprecated.
5030
5031 info static-tracepoint-markers
5032 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
5033
5034 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
5035 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
5036 function, line, address, or marker ID.
5037
5038 set observer on|off
5039 show observer
5040 Enable and disable observer mode.
5041
5042 set may-write-registers on|off
5043 set may-write-memory on|off
5044 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
5045 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
5046 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
5047 set may-interrupt on|off
5048 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
5049 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
5050 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
5051 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
5052 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
5053 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
5054 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
5055
5056 set record memory-query on|off
5057 show record memory-query
5058 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
5059 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
5060
5061 * Changed commands
5062
5063 disassemble
5064 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
5065
5066 * Python scripting
5067
5068 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
5069 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
5070 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
5071 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
5072 GDB using Python' in the manual.
5073
5074 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
5075 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
5076 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
5077 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
5078
5079 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
5080 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
5081
5082 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
5083
5084 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
5085
5086 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
5087
5088 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
5089 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
5090 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
5091
5092 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
5093 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
5094 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
5095 regular breakpoints.
5096
5097 * New targets
5098
5099 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
5100
5101 * D language support.
5102 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
5103 language.
5104
5105 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
5106 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
5107 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
5108 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
5109 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
5110
5111 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
5112 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
5113 conditions of the form:
5114
5115 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
5116
5117 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
5118 interface mentioned above.
5119
5120 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
5121
5122 * C++ Improvements
5123
5124 ** Namespace Support
5125
5126 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
5127 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
5128 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
5129 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
5130 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
5131
5132 ** Bug Fixes
5133
5134 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
5135 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
5136 qualified name.
5137
5138 ** Cast Operators
5139
5140 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
5141 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
5142
5143 * New targets
5144
5145 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
5146 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
5147
5148 * New Simulators
5149
5150 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
5151 Renesas RX rx
5152
5153 * Multi-program debugging.
5154
5155 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
5156 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
5157 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
5158 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
5159 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
5160 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
5161 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
5162 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
5163
5164 * New tracing features
5165
5166 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
5167
5168 ** Trace state variables
5169
5170 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
5171 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
5172 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
5173 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
5174 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
5175 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
5176 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
5177 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
5178 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
5179 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
5180
5181 ** Fast tracepoints
5182
5183 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
5184 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
5185 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
5186 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
5187 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
5188 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
5189 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
5190 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
5191 the regular trace command.
5192
5193 ** Disconnected tracing
5194
5195 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
5196 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
5197 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
5198 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
5199 connection is lost unexpectedly.
5200
5201 ** Trace files
5202
5203 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
5204 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
5205 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
5206 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
5207 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
5208 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
5209 <name>".
5210
5211 ** Circular trace buffer
5212
5213 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
5214 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
5215 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
5216 not be available for all target agents.
5217
5218 * Changed commands
5219
5220 disassemble
5221 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
5222 the arguments to be comma-separated.
5223
5224 info variables
5225 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
5226 which only declare a variable are not shown.
5227
5228 source
5229 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
5230 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
5231 support.
5232
5233 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
5234 "set script-extension" (see below).
5235
5236 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
5237
5238 record save [<FILENAME>]
5239 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
5240 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
5241
5242 record restore <FILENAME>
5243 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
5244 earlier time, for replay debugging.
5245
5246 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
5247 Add a new inferior.
5248
5249 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
5250 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
5251 inferior has loaded.
5252
5253 remove-inferior ID
5254 Remove an inferior.
5255
5256 maint info program-spaces
5257 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
5258
5259 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
5260 show remote interrupt-sequence
5261 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
5262 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
5263 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
5264 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
5265 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
5266
5267 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
5268 show remote interrupt-on-connect
5269 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
5270 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
5271 Linux kernel.
5272
5273 set remotebreak [on | off]
5274 show remotebreak
5275 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
5276
5277 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
5278 Create or modify a trace state variable.
5279
5280 info tvariables
5281 List trace state variables and their values.
5282
5283 delete tvariable $NAME ...
5284 Delete one or more trace state variables.
5285
5286 teval EXPR, ...
5287 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
5288 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
5289
5290 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
5291 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
5292
5293 * New expression syntax
5294
5295 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
5296 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
5297
5298 * New options
5299
5300 set follow-exec-mode new|same
5301 show follow-exec-mode
5302 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
5303 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
5304 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
5305
5306 set default-collect EXPR, ...
5307 show default-collect
5308 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
5309 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
5310 such as registers or a critical global variable.
5311
5312 set disconnected-tracing
5313 show disconnected-tracing
5314 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
5315 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
5316 upon disconnection.
5317
5318 set circular-trace-buffer
5319 show circular-trace-buffer
5320 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
5321 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
5322 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
5323 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
5324
5325 set script-extension off|soft|strict
5326 show script-extension
5327 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
5328 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
5329 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
5330 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
5331 evaluation failed.
5332 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
5333
5334 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
5335 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
5336 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
5337 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
5338 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
5339 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
5340 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
5341 is on.
5342
5343 * Python API Improvements
5344
5345 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
5346 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
5347 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
5348
5349 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
5350 `is_base_class' attribute.
5351
5352 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
5353
5354 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
5355 evaluate an expression.
5356
5357 * New remote packets
5358
5359 QTDV
5360 Define a trace state variable.
5361
5362 qTV
5363 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
5364
5365 QTDisconnected
5366 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
5367
5368 QTBuffer:circular
5369 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
5370
5371 qTfP, qTsP
5372 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
5373
5374 * Bug fixes
5375
5376 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
5377
5378 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
5379 much more reliable. In particular:
5380 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
5381 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
5382 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
5383 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
5384 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
5385 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
5386 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
5387 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
5388 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
5389 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
5390 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
5391 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
5392 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
5393 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
5394 non-threaded programs.
5395
5396 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
5397 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
5398 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
5399 executable program.
5400
5401 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
5402
5403 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
5404 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
5405 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
5406 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
5407 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
5408
5409 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
5410 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
5411 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
5412 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
5413 for tracepoint actions.
5414
5415 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
5416 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
5417 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
5418
5419 * Process record and replay
5420
5421 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
5422 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
5423 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
5424 execute commands.
5425
5426 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
5427 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
5428 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
5429 reverse execution.
5430
5431 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
5432 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
5433 2.6.28 or later.
5434
5435 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
5436 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
5437 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
5438 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
5439 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
5440 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
5441 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
5442 the installation instructions for more information.
5443
5444 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
5445 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
5446 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
5447 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
5448
5449 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
5450 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
5451
5452 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
5453 now complete on file names.
5454
5455 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
5456 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
5457 For instance, consider:
5458
5459 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
5460 # struct example variable;
5461 (gdb) p variable.
5462
5463 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
5464 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
5465
5466 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
5467 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
5468
5469 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
5470 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
5471 macros.
5472
5473 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
5474 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
5475 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
5476
5477 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
5478 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
5479 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
5480 and simulator targets may also provide them.
5481
5482 * New remote packets
5483
5484 qSearch:memory:
5485 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
5486
5487 QStartNoAckMode
5488 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
5489 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
5490 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
5491
5492 vKill
5493 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
5494 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
5495
5496 qXfer:osdata:read
5497 Obtains additional operating system information
5498
5499 qXfer:siginfo:read
5500 qXfer:siginfo:write
5501 Read or write additional signal information.
5502
5503 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
5504
5505 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
5506 packet that permitted the stub to pass a process id was removed.
5507 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
5508
5509 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
5510 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
5511
5512 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
5513 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
5514 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
5515
5516 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
5517 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
5518
5519 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
5520
5521 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
5522
5523 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
5524 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
5525
5526 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote protocol packet now allows passing a
5527 list of section offsets.
5528
5529 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
5530 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
5531 have also been fixed.
5532
5533 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
5534 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
5535 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
5536
5537 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
5538 example, given:
5539
5540 template<typename T> class C { };
5541 C<char const *> c;
5542
5543 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
5544
5545 ptype C<char const *>
5546 ptype C<char const*>
5547 ptype C<const char *>
5548 ptype C<const char*>
5549
5550 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
5551
5552 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
5553 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
5554
5555 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
5556 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
5557 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
5558
5559 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
5560 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
5561
5562 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
5563 gdbserver.
5564
5565 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
5566 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
5567
5568 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
5569 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
5570 as appropriate.
5571
5572 * Python scripting
5573
5574 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
5575 available is determined at configure time.
5576
5577 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
5578
5579 * Ada tasking support
5580
5581 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
5582 been introduced:
5583
5584 info tasks
5585 Print the list of Ada tasks.
5586 info task N
5587 Print detailed information about task number N.
5588 task
5589 Print the task number of the current task.
5590 task N
5591 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
5592
5593 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
5594 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
5595
5596 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
5597
5598 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
5599 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
5600 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
5601 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
5602 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
5603 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
5604 below.
5605
5606 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
5607 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
5608 information.
5609
5610 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
5611 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
5612 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
5613 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
5614 more information.
5615
5616 * Multi-architecture debugging.
5617
5618 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
5619 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
5620 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
5621 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
5622 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
5623
5624 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
5625 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
5626 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
5627 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
5628 --enable-targets configure option.
5629
5630 * Non-stop mode debugging.
5631
5632 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
5633 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
5634 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
5635 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
5636 section in the user manual for more information.
5637
5638 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
5639 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
5640 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
5641 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
5642 extensions on linux targets.
5643
5644 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
5645
5646 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
5647 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
5648 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
5649 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
5650 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
5651 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
5652 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
5653 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
5654 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
5655
5656 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
5657 val1 [, val2, ...]
5658 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
5659
5660 maint set python print-stack
5661 maint show python print-stack
5662 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
5663
5664 python [CODE]
5665 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
5666
5667 macro define
5668 macro list
5669 macro undef
5670 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
5671 interactively.
5672
5673 info os processes
5674 Show operating system information about processes.
5675
5676 info inferiors
5677 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
5678
5679 inferior NUM
5680 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
5681
5682 detach inferior NUM
5683 Detach from inferior number NUM.
5684
5685 kill inferior NUM
5686 Kill inferior number NUM.
5687
5688 * New options
5689
5690 set spu stop-on-load
5691 show spu stop-on-load
5692 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
5693
5694 set spu auto-flush-cache
5695 show spu auto-flush-cache
5696 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
5697 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
5698
5699 set sh calling-convention
5700 show sh calling-convention
5701 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
5702
5703 set debug timestamp
5704 show debug timestamp
5705 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
5706
5707 set disassemble-next-line
5708 show disassemble-next-line
5709 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
5710 the debuggee stops.
5711
5712 set remote noack-packet
5713 show remote noack-packet
5714 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
5715 under "New remote packets."
5716
5717 set remote query-attached-packet
5718 show remote query-attached-packet
5719 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
5720
5721 set remote read-siginfo-object
5722 show remote read-siginfo-object
5723 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
5724 packet.
5725
5726 set remote write-siginfo-object
5727 show remote write-siginfo-object
5728 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
5729 packet.
5730
5731 set remote reverse-continue
5732 show remote reverse-continue
5733 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
5734
5735 set remote reverse-step
5736 show remote reverse-step
5737 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
5738
5739 set displaced-stepping
5740 show displaced-stepping
5741 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
5742 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
5743 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
5744
5745 set debug displaced
5746 show debug displaced
5747 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
5748
5749 maint set internal-error
5750 maint show internal-error
5751 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
5752
5753 maint set internal-warning
5754 maint show internal-warning
5755 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
5756
5757 set exec-wrapper
5758 show exec-wrapper
5759 unset exec-wrapper
5760 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
5761
5762 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
5763 show multiple-symbols
5764 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
5765 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
5766 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
5767
5768 set breakpoint always-inserted
5769 show breakpoint always-inserted
5770 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
5771 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
5772 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
5773
5774 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
5775 show arm fallback-mode
5776 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
5777 show arm force-mode
5778 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
5779 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
5780 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
5781 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
5782
5783 set arm unwind-secure-frames
5784 Enable unwinding from Non-secure to Secure mode on Cortex-M with
5785 Security extension.
5786 This can trigger security exceptions when unwinding exception stacks.
5787
5788 set disable-randomization
5789 show disable-randomization
5790 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
5791 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
5792 multiple debugging sessions.
5793
5794 set non-stop
5795 show non-stop
5796 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
5797 a breakpoint.
5798
5799 set target-async
5800 show target-async
5801 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
5802 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
5803 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
5804 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
5805
5806 set target-wide-charset
5807 show target-wide-charset
5808 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
5809 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
5810
5811 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
5812 show tcp auto-retry
5813 set tcp connect-timeout
5814 show tcp connect-timeout
5815 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
5816 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
5817 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
5818
5819 set libthread-db-search-path
5820 show libthread-db-search-path
5821 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
5822 libthread_db.
5823
5824 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
5825 show schedule-multiple
5826 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
5827 the current process.
5828
5829 set stack-cache
5830 show stack-cache
5831 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
5832 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
5833 affecting correctness.
5834
5835 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
5836 show interactive-mode
5837 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
5838 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
5839 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
5840 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
5841 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
5842
5843 * Removed commands
5844
5845 info forks
5846 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
5847 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
5848 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
5849 command.
5850
5851 fork NUM
5852 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
5853 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
5854 alias for the `fork' command.
5855
5856 process PID
5857 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
5858 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
5859 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
5860
5861 delete fork NUM
5862 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
5863 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
5864 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
5865 fork' command.
5866
5867 detach fork NUM
5868 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
5869 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
5870 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
5871 fork' command.
5872
5873 * New native configurations
5874
5875 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
5876
5877 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
5878
5879 * New targets
5880
5881 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
5882 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
5883 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5884 S+core 3 score-*-*
5885
5886 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
5887 (mingw32ce) debugging.
5888
5889 * Removed commands
5890
5891 catch load
5892 catch unload
5893 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
5894
5895 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
5896
5897 * New native configurations
5898
5899 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
5900 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
5901
5902 * New targets
5903
5904 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
5905 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
5906
5907 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5908
5909 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
5910 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
5911 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
5912 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
5913
5914 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
5915 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
5916
5917 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
5918 is resolved.
5919
5920 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
5921 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
5922 and in inlined functions.
5923
5924 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
5925 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
5926 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
5927
5928 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
5929
5930 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
5931 registers on PowerPC targets.
5932
5933 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
5934 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
5935
5936 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
5937 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
5938
5939 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
5940 extended-remote mode.
5941
5942 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
5943 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
5944 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
5945 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
5946
5947 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
5948 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
5949 target architectures.
5950
5951 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
5952 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
5953 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
5954 stored in two consecutive float registers.
5955
5956 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
5957 breakpoints now.
5958
5959 * Improved support for debugging Ada
5960 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
5961 include:
5962 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
5963 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
5964 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
5965 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
5966 of an assignment
5967 - Improved command completion in Ada
5968 - Several bug fixes
5969
5970 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
5971 process.
5972
5973 * New commands
5974
5975 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
5976 show print frame-arguments
5977 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
5978 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
5979
5980 remote put
5981 remote get
5982 remote delete
5983 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
5984
5985 * New MI commands
5986
5987 -target-file-put
5988 -target-file-get
5989 -target-file-delete
5990 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
5991
5992 * New remote packets
5993
5994 vFile:open:
5995 vFile:close:
5996 vFile:pread:
5997 vFile:pwrite:
5998 vFile:unlink:
5999 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
6000
6001 vAttach
6002 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
6003 mode.
6004
6005 vRun
6006 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
6007
6008 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
6009
6010 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
6011 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
6012 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
6013
6014 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
6015 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
6016 -Bsymbolic linker option.
6017
6018 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
6019 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
6020 is not supported.
6021
6022 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
6023 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
6024
6025 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
6026 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
6027
6028 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
6029
6030 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
6031 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
6032 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
6033
6034 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
6035 automatically displayed as character or string data.
6036
6037 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
6038 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
6039 as strings.
6040
6041 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
6042 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
6043 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
6044
6045 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
6046 iWMMXt coprocessor.
6047
6048 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
6049 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
6050 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
6051
6052 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
6053
6054 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
6055
6056 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
6057 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
6058 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
6059
6060 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
6061 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
6062
6063 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
6064 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
6065 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
6066 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
6067 Windows and SymbianOS).
6068
6069 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
6070 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
6071
6072 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
6073 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
6074
6075 * New commands
6076
6077 set remoteflow
6078 show remoteflow
6079 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
6080 when debugging using remote targets.
6081
6082 set mem inaccessible-by-default
6083 show mem inaccessible-by-default
6084 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
6085 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
6086 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
6087 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
6088 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
6089
6090 set breakpoint auto-hw
6091 show breakpoint auto-hw
6092 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
6093 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
6094 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
6095 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
6096 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
6097 including "next" and "finish".
6098
6099 catch exception
6100 catch exception unhandled
6101 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
6102
6103 catch assert
6104 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
6105
6106 set sysroot
6107 show sysroot
6108 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
6109 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
6110 an alias to "set sysroot".
6111
6112 info spu
6113 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
6114 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
6115 architecture.
6116
6117 * New native configurations
6118
6119 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
6120
6121 set tdesc filename
6122 unset tdesc filename
6123 show tdesc filename
6124 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
6125 not query the target for its built-in description.
6126
6127 * New targets
6128
6129 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
6130 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
6131 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
6132
6133 * New remote packets
6134
6135 QPassSignals:
6136 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
6137 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
6138
6139 qXfer:features:read:
6140 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
6141 features.
6142
6143 qXfer:spu:read:
6144 qXfer:spu:write:
6145 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
6146 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
6147
6148 qXfer:libraries:read:
6149 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
6150 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
6151 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
6152 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
6153
6154 * Removed targets
6155
6156 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
6157
6158 alpha*-*-osf1*
6159 alpha*-*-osf2*
6160 d10v-*-*
6161 hppa*-*-hiux*
6162 i[34567]86-ncr-*
6163 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
6164 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
6165 i[34567]86-*-netware*
6166 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
6167 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
6168 i[34567]86-*-sco*
6169 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
6170 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
6171 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
6172 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
6173 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
6174 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
6175 i[34567]86-*-isc*
6176 m68*-cisco*-*
6177 m68*-tandem-*
6178 mips*-*-pe
6179 rs6000-*-lynxos*
6180 sh*-*-pe
6181
6182 * Other removed features
6183
6184 target abug
6185 target cpu32bug
6186 target est
6187 target rom68k
6188
6189 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
6190
6191 target hms
6192 target e7000
6193 target sh3
6194 target sh3e
6195
6196 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
6197 H8/300.
6198
6199 target ocd
6200
6201 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
6202 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
6203 interfaces.
6204
6205 DWARF 1 support
6206
6207 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
6208 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
6209
6210 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
6211
6212 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
6213 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
6214 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
6215 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
6216
6217 MIPS ".pdr" sections
6218
6219 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
6220 in debugging information.
6221
6222 Scheme support
6223
6224 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
6225 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
6226
6227 set mips stack-arg-size
6228 set mips saved-gpreg-size
6229
6230 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
6231
6232 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
6233
6234 * New targets
6235
6236 Xtensa xtensa-elf
6237 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
6238
6239 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
6240 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
6241 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
6242
6243 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
6244 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
6245 supported.
6246
6247 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
6248 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
6249
6250 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
6251 stub provides the required support.
6252
6253 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
6254 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
6255
6256 * New commands
6257
6258 set substitute-path
6259 unset substitute-path
6260 show substitute-path
6261 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
6262 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
6263 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
6264 between compilation and debugging.
6265
6266 set trace-commands
6267 show trace-commands
6268 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
6269 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
6270 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
6271
6272 * REMOVED features
6273
6274 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
6275
6276 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
6277 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
6278
6279 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
6280
6281 * New remote packets
6282
6283 qSupported:
6284 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
6285 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
6286 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
6287 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
6288 target.
6289
6290 qXfer:auxv:read:
6291 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
6292 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
6293
6294 qXfer:memory-map:read:
6295 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
6296 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
6297
6298 vFlashErase:
6299 vFlashWrite:
6300 vFlashDone:
6301 Erase and program a flash memory device.
6302
6303 * Removed remote packets
6304
6305 qPart:auxv:read:
6306 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
6307 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
6308
6309 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
6310
6311 * New targets
6312
6313 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
6314
6315 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
6316
6317 * New commands
6318
6319 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
6320 only if it doesn't already have a value.
6321
6322 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
6323
6324 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
6325
6326 restart <n> Return the program state to a
6327 previously saved state.
6328
6329 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
6330
6331 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
6332
6333 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
6334 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
6335
6336 info forks List forks of the user program that
6337 are available to be debugged.
6338
6339 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
6340 forks of the user program that are
6341 available to be debugged.
6342
6343 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
6344 that are available to be debugged (and
6345 kill the forked process).
6346
6347 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
6348 that are available to be debugged (and
6349 allow the process to continue).
6350
6351 * New architecture
6352
6353 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
6354
6355 * Improved Windows host support
6356
6357 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
6358 native console support, and remote communications using either
6359 network sockets or serial ports.
6360
6361 * Improved Modula-2 language support
6362
6363 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
6364 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
6365 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
6366 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
6367 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
6368 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
6369
6370 * REMOVED features
6371
6372 The ARM rdi-share module.
6373
6374 The Netware NLM debug server.
6375
6376 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
6377
6378 * New native configurations
6379
6380 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
6381 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
6382
6383 * New targets
6384
6385 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
6386
6387 * New command line options
6388
6389 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
6390 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
6391 the child (debugged) program exited with.
6392 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
6393 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
6394 specified multiple times and in conjunction
6395 with the --command (-x) option.
6396
6397 * Deprecated commands removed
6398
6399 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
6400 removed:
6401
6402 Command Replacement
6403 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
6404 othernames set arm disassembler
6405 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
6406 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
6407 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
6408 regs info registers
6409
6410 * New BSD user-level threads support
6411
6412 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
6413 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
6414 configurations are:
6415
6416 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
6417 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
6418 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
6419
6420 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
6421 are not yet supported.
6422
6423 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
6424 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
6425
6426 * REMOVED configurations and files
6427
6428 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
6429 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
6430 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
6431
6432 * New "set print array-indexes" command
6433
6434 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
6435 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
6436 behavior.
6437
6438 * VAX floating point support
6439
6440 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
6441
6442 * User-defined command support
6443
6444 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
6445 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
6446 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
6447
6448 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
6449
6450 * New command line option
6451
6452 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
6453 debugging.
6454
6455 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
6456
6457 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
6458 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
6459 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
6460 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
6461 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
6462
6463 * Internationalization
6464
6465 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
6466 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
6467 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
6468
6469 * Ada
6470
6471 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
6472 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
6473 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
6474
6475 * New native configurations
6476
6477 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
6478
6479 * Remote 'p' packet
6480
6481 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
6482 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
6483
6484 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
6485
6486 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
6487 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
6488 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
6489 i386 application).
6490
6491 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the registers[]
6492 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
6493 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
6494 configurations:
6495
6496 hppa-*-hpux
6497 ia64-*-aix
6498 mips-*-irix*
6499 *-*-lynx
6500 mips-*-linux-gnu
6501 sds protocol
6502 xdr protocol
6503 powerpc bdm protocol
6504
6505 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
6506 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
6507
6508 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6509
6510 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6511 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6512 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6513 permanently REMOVED.
6514
6515 h8300-*-*
6516 mcore-*-*
6517 mn10300-*-*
6518 ns32k-*-*
6519 sh64-*-*
6520 v850-*-*
6521
6522 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
6523
6524 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
6525
6526 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
6527 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
6528 been fixed.
6529
6530 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
6531
6532 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
6533 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
6534 IRIX long double values).
6535
6536 * VAX and "next"
6537
6538 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
6539 command. This problem has been fixed.
6540
6541 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
6542
6543 * Fix for ``many threads''
6544
6545 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
6546 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
6547 error message:
6548
6549 ptrace: No such process.
6550 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
6551
6552 This problem has been fixed.
6553
6554 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
6555
6556 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
6557 GDB to dump core).
6558
6559 * New ``start'' command.
6560
6561 This command runs the program until the beginning of the main procedure.
6562
6563 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
6564
6565 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
6566 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
6567 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
6568
6569 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
6570 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
6571 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
6572 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
6573 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
6574 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
6575 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
6576 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
6577 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
6578
6579 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
6580
6581 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
6582 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
6583 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
6584 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
6585 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
6586
6587 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
6588 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
6589 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
6590
6591 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
6592
6593 * New native configurations
6594
6595 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
6596 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
6597 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
6598 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
6599 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6600 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
6601 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6602
6603 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
6604
6605 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
6606 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
6607 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
6608 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
6609 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
6610 work, was also included.
6611
6612 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
6613 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
6614
6615 h8300-*-*
6616 mcore-*-*
6617 mn10300-*-*
6618 ns32k-*-*
6619 sh64-*-*
6620 v850-*-*
6621 xstormy16-*-*
6622
6623 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
6624 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
6625
6626 * REMOVED configurations and files
6627
6628 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
6629 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
6630 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
6631 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
6632 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
6633 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
6634 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
6635 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
6636 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
6637 sonymips mips-sony-*
6638 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
6639
6640 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
6641
6642 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
6643
6644 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
6645 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
6646 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
6647 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
6648 with GDB".
6649
6650 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
6651
6652 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
6653 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
6654 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
6655 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
6656 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
6657 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
6658 are created.
6659
6660 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
6661
6662 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
6663
6664 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
6665 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
6666 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
6667
6668 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
6669
6670 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
6671 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
6672
6673 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
6674
6675 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
6676 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
6677 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
6678
6679 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
6680
6681 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
6682 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
6683
6684 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
6685
6686 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
6687 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
6688 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
6689
6690 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
6691
6692 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
6693 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
6694 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
6695
6696 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
6697
6698 * Removed --with-mmalloc
6699
6700 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
6701 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
6702
6703 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
6704
6705 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
6706 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
6707 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
6708 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
6709
6710 * Revised SPARC target
6711
6712 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
6713 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
6714 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
6715 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
6716 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
6717
6718 * New C++ demangler
6719
6720 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
6721 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
6722 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
6723 programs.
6724
6725 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
6726
6727 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
6728 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
6729 encountered these.
6730
6731 * C++ nested types and namespaces
6732
6733 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
6734 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
6735 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
6736 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
6737 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
6738 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
6739 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
6740 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
6741 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
6742
6743 * New native configurations
6744
6745 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
6746 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
6747 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
6748 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
6749 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
6750
6751 * New debugging protocols
6752
6753 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
6754
6755 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
6756
6757 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
6758 and its very obscure effect on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
6759 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
6760
6761 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6762
6763 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6764 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6765 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6766 permanently REMOVED.
6767
6768 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
6769 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
6770 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
6771 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
6772 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
6773 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
6774 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
6775 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
6776 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
6777 sonymips mips-sony-*
6778 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
6779
6780 * REMOVED configurations and files
6781
6782 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
6783 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
6784 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6785 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6786 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6787 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
6788 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6789 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
6790 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
6791 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
6792 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
6793 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
6794 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
6795 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
6796 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
6797 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6798 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6799
6800 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
6801
6802 * Objective-C
6803
6804 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
6805 integrated into GDB.
6806
6807 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
6808
6809 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
6810 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
6811 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
6812 backtraces.
6813
6814 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
6815 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
6816 DWARF 2 CFI support.
6817
6818 * Hosted file I/O.
6819
6820 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
6821 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
6822 remote protocol documentation for details.
6823
6824 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
6825
6826 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
6827 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
6828 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
6829 ppc32 on ppc64).
6830
6831 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
6832
6833 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
6834 per-thread variables.
6835
6836 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
6837
6838 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
6839 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
6840
6841 * Separate debug info.
6842
6843 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
6844 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
6845 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
6846 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
6847 and optional debug files.
6848
6849 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
6850
6851 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
6852 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
6853 debugger.
6854
6855 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
6856 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
6857
6858 * Java
6859
6860 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
6861 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
6862 considered "useable".
6863
6864 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
6865
6866 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
6867 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
6868 kernel.
6869
6870 * GDB supports logging output to a file
6871
6872 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
6873 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
6874
6875 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
6876
6877 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
6878 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
6879 command.
6880
6881 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
6882
6883 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
6884 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
6885
6886 * Profiling support
6887
6888 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
6889 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
6890 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
6891 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
6892 data, for more informative profiling results.
6893
6894 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
6895
6896 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
6897 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
6898 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
6899
6900 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
6901 removed.
6902
6903 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
6904 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
6905 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
6906 in a subsequent -var-update.
6907
6908 * New native configurations.
6909
6910 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
6911
6912 * Multi-arched targets.
6913
6914 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
6915 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6916
6917 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6918
6919 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6920 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6921 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6922 permanently REMOVED.
6923
6924 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6925 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6926 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6927 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
6928 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6929 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
6930 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
6931 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
6932 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
6933 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
6934 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6935 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6936
6937 * REMOVED configurations and files
6938
6939 V850EA ISA
6940 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
6941 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
6942 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
6943 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
6944 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
6945 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
6946 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
6947 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
6948 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6949 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6950 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6951 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6952 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6953
6954 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
6955
6956 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
6957 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
6958 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
6959 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
6960 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
6961
6962 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
6963
6964 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
6965
6966 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
6967 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
6968 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
6969 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
6970 shared libs like mad''.
6971
6972 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6973
6974 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
6975 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
6976 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
6977 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6978
6979 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
6980
6981 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
6982 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
6983 they expand.
6984
6985 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
6986 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
6987
6988 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
6989 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
6990
6991 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
6992 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
6993 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
6994 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
6995
6996 * Multi-arched targets.
6997
6998 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
6999 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
7000 NEC V850 v850-*-*
7001 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
7002 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
7003 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
7004
7005 * New targets.
7006
7007 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
7008
7009
7010 * New native configurations
7011
7012 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
7013 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
7014 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
7015 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
7016
7017 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7018
7019 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7020 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7021 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7022 permanently REMOVED.
7023
7024 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
7025 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
7026 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7027 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7028 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7029 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
7030 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
7031 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
7032 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
7033 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
7034 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
7035 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
7036 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
7037
7038 * OBSOLETE languages
7039
7040 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
7041
7042 * REMOVED configurations and files
7043
7044 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
7045 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
7046 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7047 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7048 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7049
7050 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
7051
7052 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
7053
7054 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
7055 commands. The default is 1024.
7056
7057 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
7058
7059 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
7060
7061 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
7062
7063 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
7064 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
7065 from a file into memory (restore).
7066
7067 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
7068
7069 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
7070 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
7071 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
7072
7073 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
7074
7075 * New targets.
7076
7077 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
7078
7079 * Bug fixes
7080
7081 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
7082 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
7083 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
7084
7085 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
7086 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
7087 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
7088
7089 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
7090 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
7091 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
7092
7093 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
7094 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
7095 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
7096
7097 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
7098
7099 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
7100
7101 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
7102 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
7103 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
7104 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
7105 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
7106 (notably embedded) targets.
7107
7108 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
7109
7110 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
7111 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
7112 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
7113 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
7114
7115 * New command line option
7116
7117 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
7118
7119 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
7120
7121 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
7122 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
7123 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
7124 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
7125 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
7126 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
7127 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
7128 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
7129 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
7130 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
7131
7132 * Changes in ARM configurations.
7133
7134 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
7135 configuration is fully multi-arch.
7136
7137 * New native configurations
7138
7139 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
7140 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
7141 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
7142 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
7143
7144 * New targets
7145
7146 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
7147
7148 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7149
7150 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7151 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7152 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7153 permanently REMOVED.
7154
7155 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
7156 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
7157 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7158 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7159 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7160
7161 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
7162
7163 * REMOVED configurations and files
7164
7165 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7166 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7167 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
7168 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
7169 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
7170 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
7171 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
7172 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7173 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
7174 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
7175 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
7176 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
7177 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
7178
7179 * Changes to command line processing
7180
7181 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
7182 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
7183
7184 * Changes to key bindings
7185
7186 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
7187
7188 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
7189
7190 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
7191
7192 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
7193 corrupted.
7194
7195 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
7196
7197 Numerous documentation fixes.
7198
7199 Numerous testsuite fixes.
7200
7201 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
7202
7203 * New native configurations
7204
7205 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
7206 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
7207 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
7208 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
7209 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
7210 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
7211
7212 * New targets
7213
7214 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
7215 CRIS cris-axis
7216 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
7217
7218 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7219
7220 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
7221 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
7222 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
7223 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7224 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7225 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7226 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
7227 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
7228 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
7229 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
7230 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
7231 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
7232 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
7233 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
7234
7235 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
7236 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
7237
7238 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7239 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7240 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7241 permanently REMOVED.
7242
7243 * REMOVED configurations and files
7244
7245 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
7246 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
7247 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
7248 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
7249 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7250 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
7251
7252 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
7253
7254 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
7255 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
7256 present.
7257
7258 * Other news:
7259
7260 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
7261
7262 * The MI enabled by default.
7263
7264 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
7265 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
7266 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
7267 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
7268 which is now deprecated.
7269
7270 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
7271
7272 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
7273 main features are supported:
7274
7275 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
7276
7277 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
7278 extension;
7279
7280 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
7281
7282 - a Pascal expression parser.
7283
7284 However, some important features are not yet supported.
7285
7286 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
7287
7288 - there are some problems with boolean types;
7289
7290 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
7291 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
7292
7293 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
7294
7295 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
7296
7297 * Changes in completion.
7298
7299 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
7300 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
7301 users expect at the shell prompt.
7302
7303 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
7304 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
7305 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
7306 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
7307 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
7308 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
7309 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
7310
7311 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
7312
7313 * New platform-independent commands:
7314
7315 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
7316 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
7317 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
7318
7319 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
7320
7321 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
7322 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
7323 many threads as your system allows you to have.
7324
7325 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
7326
7327 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
7328 multi-threaded programs though.
7329
7330 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
7331
7332 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
7333
7334 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
7335 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
7336 supported.)
7337
7338 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
7339
7340 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
7341 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
7342 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
7343 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
7344 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
7345 registers.
7346
7347 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
7348 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
7349 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
7350
7351 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
7352
7353 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
7354 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
7355
7356 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
7357 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
7358 IDT.
7359
7360 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
7361 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
7362 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
7363 a given linear address.
7364
7365 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
7366 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
7367 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
7368
7369 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
7370
7371 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
7372
7373 * Changes in documentation.
7374
7375 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
7376 Documentation License.
7377
7378 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
7379 manual.
7380
7381 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
7382
7383 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
7384 manual.
7385
7386 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
7387 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
7388 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
7389
7390 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
7391
7392 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
7393 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
7394 contents of this file.
7395
7396 * gdba.el deleted
7397
7398 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
7399
7400 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7401
7402 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
7403
7404 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
7405 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
7406 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
7407 greater level of detail.
7408
7409 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
7410
7411 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
7412 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
7413 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
7414 written.
7415
7416 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
7417
7418 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
7419 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
7420 machines ``out of the box''.
7421
7422 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
7423 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
7424 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
7425 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
7426 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
7427
7428 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
7429 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
7430 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
7431 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
7432 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
7433
7434 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
7435 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
7436 also works.
7437
7438 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
7439 GDB.
7440
7441 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
7442 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
7443 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
7444 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
7445
7446 * New native configurations
7447
7448 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
7449 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
7450
7451 * New targets
7452
7453 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
7454 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
7455 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7456 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7457
7458 * OBSOLETE configurations
7459
7460 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
7461 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
7462 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
7463 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
7464 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7465
7466 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
7467 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
7468 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
7469 be permanently REMOVED.
7470
7471 * Gould support removed
7472
7473 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
7474
7475 * New features for SVR4
7476
7477 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
7478 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
7479 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
7480
7481 * Many C++ enhancements
7482
7483 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
7484 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
7485
7486 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
7487
7488 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
7489 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
7490 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
7491 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
7492
7493 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
7494 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
7495
7496 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
7497
7498 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
7499 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
7500 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
7501
7502 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
7503 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
7504
7505 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
7506
7507 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
7508 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
7509 include ``set remote P-packet''.
7510
7511 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
7512
7513 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
7514 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
7515 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
7516
7517 * ``apropos'' command added.
7518
7519 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
7520 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
7521 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
7522
7523 * New MI interface
7524
7525 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
7526 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7527 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
7528 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
7529 enabled by configuring with:
7530
7531 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
7532
7533 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
7534
7535 * New native configurations
7536
7537 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
7538 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
7539 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
7540
7541 * New targets
7542
7543 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7544 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
7545 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
7546
7547 * OBSOLETE configurations
7548
7549 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
7550
7551 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
7552 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
7553 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
7554 be permanently REMOVED.
7555
7556 * ANSI/ISO C
7557
7558 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
7559 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
7560 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
7561 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
7562 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
7563 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
7564 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
7565 already.
7566
7567 * Readline 2.2
7568
7569 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
7570
7571 * set extension-language
7572
7573 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
7574 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
7575 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
7576 set extension-language .c c++
7577 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
7578 and their associated languages.
7579
7580 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
7581
7582 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
7583 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
7584 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
7585
7586 set processor NAME
7587
7588 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
7589 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
7590
7591 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
7592 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
7593 403 IBM PowerPC 403
7594 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
7595 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
7596 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
7597 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
7598 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
7599 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
7600 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
7601 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
7602
7603 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
7604 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
7605 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
7606 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
7607
7608 * HP-UX support
7609
7610 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
7611 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
7612 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
7613 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
7614 for xdb and dbx commands.
7615
7616 * Catchpoints
7617
7618 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
7619 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
7620 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
7621
7622 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
7623 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
7624 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
7625
7626 * Debugging across forks
7627
7628 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
7629 in the inferior.
7630
7631 * TUI
7632
7633 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
7634 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
7635 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
7636
7637 * GDB remote protocol additions
7638
7639 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
7640 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
7641 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
7642 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
7643
7644 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
7645 full 64-bit address. The command
7646
7647 set remoteaddresssize 32
7648
7649 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
7650 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
7651 will be discarded.
7652
7653 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
7654 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
7655
7656 maint packet heythere
7657
7658 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
7659 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
7660 time.
7661
7662 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
7663 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
7664 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
7665
7666 * Tracing can collect general expressions
7667
7668 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
7669 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
7670 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
7671
7672 * mask-address variable for Mips
7673
7674 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
7675 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
7676 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
7677
7678 * Higher serial baud rates
7679
7680 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
7681 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
7682 to achieve all of these rates.)
7683
7684 * i960 simulator
7685
7686 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
7687 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
7688
7689
7690 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
7691
7692 * New native configurations
7693
7694 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
7695 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
7696 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
7697 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
7698 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
7699 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
7700 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
7701
7702 * New targets
7703
7704 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
7705 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
7706 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
7707 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
7708 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
7709 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
7710 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
7711 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
7712 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
7713 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
7714 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
7715
7716 * New debugging protocols
7717
7718 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
7719 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
7720 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
7721 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
7722 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
7723 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
7724
7725 * DWARF 2
7726
7727 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
7728 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
7729 information.
7730
7731 * Java frontend
7732
7733 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
7734 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
7735
7736 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
7737
7738 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
7739 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
7740 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
7741
7742 * Live range splitting
7743
7744 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
7745 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
7746 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
7747
7748 * Hurd support
7749
7750 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
7751 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
7752
7753 * ARM Thumb support
7754
7755 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
7756 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
7757 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
7758 accordingly.
7759
7760 * MIPS16 support
7761
7762 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
7763 instruction set.
7764
7765 * Overlay support
7766
7767 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
7768 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
7769 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
7770 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
7771 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
7772 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
7773
7774 * info symbol
7775
7776 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
7777 the symbol at the specified address.
7778
7779 * Trace support
7780
7781 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
7782 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
7783 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
7784 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
7785 file tracepoint.c for more details.
7786
7787 * MIPS simulator
7788
7789 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
7790 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
7791 of most MIPS variants.
7792
7793 * Sparc simulator
7794
7795 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
7796 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
7797 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
7798
7799 * set architecture
7800
7801 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
7802 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
7803 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
7804 the possible architectures.
7805
7806 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
7807
7808 * New native configurations
7809
7810 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
7811 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
7812 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
7813 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
7814 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
7815 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
7816
7817 * New targets
7818
7819 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
7820 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
7821 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
7822 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
7823 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
7824 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
7825 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
7826
7827 * PowerPC simulator
7828
7829 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
7830 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
7831 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
7832 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
7833 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
7834
7835 * Solaris 2.5
7836
7837 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
7838
7839 * Windows 95/NT native
7840
7841 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
7842 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
7843 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
7844 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
7845 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
7846
7847 * dont-repeat command
7848
7849 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
7850 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
7851 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
7852 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
7853
7854 * Send break instead of ^C
7855
7856 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
7857 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
7858 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
7859
7860 * Remote protocol timeout
7861
7862 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
7863 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
7864 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
7865
7866 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
7867
7868 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
7869 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
7870 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
7871 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
7872 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
7873
7874 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
7875 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
7876 automatically on hpux10.
7877
7878 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
7879
7880 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
7881
7882 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
7883
7884 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
7885 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
7886 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
7887 every character. The default value is 1050.
7888
7889 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
7890
7891 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
7892 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
7893 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
7894 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
7895 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
7896 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
7897
7898 * Speedups for remote debugging
7899
7900 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
7901 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
7902 and more efficient S-record downloading.
7903
7904 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
7905
7906 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
7907 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
7908
7909 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
7910
7911 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
7912
7913 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
7914 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
7915
7916 * Remote targets use caching
7917
7918 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
7919 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
7920 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
7921 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
7922 off' turns the data cache off.
7923
7924 * Remote targets may have threads
7925
7926 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
7927 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
7928 gdb/remote.c for details.
7929
7930 * NetROM support
7931
7932 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
7933 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
7934 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
7935 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
7936 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
7937 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
7938 sequence is something like
7939
7940 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
7941 load <prog>
7942 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
7943
7944 * Macintosh host
7945
7946 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
7947 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
7948 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
7949 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
7950 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
7951 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
7952 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
7953 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
7954
7955 * Autoconf
7956
7957 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
7958 but does simplify configuration and building.
7959
7960 * hpux10
7961
7962 GDB now supports hpux10.
7963
7964 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
7965
7966 * New native configurations
7967
7968 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
7969 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
7970 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
7971 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
7972
7973 * New targets
7974
7975 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
7976 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
7977 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
7978 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
7979 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7980
7981 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
7982
7983 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
7984 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
7985 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
7986 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
7987 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
7988
7989 * Arguments to user-defined commands
7990
7991 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
7992 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
7993 trivial example:
7994 define adder
7995 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
7996
7997 To execute the command use:
7998 adder 1 2 3
7999
8000 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
8001 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
8002 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
8003
8004 * New `if' and `while' commands
8005
8006 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
8007 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
8008 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
8009 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
8010 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
8011 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
8012 if the expression is zero.
8013
8014 * Fortran source language mode
8015
8016 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
8017 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
8018 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
8019 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
8020 Fortran compilers.
8021
8022 * Better HPUX support
8023
8024 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
8025 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
8026 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
8027 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
8028 that behavior do the following before running the program:
8029
8030 adb -w a.out
8031 __dld_flags?W 0x5
8032 control-d
8033
8034 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
8035 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
8036
8037 adb -w a.out
8038 __dld_flags?W 0x4
8039 control-d
8040
8041 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
8042 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
8043 external linkage.
8044
8045 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
8046 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
8047
8048 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
8049
8050 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
8051 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
8052 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
8053 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
8054 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
8055 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
8056
8057 * New DOS host serial code
8058
8059 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
8060 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
8061 a PC's serial port.
8062
8063 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
8064
8065 * New "complete" command
8066
8067 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
8068 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
8069
8070 * Trailing space optional in prompt
8071
8072 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
8073 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
8074
8075 * Breakpoint hit counts
8076
8077 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
8078 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
8079 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
8080 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
8081 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
8082 that breakpoint.
8083
8084 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
8085
8086 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
8087 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
8088 arrays actually contain only short strings.
8089
8090 * Shared library breakpoints
8091
8092 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
8093 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
8094
8095 * Hardware watchpoints
8096
8097 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
8098 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
8099
8100 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
8101
8102 * Annotations
8103
8104 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
8105 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
8106
8107 * Improved Irix 5 support
8108
8109 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
8110
8111 * Improved HPPA support
8112
8113 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
8114
8115 * New native configurations
8116
8117 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
8118 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
8119 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
8120 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
8121
8122 * New targets
8123
8124 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
8125 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
8126 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
8127
8128 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
8129
8130 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
8131 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
8132
8133 * Fixes
8134
8135 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
8136 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
8137
8138 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
8139
8140 * Irix 5 is now supported
8141
8142 * HPPA support
8143
8144 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
8145 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
8146 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
8147 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
8148 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
8149
8150
8151 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
8152
8153 * User visible changes:
8154
8155 * Remote Debugging
8156
8157 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
8158 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
8159 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
8160 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
8161 debugging info for the mips target).
8162
8163 * DEC Alpha native support
8164
8165 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
8166 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
8167 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
8168 Alpha-specific notes.
8169
8170 * Preliminary thread implementation
8171
8172 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
8173
8174 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
8175
8176 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
8177 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
8178 for details).
8179
8180 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
8181
8182 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
8183 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
8184 call methods, ...etc.
8185
8186 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
8187
8188 * User visible changes:
8189
8190 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
8191 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
8192 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
8193 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
8194
8195 Filename completion now works.
8196
8197 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
8198 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
8199 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
8200
8201 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
8202 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
8203 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
8204 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
8205 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
8206
8207 * DEC alpha support
8208
8209 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
8210 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
8211
8212
8213 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
8214
8215 * Testsuite
8216
8217 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
8218 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
8219 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
8220
8221 * C++ demangling
8222
8223 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
8224 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
8225 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
8226 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
8227 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
8228
8229 * Simulators
8230
8231 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
8232 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
8233 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
8234
8235 * New targets supported
8236
8237 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
8238 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
8239 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
8240 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
8241 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
8242
8243 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
8244 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
8245 GO32 memory extender.
8246
8247 * New remote protocols
8248
8249 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
8250
8251 * New source languages supported
8252
8253 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
8254 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
8255 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
8256
8257
8258 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
8259
8260 * HP Precision Architecture supported
8261
8262 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
8263 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
8264 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
8265 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
8266 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
8267 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
8268
8269 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
8270
8271 * Faster and better demangling
8272
8273 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
8274 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
8275 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
8276 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
8277 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
8278 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
8279 symbol lookups.
8280
8281 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
8282 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
8283 compiler does not actually implement.
8284
8285 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
8286
8287 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
8288 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
8289 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
8290 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
8291 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
8292 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
8293 fix.
8294
8295 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
8296 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
8297
8298 * Improved configure script
8299
8300 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
8301 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
8302 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
8303 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
8304
8305 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
8306 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
8307 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
8308 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
8309 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
8310 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
8311
8312 * Documentation improvements
8313
8314 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
8315 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
8316 before submitting changes.
8317
8318 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
8319 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
8320 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
8321 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
8322 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
8323
8324 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
8325 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
8326 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
8327 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
8328 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
8329 around this problem.
8330
8331 * New features
8332
8333 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
8334 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
8335 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
8336 the target program.
8337
8338 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
8339 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
8340
8341 * New native hosts supported
8342
8343 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
8344 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
8345
8346 * New targets supported
8347
8348 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
8349
8350 * New file formats supported
8351
8352 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
8353 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
8354
8355 * Major bug fixes
8356
8357 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
8358
8359 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
8360 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
8361
8362 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
8363 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
8364 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
8365
8366 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
8367 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
8368
8369 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
8370 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
8371 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
8372 libraries.
8373
8374 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
8375 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
8376 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
8377 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
8378 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
8379
8380 * Internal improvements
8381
8382 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
8383 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
8384
8385 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
8386 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
8387 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
8388 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
8389 shared code that handles any of them.
8390
8391 * New command line options
8392
8393 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
8394
8395 * Mmalloc licensing
8396
8397 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
8398 General Public License.
8399
8400 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
8401
8402 * Host/native/target split
8403
8404 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
8405 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
8406 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
8407 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
8408 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
8409
8410 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
8411 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
8412 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
8413 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
8414 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
8415 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
8416 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
8417
8418 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
8419 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
8420 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
8421
8422 * New hosts supported
8423
8424 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
8425 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
8426 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
8427
8428 * New targets supported
8429
8430 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
8431 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
8432
8433 * New native hosts supported
8434
8435 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
8436 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
8437 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
8438
8439 * New file formats supported
8440
8441 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
8442 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
8443 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
8444
8445 * New commands
8446
8447 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
8448 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
8449 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
8450
8451 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
8452
8453 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
8454 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
8455 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
8456 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
8457
8458 * C++ improvements
8459
8460 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
8461 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
8462 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
8463
8464 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
8465
8466 * Major bug fixes
8467
8468 The crash that occurred when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
8469 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
8470 by the compiler.
8471
8472 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
8473 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
8474
8475 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
8476 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
8477 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
8478 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
8479 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
8480 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
8481
8482 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
8483 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
8484 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
8485 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
8486
8487 * AMD 29k support
8488
8489 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
8490 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
8491 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
8492 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
8493 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
8494
8495 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
8496 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
8497 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
8498 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
8499
8500 * Remote interfaces
8501
8502 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
8503 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
8504 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
8505 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
8506 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
8507 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
8508 each instruction being stepped through.
8509
8510 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
8511 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
8512
8513 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
8514 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
8515 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
8516 processor with a serial port.
8517
8518 * Configuration
8519
8520 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
8521 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
8522 supported, and what files each one uses.
8523
8524 * Library changes
8525
8526 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
8527 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
8528 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
8529 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
8530
8531 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
8532 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
8533 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
8534 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
8535
8536 * Documentation
8537
8538 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
8539 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
8540 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
8541 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
8542 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
8543 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
8544
8545 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
8546
8547
8548 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
8549
8550 * Better support for C++ function names
8551
8552 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
8553 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
8554 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
8555 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
8556 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
8557
8558 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
8559 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
8560 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
8561 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
8562 for the list of formats.
8563
8564 * G++ symbol mangling problem
8565
8566 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
8567 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
8568 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
8569 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compiling gdb/symtab.c. The
8570 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
8571 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
8572 this problem.)
8573
8574 * New 'maintenance' command
8575
8576 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
8577 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
8578 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
8579
8580 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
8581 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
8582 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
8583 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
8584 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
8585 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
8586
8587 The following commands are new:
8588
8589 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
8590 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
8591 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
8592
8593 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
8594
8595 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
8596 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
8597 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
8598 read after argv processing.
8599
8600 * New hosts supported
8601
8602 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
8603
8604 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
8605
8606 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
8607 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
8608 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
8609 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
8610 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
8611 It costs extra.
8612
8613 * New targets supported
8614
8615 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
8616
8617 * More smarts about finding #include files
8618
8619 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
8620 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
8621 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
8622 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
8623 the one that contains your sources.
8624
8625 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
8626 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
8627 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
8628
8629 * Interesting infernals change
8630
8631 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
8632 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
8633 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
8634 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
8635
8636 * Bug fixes (of course!)
8637
8638 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
8639 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
8640 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
8641
8642 See the ChangeLog for details.
8643
8644 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
8645
8646 * New machines supported (host and target)
8647
8648 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
8649
8650 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
8651
8652 * New malloc package
8653
8654 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
8655 Mmalloc is capable of handling multiple heaps of memory. It is also
8656 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
8657 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
8658 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
8659 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
8660
8661 * info proc
8662
8663 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
8664 'help info proc' for details.
8665
8666 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
8667
8668 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
8669 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
8670 possible.
8671
8672 * File name changes for MS-DOS
8673
8674 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
8675 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
8676 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
8677 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
8678 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
8679 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
8680
8681 * Cross byte order fixes
8682
8683 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
8684 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
8685
8686 * New -mapped and -readnow options
8687
8688 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
8689 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
8690 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
8691 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
8692 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
8693 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
8694 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
8695 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
8696 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
8697 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
8698
8699 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
8700 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
8701 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
8702 slower, but makes future operations faster.
8703
8704 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
8705 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
8706 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
8707 use is:
8708
8709 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
8710
8711 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
8712 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
8713 shared across multiple host platforms.
8714
8715 * longjmp() handling
8716
8717 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
8718 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
8719 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
8720 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
8721
8722 * Solaris 2.0
8723
8724 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
8725 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
8726 reading symbols.
8727
8728 * Bug fixes
8729
8730 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
8731 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
8732 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
8733
8734 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
8735
8736 * New machines supported (host and target)
8737
8738 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
8739 (except core files)
8740 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
8741 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
8742
8743 * New machines supported (target)
8744
8745 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
8746
8747 * C++ support
8748
8749 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
8750 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
8751 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
8752
8753 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
8754 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
8755 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
8756 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
8757 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
8758 released.
8759
8760 * New features for SVR4
8761
8762 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
8763 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
8764 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
8765
8766 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
8767 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
8768 it prints the address mappings of the process.
8769
8770 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
8771 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
8772
8773 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
8774
8775 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
8776 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
8777 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
8778 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
8779 same code linked statically.
8780
8781 * New Getopt
8782
8783 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
8784 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
8785 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
8786 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
8787 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
8788 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
8789
8790 * Bugs fixed
8791
8792 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
8793 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
8794 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
8795
8796
8797 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
8798
8799 * New machines supported (host and target)
8800
8801 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
8802 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
8803 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
8804
8805 * Almost SCO Unix support
8806
8807 We had hoped to support:
8808 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
8809 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
8810 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
8811 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
8812
8813 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
8814
8815 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
8816 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
8817 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
8818 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
8819 reqired (if any).
8820
8821 * New Readline
8822
8823 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
8824 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
8825 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
8826
8827 * Bugs fixed
8828
8829 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
8830 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
8831 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
8832
8833 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
8834
8835 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
8836 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
8837 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
8838
8839 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
8840 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
8841 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
8842 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
8843 version 2.
8844
8845 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
8846 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
8847 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
8848 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
8849 situation somewhat.
8850
8851 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
8852 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
8853 methods.
8854
8855 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
8856 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
8857 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
8858
8859
8860 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
8861
8862 * Improved configuration
8863
8864 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
8865 Porting BFD is simpler.
8866
8867 * Stepping improved
8868
8869 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
8870 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
8871 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
8872 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
8873
8874 * Bug fixing
8875
8876 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
8877
8878 * New host supported (not target)
8879
8880 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
8881
8882
8883 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
8884
8885 * Multiple source language support
8886
8887 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
8888 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
8889 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
8890 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
8891 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
8892 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
8893
8894 * GDB and Modula-2
8895
8896 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
8897 currently under development at the State University of New York at
8898 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
8899 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
8900
8901 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
8902 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
8903 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
8904
8905 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
8906 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
8907
8908 * set write on/off
8909
8910 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
8911 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
8912 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
8913 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
8914 effect immediately.
8915
8916 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
8917
8918 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
8919 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
8920 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
8921 examining core files.
8922
8923 * set listsize
8924
8925 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
8926 The default is 10.
8927
8928 * New machines supported (host and target)
8929
8930 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
8931 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
8932 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
8933
8934 * New hosts supported (not targets)
8935
8936 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
8937
8938 * New targets supported (not hosts)
8939
8940 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
8941 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
8942 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
8943
8944 * New remote interfaces
8945
8946 AMD 29000 Adapt
8947 AMD 29000 Minimon
8948
8949
8950 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
8951
8952 * New Facilities
8953
8954 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
8955
8956 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
8957 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
8958 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
8959 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
8960 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
8961 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
8962 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
8963 stub on the target system.
8964
8965 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
8966
8967 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
8968 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
8969 object file types such as a.out and coff.
8970
8971 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
8972 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
8973
8974
8975 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
8976
8977 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
8978 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
8979
8980 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
8981 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
8982 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
8983
8984 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
8985 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
8986 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
8987 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
8988
8989 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
8990 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
8991 it is already running. Default is ON.
8992
8993 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
8994 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
8995 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
8996 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
8997 Default is ON.
8998
8999 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
9000 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
9001 or the value of the environment variable
9002 GDBHISTFILE.
9003
9004 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
9005 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
9006 HISTSIZE.
9007
9008 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
9009 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
9010 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
9011
9012 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
9013 history expansion will be performed on
9014 command line input. The default is OFF.
9015
9016 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
9017 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
9018 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
9019
9020 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
9021 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
9022 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
9023 variable TERM.
9024
9025 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
9026 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
9027 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
9028 variable TERM.
9029
9030 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
9031 ``set width'' instead.
9032
9033 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
9034 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
9035 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
9036 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
9037
9038 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
9039 is OFF.
9040
9041 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
9042 "raw" form if off.
9043
9044 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
9045 like instructions.
9046
9047 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
9048
9049
9050 * Support for Epoch Environment.
9051
9052 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
9053 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
9054 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
9055 window.
9056
9057
9058 * Support for Shared Libraries
9059
9060 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
9061 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
9062 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
9063 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
9064 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
9065 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
9066 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
9067 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
9068
9069 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
9070 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
9071 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
9072
9073 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
9074
9075
9076 * Watchpoints
9077
9078 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
9079 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
9080 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
9081 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
9082 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
9083 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
9084
9085 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
9086
9087 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
9088
9089 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
9090 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
9091 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
9092
9093
9094 * C++ multiple inheritance
9095
9096 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
9097 for C++ programs.
9098
9099 * C++ exception handling
9100
9101 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
9102 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
9103 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
9104 handler's context).
9105
9106 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
9107 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
9108 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
9109
9110 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
9111 current stack frame.
9112
9113
9114 * Minor command changes
9115
9116 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
9117 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
9118 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
9119
9120 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
9121 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
9122 frames without printing.
9123
9124 * New directory command
9125
9126 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
9127 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
9128 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
9129 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
9130 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
9131
9132 * Configuring GDB for compilation
9133
9134 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
9135 for more details.
9136
9137 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
9138 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
9139 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
9140 where the program that you are debugging will run.