dee0ac2ecd8727f84f55d358702bd354d01c4f58
[binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 12
5
6 * GDB now supports dumping memory tag data for AArch64 MTE. It also supports
7 reading memory tag data for AArch64 MTE from core files generated by
8 the gcore command or the Linux kernel.
9
10 When a process uses memory-mapped pages protected by memory tags (for
11 example, AArch64 MTE), this additional information will be recorded in
12 the core file in the event of a crash or if GDB generates a core file
13 from the current process state. GDB will show this additional information
14 automatically, or through one of the memory-tag subcommands.
15
16 * "info breakpoints" now displays enabled breakpoint locations of
17 disabled breakpoints as in the "y-" state. For example:
18
19 (gdb) info breakpoints
20 Num Type Disp Enb Address What
21 1 breakpoint keep n <MULTIPLE>
22 1.1 y- 0x00000000000011b6 in ...
23 1.2 y- 0x00000000000011c2 in ...
24 1.3 n 0x00000000000011ce in ...
25
26 * Support for Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on FreeBSD arm and
27 aarch64 architectures.
28
29 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on FreeBSD/Aarch64.
30
31 * Remove support for building against Python 2, it is now only possible to
32 build GDB against Python 3.
33
34 * DBX mode has been removed.
35
36 * GDB now honours the DWARF prologue_end line-table entry flag the compiler can
37 emit to indicate where a breakpoint should be placed to break in a function
38 past its prologue.
39
40 * Completion now also offers "NUMBER" for "set" commands that accept
41 a numeric argument and the "unlimited" keyword. For example:
42
43 (gdb) set width <TAB>
44 NUMBER unlimited
45
46 and consequently:
47
48 (gdb) complete set width
49 set width NUMBER
50 set width unlimited
51
52 * Disassembler styling using libopcodes. GDB now supports
53 disassembler styling using libopcodes. This is only available for
54 some targets (currently x86 and RISC-V). For unsupported targets
55 Python Pygments is still used. For supported targets, libopcodes
56 styling is used by default.
57
58 * The Windows native target now supports target async.
59
60 * New commands
61
62 maintenance set ignore-prologue-end-flag on|off
63 maintenance show ignore-prologue-end-flag
64 This setting, which is off by default, controls whether GDB ignores the
65 PROLOGUE-END flag from the line-table when skipping prologue. This can be
66 used to force GDB to use prologue analyzers if the line-table is constructed
67 from erroneous debug information.
68
69 set print nibbles [on|off]
70 show print nibbles
71 This controls whether the 'print/t' command will display binary values
72 in groups of four bits, known as "nibbles". The default is 'off'.
73
74 maintenance set libopcodes-styling on|off
75 maintenance show libopcodes-styling
76 These can be used to force off libopcodes based styling, the Python
77 Pygments styling will then be used instead.
78
79 set style disassembler comment
80 show style disassembler comment
81 set style disassembler immediate
82 show style disassembler immediate
83 set style disassembler mnemonic
84 show style disassembler mnemonic
85 set style disassembler register
86 show style disassembler register
87 set style disassembler address
88 show style disassembler address
89 set style disassembler symbol
90 show style disassembler symbol
91 For targets that support libopcodes based styling, these settings
92 control how various aspects of the disassembler output are styled.
93 The 'disassembler address' and 'disassembler symbol' styles are
94 aliases for the 'address' and 'function' styles respectively.
95
96 maintenance print frame-id [ LEVEL ]
97 Print GDB's internal frame-id for the frame at LEVEL. If LEVEL is
98 not given, then print the frame-id for the currently selected frame.
99
100 * Changed commands
101
102 document user-defined
103 It is now possible to document user-defined aliases.
104 When a user-defined alias is documented, the help and apropos commands
105 use the provided documentation instead of the documentation of the
106 aliased command.
107 Documenting a user-defined alias is particularly useful when the alias
108 is a set of nested 'with' commands to avoid showing the help of
109 the with command for an alias that will in fact launch the
110 last command given in the nested commands.
111
112 maintenance info line-table
113 Add a PROLOGUE-END column to the output which indicates that an
114 entry corresponds to an address where a breakpoint should be placed
115 to be at the first instruction past a function's prologue.
116
117 * New targets
118
119 GNU/Linux/LoongArch (gdbserver) loongarch*-*-linux*
120
121 * Python API
122
123 ** GDB will now reformat the doc string for gdb.Command and
124 gdb.Parameter sub-classes to remove unnecessary leading
125 whitespace from each line before using the string as the help
126 output.
127
128 ** New function gdb.format_address(ADDRESS, PROGSPACE, ARCHITECTURE),
129 that formats ADDRESS as 'address <symbol+offset>', where symbol is
130 looked up in PROGSPACE, and ARCHITECTURE is used to format address.
131 This is the same format that GDB uses when printing address, symbol,
132 and offset information from the disassembler.
133
134 ** New function gdb.current_language that returns the name of the
135 current language. Unlike gdb.parameter('language'), this will
136 never return 'auto'.
137
138 ** New method gdb.Frame.language that returns the name of the
139 frame's language.
140
141 ** New Python API for wrapping GDB's disassembler:
142
143 - gdb.disassembler.register_disassembler(DISASSEMBLER, ARCH).
144 DISASSEMBLER is a sub-class of gdb.disassembler.Disassembler.
145 ARCH is either None or a string containing a bfd architecture
146 name. DISASSEMBLER is registered as a disassembler for
147 architecture ARCH, or for all architectures if ARCH is None.
148 The previous disassembler registered for ARCH is returned, this
149 can be None if no previous disassembler was registered.
150
151 - gdb.disassembler.Disassembler is the class from which all
152 disassemblers should inherit. Its constructor takes a string,
153 a name for the disassembler, which is currently only used in
154 some debug output. Sub-classes should override the __call__
155 method to perform disassembly, invoking __call__ on this base
156 class will raise an exception.
157
158 - gdb.disassembler.DisassembleInfo is the class used to describe
159 a single disassembly request from GDB. An instance of this
160 class is passed to the __call__ method of
161 gdb.disassembler.Disassembler and has the following read-only
162 attributes: 'address', and 'architecture', as well as the
163 following method: 'read_memory'.
164
165 - gdb.disassembler.builtin_disassemble(INFO, MEMORY_SOURCE),
166 calls GDB's builtin disassembler on INFO, which is a
167 gdb.disassembler.DisassembleInfo object. MEMORY_SOURCE is
168 optional, its default value is None. If MEMORY_SOURCE is not
169 None then it must be an object that has a 'read_memory' method.
170
171 - gdb.disassembler.DisassemblerResult is a class that can be used
172 to wrap the result of a call to a Disassembler. It has
173 read-only attributes 'length' and 'string'.
174
175 ** gdb.Objfile now has an attribute named "is_file". This is True
176 if the objfile comes from a file, and False otherwise.
177
178 ** New function gdb.print_options that returns a dictionary of the
179 prevailing print options, in the form accepted by
180 gdb.Value.format_string.
181
182 ** gdb.Value.format_string now uses the format provided by 'print',
183 if it is called during a 'print' or other similar operation.
184
185 ** gdb.Value.format_string now accepts the 'summary' keyword. This
186 can be used to request a shorter representation of a value, the
187 way that 'set print frame-arguments scalars' does.
188
189 ** New Python type gdb.BreakpointLocation.
190 The new attribute 'locations' of gdb.Breakpoint returns a list of
191 gdb.BreakpointLocation objects specifying the locations where the
192 breakpoint is inserted into the debuggee.
193
194 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
195
196 ** GDBserver is now supported on LoongArch GNU/Linux.
197
198 * LoongArch floating-point support
199
200 GDB now supports floating-point on LoongArch GNU/Linux.
201
202 *** Changes in GDB 12
203
204 * DBX mode is deprecated, and will be removed in GDB 13
205
206 * GDB 12 is the last release of GDB that will support building against
207 Python 2. From GDB 13, it will only be possible to build GDB itself
208 with Python 3 support.
209
210 * The disable-randomization setting now works on Windows.
211
212 * Improved C++ template support
213
214 GDB now treats functions/types involving C++ templates like it does function
215 overloads. Users may omit parameter lists to set breakpoints on families of
216 template functions, including types/functions composed of multiple template types:
217
218 (gdb) break template_func(template_1, int)
219
220 The above will set breakpoints at every function `template_func' where
221 the first function parameter is any template type named `template_1' and
222 the second function parameter is `int'.
223
224 TAB completion also gains similar improvements.
225
226 * The FreeBSD native target now supports async mode.
227
228 * Configure changes
229
230 --enable-threading
231
232 Enable or disable multithreaded symbol loading. This is enabled
233 by default, but passing --disable-threading or --enable-threading=no
234 to configure will disable it.
235
236 Disabling this can cause a performance penalty when there are a lot of
237 symbols to load, but is useful for debugging purposes.
238
239 * New commands
240
241 maint set backtrace-on-fatal-signal on|off
242 maint show backtrace-on-fatal-signal
243 This setting is 'on' by default. When 'on' GDB will print a limited
244 backtrace to stderr in the situation where GDB terminates with a
245 fatal signal. This only supported on some platforms where the
246 backtrace and backtrace_symbols_fd functions are available.
247
248 set source open on|off
249 show source open
250 This setting, which is on by default, controls whether GDB will try
251 to open source code files. Switching this off will stop GDB trying
252 to open and read source code files, which can be useful if the files
253 are located over a slow network connection.
254
255 set varsize-limit
256 show varsize-limit
257 These are now deprecated aliases for "set max-value-size" and
258 "show max-value-size".
259
260 task apply [all | TASK-IDS...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
261 Like "thread apply", but applies COMMAND to Ada tasks.
262
263 watch [...] task ID
264 Watchpoints can now be restricted to a specific Ada task.
265
266 maint set internal-error backtrace on|off
267 maint show internal-error backtrace
268 maint set internal-warning backtrace on|off
269 maint show internal-warning backtrace
270 GDB can now print a backtrace of itself when it encounters either an
271 internal-error, or an internal-warning. This is on by default for
272 internal-error and off by default for internal-warning.
273
274 set logging on|off
275 Deprecated and replaced by "set logging enabled on|off".
276
277 set logging enabled on|off
278 show logging enabled
279 These commands set or show whether logging is enabled or disabled.
280
281 exit
282 You can now exit GDB by using the new command "exit", in addition to
283 the existing "quit" command.
284
285 set debug threads on|off
286 show debug threads
287 Print additional debug messages about thread creation and deletion.
288
289 set debug linux-nat on|off
290 show debug linux-nat
291 These new commands replaced the old 'set debug lin-lwp' and 'show
292 debug lin-lwp' respectively. Turning this setting on prints debug
293 messages relating to GDB's handling of native Linux inferiors.
294
295 maint flush source-cache
296 Flush the contents of the source code cache.
297
298 maint set gnu-source-highlight enabled on|off
299 maint show gnu-source-highlight enabled
300 Whether GDB should use the GNU Source Highlight library for adding
301 styling to source code. When off, the library will not be used, even
302 when available. When GNU Source Highlight isn't used, or can't add
303 styling to a particular source file, then the Python Pygments
304 library will be used instead.
305
306 set suppress-cli-notifications (on|off)
307 show suppress-cli-notifications
308 This controls whether printing the notifications is suppressed for CLI.
309 CLI notifications occur when you change the selected context
310 (i.e., the current inferior, thread and/or the frame), or when
311 the program being debugged stops (e.g., because of hitting a
312 breakpoint, completing source-stepping, an interrupt, etc.).
313
314 set style disassembler enabled on|off
315 show style disassembler enabled
316 If GDB is compiled with Python support, and the Python Pygments
317 package is available, then, when this setting is on, disassembler
318 output will have styling applied.
319
320 set ada source-charset
321 show ada source-charset
322 Set the character set encoding that is assumed for Ada symbols. Valid
323 values for this follow the values that can be passed to the GNAT
324 compiler via the '-gnati' option. The default is ISO-8859-1.
325
326 tui layout
327 tui focus
328 tui refresh
329 tui window height
330 These are the new names for the old 'layout', 'focus', 'refresh',
331 and 'winheight' tui commands respectively. The old names still
332 exist as aliases to these new commands.
333
334 tui window width
335 winwidth
336 The new command 'tui window width', and the alias 'winwidth' allow
337 the width of a tui window to be adjusted when windows are laid out
338 in horizontal mode.
339
340 set debug tui on|off
341 show debug tui
342 Control the display of debug output about GDB's tui.
343
344 * Changed commands
345
346 print
347 Printing of floating-point values with base-modifying formats like
348 /x has been changed to display the underlying bytes of the value in
349 the desired base. This was GDB's documented behavior, but was never
350 implemented correctly.
351
352 maint packet
353 This command can now print a reply, if the reply includes
354 non-printable characters. Any non-printable characters are printed
355 as escaped hex, e.g. \x?? where '??' is replaces with the value of
356 the non-printable character.
357
358 clone-inferior
359 The clone-inferior command now ensures that the TTY, CMD and ARGS
360 settings are copied from the original inferior to the new one.
361 All modifications to the environment variables done using the 'set
362 environment' or 'unset environment' commands are also copied to the new
363 inferior.
364
365 set debug lin-lwp on|off
366 show debug lin-lwp
367 These commands have been removed from GDB. The new command 'set
368 debug linux-nat' and 'show debug linux-nat' should be used
369 instead.
370
371 info win
372 This command now includes information about the width of the tui
373 windows in its output.
374
375 layout
376 focus
377 refresh
378 winheight
379 These commands are now aliases for the 'tui layout', 'tui focus',
380 'tui refresh', and 'tui window height' commands respectively.
381
382 * GDB's Ada parser now supports an extension for specifying the exact
383 byte contents of a floating-point literal. This can be useful for
384 setting floating-point registers to a precise value without loss of
385 precision. The syntax is an extension of the based literal syntax.
386 Use, e.g., "16lf#0123abcd#" -- the number of "l"s controls the width
387 of the floating-point type, and the "f" is the marker for floating
388 point.
389
390 * MI changes
391
392 ** The '-add-inferior' with no option flags now inherits the
393 connection of the current inferior, this restores the behaviour of
394 GDB as it was prior to GDB 10.
395
396 ** The '-add-inferior' command now accepts a '--no-connection'
397 option, which causes the new inferior to start without a
398 connection.
399
400 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 4 (-i=mi4).
401
402 ** The "script" field in breakpoint output (which is syntactically
403 incorrect in MI 3 and below) has changed in MI 4 to become a list.
404 This affects the following commands and events:
405
406 - -break-insert
407 - -break-info
408 - =breakpoint-created
409 - =breakpoint-modified
410
411 The -fix-breakpoint-script-output command can be used to enable
412 this behavior with previous MI versions.
413
414 * New targets
415
416 GNU/Linux/LoongArch loongarch*-*-linux*
417
418 * Removed targets
419
420 S+core score-*-*
421
422 * Python API
423
424 ** New function gdb.add_history(), which takes a gdb.Value object
425 and adds the value it represents to GDB's history list. An
426 integer, the index of the new item in the history list, is
427 returned.
428
429 ** New function gdb.history_count(), which returns the number of
430 values in GDB's value history.
431
432 ** New gdb.events.gdb_exiting event. This event is called with a
433 gdb.GdbExitingEvent object which has the read-only attribute
434 'exit_code', which contains the value of the GDB exit code. This
435 event is triggered once GDB decides it is going to exit, but
436 before GDB starts to clean up its internal state.
437
438 ** New function gdb.architecture_names(), which returns a list
439 containing all of the possible Architecture.name() values. Each
440 entry is a string.
441
442 ** New function gdb.Architecture.integer_type(), which returns an
443 integer type given a size and a signed-ness.
444
445 ** New gdb.TargetConnection object type that represents a connection
446 (as displayed by the 'info connections' command). A sub-class,
447 gdb.RemoteTargetConnection, is used to represent 'remote' and
448 'extended-remote' connections.
449
450 ** The gdb.Inferior type now has a 'connection' property which is an
451 instance of gdb.TargetConnection, the connection used by this
452 inferior. This can be None if the inferior has no connection.
453
454 ** New 'gdb.events.connection_removed' event registry, which emits a
455 'gdb.ConnectionEvent' when a connection is removed from GDB.
456 This event has a 'connection' property, a gdb.TargetConnection
457 object for the connection being removed.
458
459 ** New gdb.connections() function that returns a list of all
460 currently active connections.
461
462 ** New gdb.RemoteTargetConnection.send_packet(PACKET) method. This
463 is equivalent to the existing 'maint packet' CLI command; it
464 allows a user specified packet to be sent to the remote target.
465
466 ** New function gdb.host_charset(), returns a string, which is the
467 name of the current host charset.
468
469 ** New gdb.set_parameter(NAME, VALUE). This sets the gdb parameter
470 NAME to VALUE.
471
472 ** New gdb.with_parameter(NAME, VALUE). This returns a context
473 manager that temporarily sets the gdb parameter NAME to VALUE,
474 then resets it when the context is exited.
475
476 ** The gdb.Value.format_string method now takes a 'styling'
477 argument, which is a boolean. When true, the returned string can
478 include escape sequences to apply styling. The styling will only
479 be present if styling is otherwise turned on in GDB (see 'help
480 set styling'). When false, which is the default if the argument
481 is not given, then no styling is applied to the returned string.
482
483 ** New read-only attribute gdb.InferiorThread.details, which is
484 either a string, containing additional, target specific thread
485 state information, or None, if there is no such additional
486 information.
487
488 ** New read-only attribute gdb.Type.is_scalar, which is True for
489 scalar types, and False for all other types.
490
491 ** New read-only attribute gdb.Type.is_signed. This attribute
492 should only be read when Type.is_scalar is True, and will be True
493 for signed types, and False for all other types. Attempting to
494 read this attribute for non-scalar types will raise a ValueError.
495
496 ** It is now possible to add GDB/MI commands implemented in Python.
497
498 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
499
500 ** GDBserver is now supported on OpenRISC GNU/Linux.
501
502 * New native configurations
503
504 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
505
506 *** Changes in GDB 11
507
508 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
509 for the ARC target.
510
511 * GDB now supports general memory tagging functionality if the underlying
512 architecture supports the proper primitives and hooks. Currently this is
513 enabled only for AArch64 MTE.
514
515 This includes:
516
517 - Additional information when the inferior crashes with a SIGSEGV caused by
518 a memory tag violation.
519
520 - A new modifier 'm' for the "x" command, which displays allocation tags for a
521 particular memory range.
522
523 - Display of memory tag mismatches by "print", for addresses and
524 pointers, if memory tagging is supported by the architecture.
525
526 * Building GDB now requires GMP (The GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic
527 Library).
528
529 * MI changes
530
531 ** '-break-insert --qualified' and '-dprintf-insert --qualified'
532
533 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
534 new "--qualified" option that makes GDB interpret a specified
535 function name as a complete fully-qualified name. This is the
536 equivalent of the CLI's "break -qualified" and "dprintf
537 -qualified".
538
539 ** '-break-insert --force-condition' and '-dprintf-insert --force-condition'
540
541 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
542 '--force-condition' flag to forcibly define a condition even when
543 the condition is invalid at all locations of the breakpoint. This
544 is equivalent to the '-force-condition' flag of the CLI's "break"
545 command.
546
547 ** '-break-condition --force'
548
549 The MI -break-condition command now supports a '--force' flag to
550 forcibly define a condition even when the condition is invalid at
551 all locations of the selected breakpoint. This is equivalent to
552 the '-force' flag of the CLI's "cond" command.
553
554 ** '-file-list-exec-source-files [--group-by-objfile]
555 [--basename | --dirname]
556 [--] [REGEXP]'
557
558 The existing -file-list-exec-source-files command now takes an
559 optional REGEXP which is used to filter the source files that are
560 included in the results.
561
562 By default REGEXP is matched against the full filename of the
563 source file. When one of --basename or --dirname is given then
564 REGEXP is only matched against the specified part of the full
565 source filename.
566
567 When the optional --group-by-objfile flag is used the output
568 format is changed, the results are now a list of object files
569 (executable and libraries) with the source files that are
570 associated with each object file.
571
572 The results from -file-list-exec-source-files now include a
573 'debug-fully-read' field which takes the value 'true' or 'false'.
574 A 'true' value indicates the source file is from a compilation
575 unit that has had its debug information fully read in by GDB, a
576 value of 'false' indicates GDB has only performed a partial scan
577 of the debug information so far.
578
579 * GDB now supports core file debugging for x86_64 Cygwin programs.
580
581 * GDB will now look for the .gdbinit file in a config directory before
582 looking for ~/.gdbinit. The file is searched for in the following
583 locations: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.config/gdb/gdbinit,
584 $HOME/.gdbinit. On Apple hosts the search order is instead:
585 $HOME/Library/Preferences/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.gdbinit.
586
587 * GDB now supports fixed point types which are described in DWARF
588 as base types with a fixed-point encoding. Additionally, support
589 for the DW_AT_GNU_numerator and DW_AT_GNU_denominator has also
590 been added.
591
592 For Ada, this allows support for fixed point types without requiring
593 the use of the GNAT encoding (based on information added to the type's
594 name following a GNAT-specific format).
595
596 * GDB will now load and process commands from ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit
597 or ~/.gdbearlyinit if these files are present. These files are
598 processed earlier than any of the other initialization files and
599 can affect parts of GDB's startup that previously had already been
600 completed before the initialization files were read, for example
601 styling of the initial GDB greeting.
602
603 * GDB now has two new options "--early-init-command" and
604 "--early-init-eval-command" with corresponding short options "-eix"
605 and "-eiex" that allow options (that would normally appear in a
606 gdbearlyinit file) to be passed on the command line.
607
608 * For RISC-V targets, the target feature "org.gnu.gdb.riscv.vector" is
609 now understood by GDB, and can be used to describe the vector
610 registers of a target. The precise requirements of this register
611 feature are documented in the GDB manual.
612
613 * For ARM targets, the "org.gnu.gdb.arm.m-profile-mve" feature is now
614 supported by GDB and describes a new VPR register from the ARM MVE
615 (Helium) extension. See the GDB manual for more information.
616
617 * TUI improvements
618
619 ** TUI windows now support mouse actions. The mouse wheel scrolls
620 the appropriate window.
621
622 ** Key combinations that do not have a specific action on the
623 focused window are passed to GDB. For example, you now can use
624 Ctrl-Left/Ctrl-Right to move between words in the command window
625 regardless of which window is in focus. Previously you would
626 need to focus on the command window for such key combinations to
627 work.
628
629 * New commands
630
631 set debug event-loop
632 show debug event-loop
633 Control the display of debug output about GDB's event loop.
634
635 set print memory-tag-violations
636 show print memory-tag-violations
637 Control whether to display additional information about memory tag violations
638 when printing pointers and addresses. Architecture support for memory
639 tagging is required for this option to have an effect.
640
641 maintenance flush symbol-cache
642 maintenance flush register-cache
643 These new commands are equivalent to the already existing commands
644 'maintenance flush-symbol-cache' and 'flushregs' respectively.
645
646 maintenance flush dcache
647 A new command to flush the dcache.
648
649 maintenance info target-sections
650 Print GDB's internal target sections table.
651
652 maintenance info jit
653 Print the JIT code objects in the inferior known to GDB.
654
655 memory-tag show-logical-tag POINTER
656 Print the logical tag for POINTER.
657 memory-tag with-logical-tag POINTER TAG
658 Print POINTER with logical tag TAG.
659 memory-tag show-allocation-tag ADDRESS
660 Print the allocation tag for ADDRESS.
661 memory-tag set-allocation-tag ADDRESS LENGTH TAGS
662 Set the allocation tag for [ADDRESS, ADDRESS + LENGTH) to TAGS.
663 memory-tag check POINTER
664 Validate that POINTER's logical tag matches the allocation tag.
665
666 set startup-quietly on|off
667 show startup-quietly
668 When 'on', this causes GDB to act as if "-silent" were passed on the
669 command line. This command needs to be added to an early
670 initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to
671 affect GDB.
672
673 set print type hex on|off
674 show print type hex
675 When 'on', the 'ptype' command uses hexadecimal notation to print sizes
676 and offsets of struct members. When 'off', decimal notation is used.
677
678 set python ignore-environment on|off
679 show python ignore-environment
680 When 'on', this causes GDB's builtin Python to ignore any
681 environment variables that would otherwise affect how Python
682 behaves. This command needs to be added to an early initialization
683 file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to affect GDB.
684
685 set python dont-write-bytecode auto|on|off
686 show python dont-write-bytecode
687 When 'on', this causes GDB's builtin Python to not write any
688 byte-code (.pyc files) to disk. This command needs to be added to
689 an early initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in
690 order to affect GDB. When 'off' byte-code will always be written.
691 When set to 'auto' (the default) Python will check the
692 PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE environment variable.
693
694 * Changed commands
695
696 break [PROBE_MODIFIER] [LOCATION] [thread THREADNUM]
697 [-force-condition] [if CONDITION]
698 This command would previously refuse setting a breakpoint if the
699 CONDITION expression is invalid at a location. It now accepts and
700 defines the breakpoint if there is at least one location at which
701 the CONDITION is valid. The locations for which the CONDITION is
702 invalid, are automatically disabled. If CONDITION is invalid at all
703 of the locations, setting the breakpoint is still rejected. However,
704 the '-force-condition' flag can be used in this case for forcing GDB to
705 define the breakpoint, making all the current locations automatically
706 disabled. This may be useful if the user knows the condition will
707 become meaningful at a future location, e.g. due to a shared library
708 load.
709
710 condition [-force] N COND
711 The behavior of this command is changed the same way for the 'break'
712 command as explained above. The '-force' flag can be used to force
713 GDB into defining the condition even when COND is invalid for all the
714 current locations of breakpoint N.
715
716 flushregs
717 maintenance flush-symbol-cache
718 These commands are deprecated in favor of the new commands
719 'maintenance flush register-cache' and 'maintenance flush
720 symbol-cache' respectively.
721
722 set style version foreground COLOR
723 set style version background COLOR
724 set style version intensity VALUE
725 Control the styling of GDB's version number text.
726
727 inferior [ID]
728 When the ID parameter is omitted, then this command prints information
729 about the current inferior. When the ID parameter is present, the
730 behavior of the command is unchanged and have the inferior ID become
731 the current inferior.
732
733 maintenance info sections
734 The ALLOBJ keyword has been replaced with an -all-objects command
735 line flag. It is now possible to filter which sections are printed
736 even when -all-objects is passed.
737
738 ptype[/FLAGS] TYPE | EXPRESSION
739 The 'ptype' command has two new flags. When '/x' is set, hexadecimal
740 notation is used when printing sizes and offsets of struct members.
741 When '/d' is set, decimal notation is used when printing sizes and
742 offsets of struct members. Default behavior is given by 'show print
743 type hex'.
744
745 info sources
746 The info sources command output has been restructured. The results
747 are now based around a list of objfiles (executable and libraries),
748 and for each objfile the source files that are part of that objfile
749 are listed.
750
751 * Removed targets and native configurations
752
753 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
754
755 * New remote packets
756
757 qMemTags
758 Request the remote to send allocation tags for a particular memory range.
759 QMemTags
760 Request the remote to store the specified allocation tags to the requested
761 memory range.
762
763 * Guile API
764
765 ** Improved support for rvalue reference values:
766 TYPE_CODE_RVALUE_REF is now exported as part of the API and the
767 value-referenced-value procedure now handles rvalue reference
768 values.
769
770 ** New procedures for obtaining value variants:
771 value-reference-value, value-rvalue-reference-value and
772 value-const-value.
773
774 ** Temporary breakpoints can now be created with make-breakpoint and
775 tested for using breakpoint-temporary?.
776
777 * Python API
778
779 ** Inferior objects now contain a read-only 'connection_num' attribute that
780 gives the connection number as seen in 'info connections' and
781 'info inferiors'.
782
783 ** New method gdb.Frame.level() which returns the stack level of the
784 frame object.
785
786 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.level() which returns the stack level
787 of the frame object.
788
789 ** When hitting a catchpoint, the Python API will now emit a
790 gdb.BreakpointEvent rather than a gdb.StopEvent. The
791 gdb.Breakpoint attached to the event will have type BP_CATCHPOINT.
792
793 ** Python TUI windows can now receive mouse click events. If the
794 Window object implements the click method, it is called for each
795 mouse click event in this window.
796
797 *** Changes in GDB 10
798
799 * There are new feature names for ARC targets: "org.gnu.gdb.arc.core"
800 and "org.gnu.gdb.arc.aux". The old names are still supported but
801 must be considered obsolete. They will be deprecated after some
802 grace period.
803
804 * Help and apropos commands will now show the documentation of a
805 command only once, even if that command has one or more aliases.
806 These commands now show the command name, then all of its aliases,
807 and finally the description of the command.
808
809 * 'help aliases' now shows only the user defined aliases. GDB predefined
810 aliases are shown together with their aliased command.
811
812 * GDB now supports debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF
813 debugging information as well as source code.
814
815 When built with debuginfod, GDB can automatically query debuginfod
816 servers for the separate debug files and source code of the executable
817 being debugged.
818
819 To build GDB with debuginfod, pass --with-debuginfod to configure (this
820 requires libdebuginfod, the debuginfod client library).
821
822 debuginfod is distributed with elfutils, starting with version 0.178.
823
824 You can get the latest version from https://sourceware.org/elfutils.
825
826 * Multi-target debugging support
827
828 GDB now supports debugging multiple target connections
829 simultaneously. For example, you can now have each inferior
830 connected to different remote servers running in different machines,
831 or have one inferior debugging a local native process, an inferior
832 debugging a core dump, etc.
833
834 This support is experimental and comes with some limitations -- you
835 can only resume multiple targets simultaneously if all targets
836 support non-stop mode, and all remote stubs or servers must support
837 the same set of remote protocol features exactly. See also "info
838 connections" and "add-inferior -no-connection" below, and "maint set
839 target-non-stop" in the user manual.
840
841 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
842
843 ** GDBserver is now supported on ARC GNU/Linux.
844
845 ** GDBserver is now supported on RISC-V GNU/Linux.
846
847 ** GDBserver no longer supports these host triplets:
848
849 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
850 powerpc-*-lynxos*
851 i[34567]86-*-nto*
852 bfin-*-*linux*
853 crisv32-*-linux*
854 cris-*-linux*
855 m32r*-*-linux*
856 tilegx-*-linux*
857 arm*-*-mingw32ce*
858 i[34567]86-*-mingw32ce*
859
860 * Debugging MS-Windows processes now sets $_exitsignal when the
861 inferior is terminated by a signal, instead of setting $_exitcode.
862
863 * Multithreaded symbol loading has now been enabled by default on systems
864 that support it (see entry for GDB 9, below), providing faster
865 performance for programs with many symbols.
866
867 * The $_siginfo convenience variable now also works on Windows targets,
868 and will display the EXCEPTION_RECORD of the last handled exception.
869
870 * TUI windows can now be arranged horizontally.
871
872 * The command history filename can now be set to the empty string
873 either using 'set history filename' or by setting 'GDBHISTFILE=' in
874 the environment. The effect of setting this filename to the empty
875 string is that GDB will not try to load any previous command
876 history.
877
878 * On Windows targets, it is now possible to debug 32-bit programs with a
879 64-bit GDB.
880
881 * New commands
882
883 set exec-file-mismatch -- Set exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
884 show exec-file-mismatch -- Show exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
885 Set or show the option 'exec-file-mismatch'. When GDB attaches to a
886 running process, this new option indicates whether to detect
887 a mismatch between the current executable file loaded by GDB and the
888 executable file used to start the process. If 'ask', the default,
889 display a warning and ask the user whether to load the process
890 executable file; if 'warn', just display a warning; if 'off', don't
891 attempt to detect a mismatch.
892
893 tui new-layout NAME WINDOW WEIGHT [WINDOW WEIGHT]...
894 Define a new TUI layout, specifying its name and the windows that
895 will be displayed.
896
897 maintenance print xml-tdesc [FILE]
898 Prints the current target description as an XML document. If the
899 optional FILE is provided (which is an XML target description) then
900 the target description is read from FILE into GDB, and then
901 reprinted.
902
903 maintenance print core-file-backed-mappings
904 Prints file-backed mappings loaded from a core file's note section.
905 Output is expected to be similar to that of "info proc mappings".
906
907 set debug fortran-array-slicing on|off
908 show debug fortran-array-slicing
909 Print debugging when taking slices of Fortran arrays.
910
911 set fortran repack-array-slices on|off
912 show fortran repack-array-slices
913 When taking slices from Fortran arrays and strings, if the slice is
914 non-contiguous within the original value then, when this option is
915 on, the new value will be repacked into a single contiguous value.
916 When this option is off, then the value returned will consist of a
917 descriptor that describes the slice within the memory of the
918 original parent value.
919
920 * Changed commands
921
922 alias [-a] [--] ALIAS = COMMAND [DEFAULT-ARGS...]
923 The alias command can now specify default args for an alias.
924 GDB automatically prepends the alias default args to the argument list
925 provided explicitly by the user.
926 For example, to have a backtrace with full details, you can define
927 an alias 'bt_ALL' as
928 'alias bt_ALL = backtrace -entry-values both -frame-arg all
929 -past-main -past-entry -full'.
930 Alias default arguments can also use a set of nested 'with' commands,
931 e.g. 'alias pp10 = with print pretty -- with print elem 10 -- print'
932 defines the alias pp10 that will pretty print a maximum of 10 elements
933 of the given expression (if the expression is an array).
934
935 * New targets
936
937 GNU/Linux/RISC-V (gdbserver) riscv*-*-linux*
938 BPF bpf-unknown-none
939 Z80 z80-unknown-*
940
941 * Python API
942
943 ** gdb.register_window_type can be used to implement new TUI windows
944 in Python.
945
946 ** Dynamic types can now be queried. gdb.Type has a new attribute,
947 "dynamic", and gdb.Type.sizeof can be None for a dynamic type. A
948 field of a dynamic type may have None for its "bitpos" attribute
949 as well.
950
951 ** Commands written in Python can be in the "TUI" help class by
952 registering with the new constant gdb.COMMAND_TUI.
953
954 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.architecture () to retrieve the
955 architecture of the pending frame.
956
957 ** New gdb.Architecture.registers method that returns a
958 gdb.RegisterDescriptorIterator object, an iterator that returns
959 gdb.RegisterDescriptor objects. The new RegisterDescriptor is a
960 way to query the registers available for an architecture.
961
962 ** New gdb.Architecture.register_groups method that returns a
963 gdb.RegisterGroupIterator object, an iterator that returns
964 gdb.RegisterGroup objects. The new RegisterGroup is a way to
965 discover the available register groups.
966
967 * Guile API
968
969 ** GDB can now be built with GNU Guile 3.0 and 2.2 in addition to 2.0.
970
971 ** Procedures 'memory-port-read-buffer-size',
972 'set-memory-port-read-buffer-size!', 'memory-port-write-buffer-size',
973 and 'set-memory-port-write-buffer-size!' are deprecated. When
974 using Guile 2.2 and later, users who need to control the size of
975 a memory port's internal buffer can use the 'setvbuf' procedure.
976
977 *** Changes in GDB 9
978
979 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
980
981 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
982 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
983 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
984 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
985 such as in system-wide init files.
986
987 * New built-in convenience functions $_gdb_setting, $_gdb_setting_str,
988 $_gdb_maint_setting and $_gdb_maint_setting_str provide access to values
989 of the GDB settings and the GDB maintenance settings. They are handy
990 for changing the logic of user defined commands depending on the
991 current GDB settings.
992
993 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
994 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
995 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
996 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
997
998 * Support for Pointer Authentication (PAC) on AArch64 Linux. Return
999 addresses that required unmasking are shown in the backtrace with the
1000 postfix [PAC].
1001
1002 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
1003 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
1004
1005 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
1006 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
1007 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
1008
1009 * The command define-prefix can now define user defined prefix commands.
1010 User defined commands can now be defined using these user defined prefix
1011 commands.
1012
1013 * Command names can now use the . character.
1014
1015 * The RX port now supports XML target descriptions.
1016
1017 * GDB now shows the Ada task names at more places, e.g. in task switching
1018 messages.
1019
1020 * GDB can now be compiled with Python 3 on Windows.
1021
1022 * New convenience variable $_ada_exception holds the address of the
1023 Ada exception being thrown. This is set by Ada-related catchpoints.
1024
1025 * GDB can now place breakpoints on nested functions and subroutines in
1026 Fortran code. The '::' operator can be used between parent and
1027 child scopes when placing breakpoints, for example:
1028
1029 (gdb) break outer_function::inner_function
1030
1031 The 'outer_function::' prefix is only needed if 'inner_function' is
1032 not visible in the current scope.
1033
1034 * In addition to the system-wide gdbinit file, if configured with
1035 --with-system-gdbinit-dir, GDB will now also load files in that directory
1036 as system gdbinit files, unless the -nx or -n flag is provided. Files
1037 with extensions .gdb, .py and .scm are supported as long as GDB was
1038 compiled with support for that language.
1039
1040 * GDB now supports multithreaded symbol loading for higher performance.
1041 This feature is still in testing, so it is disabled by default. You
1042 can turn it on using 'maint set worker-threads unlimited'.
1043
1044 * Python API
1045
1046 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
1047 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
1048 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
1049 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
1050 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
1051
1052 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
1053 type was defined in.
1054
1055 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
1056 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
1057 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
1058 is given.
1059
1060 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
1061 symbols with static linkage.
1062
1063 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbols can be used to look up
1064 all static symbols with static linkage.
1065
1066 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
1067 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
1068
1069 ** gdb.Block now supports the dictionary syntax for accessing symbols in
1070 this block (e.g. block['local_variable']).
1071
1072 * New commands
1073
1074 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
1075 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
1076 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
1077 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
1078 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
1079 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
1080 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
1081
1082 define-prefix COMMAND
1083 Define or mark a command as a user-defined prefix command.
1084
1085 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
1086 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
1087 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
1088 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
1089 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
1090 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
1091 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
1092 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
1093 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
1094 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
1095 of array elements to print.
1096
1097 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
1098 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
1099
1100 set may-call-functions [on|off]
1101 show may-call-functions
1102 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
1103 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
1104 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
1105 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
1106 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
1107 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
1108 in the program.
1109
1110 set print finish [on|off]
1111 show print finish
1112 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
1113 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
1114 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
1115 default is `on'.
1116
1117 set print max-depth
1118 show print max-depth
1119 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
1120 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
1121 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
1122 the old behavior back.
1123
1124 set print raw-values [on|off]
1125 show print raw-values
1126 By default, GDB applies the enabled pretty printers when printing a
1127 value. This allows to ignore the enabled pretty printers for a series
1128 of commands. The default is 'off'.
1129
1130 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
1131 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
1132 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
1133
1134 set style title foreground COLOR
1135 set style title background COLOR
1136 set style title intensity VALUE
1137 Control the styling of titles.
1138
1139 set style highlight foreground COLOR
1140 set style highlight background COLOR
1141 set style highlight intensity VALUE
1142 Control the styling of highlightings.
1143
1144 maint set worker-threads
1145 maint show worker-threads
1146 Control the number of worker threads that can be used by GDB. The
1147 default is 0. "unlimited" lets GDB choose a number that is
1148 reasonable. Currently worker threads are only used when demangling
1149 the names of linker symbols.
1150
1151 set style tui-border foreground COLOR
1152 set style tui-border background COLOR
1153 Control the styling of TUI borders.
1154
1155 set style tui-active-border foreground COLOR
1156 set style tui-active-border background COLOR
1157 Control the styling of the active TUI border.
1158
1159 maint set test-settings KIND
1160 maint show test-settings KIND
1161 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
1162 infrastructure.
1163
1164 maint set tui-resize-message [on|off]
1165 maint show tui-resize-message
1166 Control whether GDB prints a message each time the terminal is
1167 resized when in TUI mode. This is primarily useful for testing the
1168 TUI.
1169
1170 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
1171 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
1172 show print frame-info
1173 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
1174 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
1175 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
1176 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
1177
1178 set tui compact-source
1179 show tui compact-source
1180
1181 Enable the "compact" display mode for the TUI source window. The
1182 compact display uses only as much space as is needed for the line
1183 numbers in the current file, and only a single space to separate the
1184 line numbers from the source.
1185
1186 info modules [-q] [REGEXP]
1187 Return a list of Fortran modules matching REGEXP, or all modules if
1188 no REGEXP is given.
1189
1190 info module functions [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
1191 Return a list of functions within all modules, grouped by module.
1192 The list of functions can be restricted with the optional regular
1193 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
1194 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the function type signature, and REGEXP
1195 matches against the function name.
1196
1197 info module variables [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
1198 Return a list of variables within all modules, grouped by module.
1199 The list of variables can be restricted with the optional regular
1200 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
1201 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the variable type, and REGEXP matches
1202 against the variable name.
1203
1204 set debug remote-packet-max-chars
1205 show debug remote-packet-max-chars
1206 Controls the number of characters to output in a remote packet when using
1207 "set debug remote".
1208 The default is 512 bytes.
1209
1210 info connections
1211 Lists the target connections currently in use.
1212
1213 * Changed commands
1214
1215 help
1216 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
1217 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
1218 command names.
1219
1220 apropos [-v] REGEXP
1221 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
1222 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
1223 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
1224 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
1225 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
1226
1227 printf
1228 eval
1229 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
1230 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
1231 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
1232 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
1233
1234 info sources [-dirname | -basename] [--] [REGEXP]
1235 This command has now optional arguments to only print the files
1236 whose names match REGEXP. The arguments -dirname and -basename
1237 allow to restrict matching respectively to the dirname and basename
1238 parts of the files.
1239
1240 show style
1241 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
1242 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
1243 the user visualize the different styles.
1244
1245 set print frame-arguments
1246 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
1247 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
1248
1249 set print raw-frame-arguments
1250 show print raw-frame-arguments
1251
1252 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
1253 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
1254 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
1255 release.
1256
1257 add-inferior [-no-connection]
1258 The add-inferior command now supports a "-no-connection" flag that
1259 makes the new inferior start with no target connection associated.
1260 By default, the new inferior inherits the target connection of the
1261 current inferior. See also "info connections".
1262
1263 info inferior
1264 This command's output now includes a new "Connection" column
1265 indicating which target connection an inferior is bound to. See
1266 "info connections" above.
1267
1268 maint test-options require-delimiter
1269 maint test-options unknown-is-error
1270 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
1271 maint show test-options-completion-result
1272 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
1273 framework.
1274
1275 focus, winheight, +, -, >, <
1276 These commands are now case-sensitive.
1277
1278 * New command options, command completion
1279
1280 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
1281 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
1282 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
1283 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
1284 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
1285 number of commands got support for new command options in this
1286 release:
1287
1288 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
1289 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
1290 set by "set print" subcommands:
1291
1292 -address [on|off]
1293 -array [on|off]
1294 -array-indexes [on|off]
1295 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
1296 -null-stop [on|off]
1297 -object [on|off]
1298 -pretty [on|off]
1299 -raw-values [on|off]
1300 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
1301 -static-members [on|off]
1302 -symbol [on|off]
1303 -union [on|off]
1304 -vtbl [on|off]
1305
1306 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
1307 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
1308 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
1309 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
1310
1311 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
1312 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
1313 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
1314
1315 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
1316 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
1317 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
1318 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
1319 |location-and-address|short-location
1320 -past-main [on|off]
1321 -past-entry [on|off]
1322
1323 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
1324 exposed as command options too:
1325
1326 -full
1327 -no-filters
1328 -hide
1329
1330 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
1331 support the following options:
1332
1333 -past-main [on|off]
1334 -past-entry [on|off]
1335
1336 ** The new "info sources" options -dirname and -basename options
1337 are using the standard '-OPT' infrastructure.
1338
1339 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
1340 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
1341 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
1342 like for example:
1343
1344 (gdb) p -ra -p -o 0 -- *myptr
1345
1346 The above is equivalent to:
1347
1348 (gdb) print -raw-values -pretty -object off -- *myptr
1349
1350 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
1351 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
1352 variables" and "info functions".
1353
1354 ** The "info variables", "info functions", and "whereis" commands
1355 now take a '-n' flag that excludes non-debug symbols (symbols
1356 from the symbol table, not from the debug info such as DWARF)
1357 from the results.
1358
1359 * Completion improvements
1360
1361 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
1362 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
1363 abbreviated.
1364
1365 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
1366 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
1367 commands.
1368
1369 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
1370 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
1371 completes on filenames.
1372
1373 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
1374 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
1375
1376 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
1377
1378 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
1379 elements unlimited".
1380
1381 * New MI commands
1382
1383 -complete
1384 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1385 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
1386 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
1387
1388 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
1389 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
1390 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
1391
1392 -symbol-info-functions, -symbol-info-types, and -symbol-info-variables
1393 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
1394 functions', 'info types', and 'info variables' respectively.
1395
1396 -symbol-info-modules, this is the MI equivalent of the CLI 'info
1397 modules' command.
1398
1399 -symbol-info-module-functions and -symbol-info-module-variables.
1400 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
1401 module functions' and 'info module variables'.
1402
1403 * Other MI changes
1404
1405 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
1406
1407 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
1408 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
1409 the following commands and events:
1410
1411 - -break-insert
1412 - -break-info
1413 - =breakpoint-created
1414 - =breakpoint-modified
1415
1416 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
1417 this behavior with previous MI versions.
1418
1419 ** Backtraces and frames include a new optional field addr_flags which is
1420 given after the addr field. On AArch64 this contains PAC if the address
1421 has been masked in the frame. On all other targets the field is not
1422 present.
1423
1424 * Testsuite
1425
1426 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
1427 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
1428 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
1429 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
1430
1431 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.82.
1432
1433 Using another implementation of the make program or an earlier version of
1434 GNU make to build GDB or GDBserver is not supported.
1435
1436 * Building GDB now requires GNU readline >= 7.0.
1437
1438 GDB now bundles GNU readline 8.0, but if you choose to use
1439 --with-system-readline, only readline >= 7.0 can be used.
1440
1441 * The TUI SingleKey keymap is now named "SingleKey". This can be used
1442 from .inputrc to bind keys in this keymap. This feature is only
1443 available when gdb is built against GNU readline 8.0 or later.
1444
1445 * Removed targets and native configurations
1446
1447 GDB no longer supports debugging the Cell Broadband Engine. This includes
1448 both debugging standalone Cell/B.E. SPU applications and integrated debugging
1449 of Cell/B.E. applications that use both the PPU and SPU architectures.
1450
1451 * New Simulators
1452
1453 TI PRU pru-*-elf
1454
1455 * Removed targets and native configurations
1456
1457 Solaris 10 i?86-*-solaris2.10, x86_64-*-solaris2.10,
1458 sparc*-*-solaris2.10
1459
1460 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
1461
1462 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
1463 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
1464 HTM registers.
1465
1466 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
1467 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
1468 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
1469 and operators.
1470
1471 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
1472 (the C++ plug-in).
1473
1474 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
1475 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
1476 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
1477
1478 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
1479 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
1480
1481 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
1482 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1483 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1484 in the GDB user manual.
1485
1486 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
1487 executed failed.
1488
1489 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
1490
1491 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
1492 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
1493 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
1494 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
1495 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
1496 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
1497 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
1498 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
1499 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
1500 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
1501 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
1502 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
1503
1504 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
1505 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
1506 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
1507 information.
1508
1509 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
1510 lucid.
1511
1512 * New commands
1513
1514 set debug compile-cplus-types
1515 show debug compile-cplus-types
1516 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
1517 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiling
1518 for other languages.
1519
1520 set debug skip
1521 show debug skip
1522 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
1523 displayed.
1524
1525 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
1526 Apply a command to some frames.
1527 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
1528 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
1529
1530 taas COMMAND
1531 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
1532 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
1533
1534 faas COMMAND
1535 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
1536 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
1537
1538 tfaas COMMAND
1539 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
1540 output).
1541 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
1542
1543 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
1544 maint show dwarf unwinders
1545 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
1546
1547 info proc files
1548 Display a list of open files for a process.
1549
1550 * Changed commands
1551
1552 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
1553 These commands all now take a frame specification which
1554 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
1555 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
1556 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
1557 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
1558 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
1559
1560 target remote FILENAME
1561 target extended-remote FILENAME
1562 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
1563 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
1564
1565 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
1566 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
1567 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
1568 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
1569 These commands can now print only the searched entities
1570 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
1571 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
1572 printing headers or informations messages.
1573
1574 info functions
1575 info types
1576 info variables
1577 rbreak
1578 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
1579 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
1580 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
1581 the shown entities.
1582
1583 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
1584 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
1585 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
1586 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
1587
1588 set tui tab-width NCHARS
1589 show tui tab-width NCHARS
1590 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
1591
1592 set style enabled [on|off]
1593 show style enabled
1594 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
1595 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
1596
1597 set style sources [on|off]
1598 show style sources
1599 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
1600 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
1601 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
1602
1603 set style filename foreground COLOR
1604 set style filename background COLOR
1605 set style filename intensity VALUE
1606 Control the styling of file names.
1607
1608 set style function foreground COLOR
1609 set style function background COLOR
1610 set style function intensity VALUE
1611 Control the styling of function names.
1612
1613 set style variable foreground COLOR
1614 set style variable background COLOR
1615 set style variable intensity VALUE
1616 Control the styling of variable names.
1617
1618 set style address foreground COLOR
1619 set style address background COLOR
1620 set style address intensity VALUE
1621 Control the styling of addresses.
1622
1623 * MI changes
1624
1625 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
1626 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
1627 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
1628 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
1629 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
1630
1631 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
1632 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
1633
1634 * New native configurations
1635
1636 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
1637 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
1638
1639 * New targets
1640
1641 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
1642 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
1643 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
1644 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
1645 NXP S12Z s12z-*-elf
1646 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
1647
1648 * Removed targets
1649
1650 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
1651 before Windows XP.
1652
1653 * Python API
1654
1655 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
1656
1657 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
1658 space associated to that inferior.
1659
1660 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
1661 of objfiles associated to that program space.
1662
1663 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
1664 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
1665 the gdb core.
1666
1667 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
1668 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
1669 correct and did not work properly.
1670
1671 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
1672 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
1673
1674 * Configure changes
1675
1676 --enable-ubsan
1677
1678 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
1679 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
1680 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
1681 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
1682 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
1683
1684 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
1685
1686 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
1687 for the MIPS target.
1688
1689 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
1690 offset to all sections.
1691
1692 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
1693 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
1694 address of individual sections using '-s'.
1695
1696 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
1697 (address of the text section).
1698
1699 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
1700 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
1701 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
1702 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
1703 default.
1704
1705 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
1706 for the rest of the current command.
1707
1708 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
1709 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
1710
1711 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
1712 files created on FreeBSD systems.
1713
1714 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
1715 alignof.
1716
1717 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
1718 the vector length while the process is running.
1719
1720 * New commands
1721
1722 set debug fbsd-nat
1723 show debug fbsd-nat
1724 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
1725
1726 set|show varsize-limit
1727 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
1728 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
1729 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
1730
1731 set|show record btrace cpu
1732 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
1733 branch trace decode.
1734
1735 maint check libthread-db
1736 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
1737 library
1738
1739 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
1740 maint show check-libthread-db
1741 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
1742 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
1743 perform such checks.
1744
1745 * Python API
1746
1747 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
1748
1749 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
1750 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
1751
1752 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
1753
1754 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
1755 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
1756 of convenience variables.
1757
1758 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
1759 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
1760 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
1761
1762 * New targets
1763
1764 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
1765
1766 * Removed targets and native configurations
1767
1768 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
1769 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
1770 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
1771 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
1772
1773 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
1774
1775 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
1776 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
1777 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
1778 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
1779 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
1780 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
1781 reported.
1782
1783 * Configure changes
1784
1785 --enable-codesign=CERT
1786 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
1787 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
1788 gdb to work properly.
1789
1790 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
1791 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
1792
1793 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
1794
1795 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
1796 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
1797 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
1798
1799 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
1800 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
1801
1802 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
1803 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
1804 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
1805 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
1806 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
1807
1808 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
1809 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
1810 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
1811 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
1812
1813 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
1814 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
1815
1816 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
1817 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
1818 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
1819
1820 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
1821 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
1822 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
1823
1824 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
1825 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
1826 environment" command.
1827
1828 * Completion improvements
1829
1830 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
1831 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
1832 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
1833 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
1834 correctly:
1835
1836 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
1837 (gdb) b function(int)
1838
1839 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
1840 C++ anonymous namespaces:
1841
1842 (gdb) b (anon[TAB]
1843 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
1844 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
1845 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
1846
1847 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
1848 completion support, that better understands what you're
1849 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
1850 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
1851 setting a breakpoint.
1852
1853 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
1854
1855 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
1856
1857 * New command line options (gcore)
1858
1859 -a
1860 Dump all memory mappings.
1861
1862 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
1863
1864 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
1865 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
1866 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
1867
1868 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
1869
1870 A::B::func()
1871 B::func()
1872
1873 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
1874 on both symbols.
1875
1876 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
1877 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
1878 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
1879 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
1880 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
1881 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
1882 a breakpoint from Python.
1883
1884 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1885
1886 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1887 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
1888 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
1889
1890 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
1891
1892 function[abi:cxx11](int)
1893 ^^^^^^^^^^^
1894
1895 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
1896 no tag, like:
1897
1898 (gdb) b function(int)
1899
1900 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
1901
1902 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
1903
1904 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
1905
1906 * Python Scripting
1907
1908 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
1909 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
1910 description of these.
1911
1912 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
1913 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
1914 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
1915
1916 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
1917 manual for a further description of this feature.
1918
1919
1920 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1921
1922 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
1923 specified initial working directory.
1924
1925 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
1926 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
1927
1928 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
1929 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
1930
1931 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
1932 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
1933
1934 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
1935 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
1936 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
1937 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
1938 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
1939
1940 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
1941 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
1942 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
1943
1944 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
1945 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
1946 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
1947 in the *stopped notification.
1948
1949 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
1950 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
1951
1952 * New remote packets
1953
1954 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
1955 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
1956 the inferior when starting it.
1957
1958 QEnvironmentUnset
1959 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
1960 before starting the remote inferior.
1961
1962 QEnvironmentReset
1963 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
1964 user-set environment variables should be unset).
1965
1966 QStartupWithShell
1967 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
1968
1969 QSetWorkingDir
1970 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
1971 working directory.
1972
1973 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
1974 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
1975
1976 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
1977 filter the tests to be run.
1978
1979 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
1980 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
1981
1982 * New commands
1983
1984 set|show cwd
1985 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
1986
1987 set|show compile-gcc
1988 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
1989 with the 'compile' commands.
1990
1991 set debug separate-debug-file
1992 show debug separate-debug-file
1993 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
1994
1995 set dump-excluded-mappings
1996 show dump-excluded-mappings
1997 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
1998 dumped when generating a core file.
1999
2000 maint info selftests
2001 List the registered selftests.
2002
2003 starti
2004 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
2005
2006 set|show debug or1k
2007 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
2008
2009 set|show print type nested-type-limit
2010 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
2011 type printer will show.
2012
2013 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
2014 `o' for nexti.
2015
2016 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
2017
2018 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
2019 'int'.
2020
2021 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
2022 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
2023 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
2024 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
2025
2026 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
2027 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
2028 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
2029 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
2030 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
2031 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
2032
2033 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
2034 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
2035 unless you tell it the variable's type:
2036
2037 (gdb) p var
2038 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
2039 (gdb) p (float) var
2040 $3 = 3.14
2041
2042 * New native configurations
2043
2044 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
2045 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
2046
2047 * New targets
2048
2049 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
2050 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
2051 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
2052
2053 * Removed targets and native configurations
2054
2055 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
2056
2057 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
2058
2059 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
2060 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
2061 available in future Intel CPUs.
2062
2063 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
2064
2065 * Python Scripting
2066
2067 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
2068 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
2069
2070 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
2071 instructions.
2072
2073 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
2074
2075 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
2076
2077 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
2078 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
2079 removed.
2080
2081 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
2082
2083 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
2084 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
2085
2086 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
2087
2088 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
2089 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
2090 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
2091 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
2092 features.
2093
2094 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
2095
2096 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
2097 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
2098 debugger.
2099
2100 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
2101
2102 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
2103 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
2104
2105 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
2106
2107 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
2108
2109 define mycommand
2110 set $i = 0
2111 while $i < $argc
2112 eval "print $arg%d", $i
2113 set $i = $i + 1
2114 end
2115 end
2116
2117 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
2118
2119 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
2120 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
2121
2122 * New native configurations
2123
2124 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
2125
2126 * New targets
2127
2128 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
2129 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
2130
2131 * Removed targets and native configurations
2132
2133 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2134 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
2135
2136 * New commands
2137
2138 flash-erase
2139 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
2140
2141 maint print arc arc-instruction address
2142 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
2143
2144 * New options
2145
2146 set disassembler-options
2147 show disassembler-options
2148 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
2149 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
2150 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
2151 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
2152 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
2153
2154 * New MI commands
2155
2156 -target-flash-erase
2157 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
2158 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
2159
2160 -file-list-shared-libraries
2161 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
2162 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
2163
2164 -catch-handlers
2165 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
2166 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
2167
2168 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
2169
2170 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
2171
2172 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
2173 default. One must now explicitly configure with
2174 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
2175 option will be removed in a future release.
2176
2177 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
2178 GDB connection.
2179
2180 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
2181 memory backward from the given address. For example:
2182
2183 (gdb) bt
2184 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
2185 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
2186 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
2187 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
2188 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
2189 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
2190 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
2191 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
2192 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
2193
2194 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
2195 arrays of dynamic types.
2196
2197 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
2198 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
2199 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
2200 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
2201 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
2202 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
2203
2204 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
2205 descriptions.
2206
2207 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
2208 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
2209 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
2210
2211 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
2212
2213 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
2214 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
2215 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
2216 signal received and code location.
2217
2218 For example:
2219
2220 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
2221 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
2222 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
2223 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
2224
2225 * Rust language support.
2226 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
2227 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
2228 Rust.
2229
2230 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
2231
2232 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
2233 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
2234 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
2235 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
2236 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
2237 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
2238 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
2239 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
2240 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
2241 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
2242 line.
2243
2244 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
2245
2246 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
2247 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
2248
2249 * New commands
2250
2251 skip -file file
2252 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
2253 skip -function function
2254 skip -rfunction regular-expression
2255 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
2256 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
2257 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
2258
2259 maint info line-table REGEXP
2260 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data structure.
2261
2262 maint selftest
2263 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
2264
2265 new-ui INTERP TTY
2266 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
2267 using the TTY file for input/output.
2268
2269 * Python Scripting
2270
2271 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
2272 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
2273 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
2274 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
2275 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
2276
2277 signal-event EVENTID
2278 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
2279 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
2280 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
2281 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
2282 signalling an event.
2283
2284 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
2285 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
2286 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
2287
2288 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
2289 been removed:
2290
2291 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
2292 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
2293 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
2294 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
2295 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
2296 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
2297
2298 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
2299 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
2300 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
2301 bytecode into native code.
2302
2303 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
2304 recording. For example:
2305
2306 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
2307
2308 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
2309
2310 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
2311
2312 * New targets
2313
2314 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
2315
2316 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
2317
2318 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
2319
2320 * Per-inferior thread numbers
2321
2322 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
2323 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
2324 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
2325
2326 (gdb) info threads
2327 Id Target Id Frame
2328 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
2329 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
2330 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
2331 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
2332
2333 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
2334 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
2335 are no longer unique between inferiors.
2336
2337 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
2338 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
2339 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
2340
2341 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
2342 IDs.
2343
2344 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
2345 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
2346
2347 (gdb) thread 2.1
2348 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
2349 (gdb)
2350
2351 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
2352 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
2353 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
2354 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
2355 threads 2.*".
2356
2357 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
2358 all threads.
2359
2360 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
2361 the current thread.
2362
2363 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
2364 current inferior.
2365
2366 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
2367 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
2368 example:
2369
2370 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
2371 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
2372
2373 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
2374
2375 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
2376
2377 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
2378 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
2379
2380 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
2381 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
2382 clients.
2383
2384 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2385 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
2386 at the same time.
2387
2388 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
2389 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
2390 into native code.
2391
2392 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2393
2394 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
2395 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
2396 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
2397
2398 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
2399 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
2400
2401 * New commands
2402
2403 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
2404 maint show target-non-stop
2405 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
2406 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
2407 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
2408
2409 maint set bfd-sharing
2410 maint show bfd-sharing
2411 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
2412
2413 set debug bfd-cache
2414 show debug bfd-cache
2415 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
2416
2417 set debug fbsd-lwp
2418 show debug fbsd-lwp
2419 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
2420
2421 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
2422 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
2423 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
2424
2425 set remote thread-events
2426 show remote thread-events
2427 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
2428
2429 set ada print-signatures on|off
2430 show ada print-signatures"
2431 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
2432 selection menus. It is activated (@code{on}) by default.
2433
2434 set max-value-size
2435 show max-value-size
2436 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
2437 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
2438 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
2439
2440 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
2441 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
2442 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
2443 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
2444 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
2445 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
2446
2447 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
2448 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
2449
2450 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
2451 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
2452
2453 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
2454
2455 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
2456 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
2457 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
2458 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
2459 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
2460 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
2461
2462 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
2463 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
2464
2465 catch handlers
2466 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
2467
2468 * New remote packets
2469
2470 exec stop reason
2471 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
2472
2473 exec-events feature in qSupported
2474 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
2475 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
2476 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
2477 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
2478
2479 vCtrlC
2480 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
2481 non-stop mode.
2482
2483 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
2484 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
2485
2486 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
2487 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
2488
2489 QThreadEvents
2490 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
2491 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
2492 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
2493 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
2494 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
2495 stop for that same thread.
2496
2497 N stop reply
2498 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
2499 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
2500 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
2501
2502 QCatchSyscalls
2503 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
2504 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
2505
2506 syscall_entry stop reason
2507 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
2508
2509 syscall_return stop reason
2510 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
2511
2512 * Extended-remote exec events
2513
2514 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
2515 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
2516 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
2517
2518 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
2519 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
2520 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
2521
2522 * Thread names in remote protocol
2523
2524 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
2525 thread.
2526
2527 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
2528
2529 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
2530 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
2531 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
2532 fork and exec catchpoints.
2533
2534 * Remote syscall events
2535
2536 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
2537 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
2538
2539 set remote catch-syscall-packet
2540 show remote catch-syscall-packet
2541 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
2542
2543 * MI changes
2544
2545 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
2546 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
2547 left.
2548
2549 * Python Scripting
2550
2551 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
2552 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
2553 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
2554 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
2555 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
2556 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
2557
2558 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
2559
2560 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
2561 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
2562 including advance SIMD instructions.
2563
2564 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
2565
2566 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
2567 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
2568 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
2569 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
2570 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
2571 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
2572 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
2573
2574 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2575 cpu information :
2576 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
2577
2578 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
2579 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
2580 remote serial I/O.
2581
2582 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
2583 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
2584 and may include things like its command line arguments.
2585
2586 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
2587 is now available on all platforms.
2588
2589 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
2590 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
2591 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
2592 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
2593 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
2594 backward compatibility.
2595
2596 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
2597 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
2598 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
2599 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
2600
2601 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
2602 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
2603 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
2604 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
2605 packets" below.
2606
2607 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
2608
2609 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
2610
2611 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
2612 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
2613 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
2614 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
2615 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
2616 See "New remote packets" below.
2617
2618 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
2619 available register groups, including target specific groups.
2620
2621 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
2622 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
2623 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
2624 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
2625 are ignored.
2626
2627 * Guile Scripting
2628
2629 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
2630
2631 * Python Scripting
2632
2633 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
2634 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
2635 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
2636 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
2637 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
2638 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
2639 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
2640 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
2641 "const" version of the value respectively.
2642
2643 * New commands
2644
2645 maint print symbol-cache
2646 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
2647
2648 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
2649 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
2650
2651 maint flush-symbol-cache
2652 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
2653
2654 record btrace bts
2655 record bts
2656 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
2657
2658 compile print
2659 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
2660
2661 tui enable
2662 tui disable
2663 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
2664
2665 show mpx bound
2666 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
2667 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
2668
2669 record btrace pt
2670 record pt
2671 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
2672
2673 maint info btrace
2674 Print information about branch tracing internals.
2675
2676 maint btrace packet-history
2677 Print the raw branch tracing data.
2678
2679 maint btrace clear-packet-history
2680 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
2681
2682 maint btrace clear
2683 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
2684 anew by the next "record" command.
2685
2686 * New options
2687
2688 set debug dwarf-die
2689 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
2690 show debug dwarf-die
2691 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
2692
2693 set debug dwarf-read
2694 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
2695 show debug dwarf-read
2696 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
2697
2698 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
2699 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
2700 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
2701 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
2702
2703 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
2704 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
2705 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
2706 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
2707
2708 set debug dwarf-line
2709 show debug dwarf-line
2710 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
2711
2712 set max-completions
2713 show max-completions
2714 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
2715 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
2716 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
2717 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
2718
2719 set history remove-duplicates
2720 show history remove-duplicates
2721 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
2722
2723 maint set symbol-cache-size
2724 maint show symbol-cache-size
2725 Control the size of the symbol cache.
2726
2727 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
2728 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
2729 BTS format.
2730 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
2731 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
2732
2733 set debug linux-namespaces
2734 show debug linux-namespaces
2735 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
2736
2737 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
2738 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
2739 Intel Processor Trace format.
2740 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
2741 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
2742
2743 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
2744 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
2745 packet history.
2746
2747 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
2748 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
2749
2750 * Python/Guile scripting
2751
2752 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
2753 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
2754
2755 * New remote packets
2756
2757 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
2758 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
2759
2760 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
2761 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
2762
2763 Qbtrace:pt
2764 Enable Intel Processor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
2765 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
2766 qSupported query.
2767
2768 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
2769 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
2770 Trace format.
2771
2772 swbreak stop reason
2773 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
2774 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
2775 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
2776 mode operation.
2777
2778 hwbreak stop reason
2779 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
2780 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
2781
2782 vFile:fstat:
2783 Return information about files on the remote system.
2784
2785 qXfer:exec-file:read
2786 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
2787 create a process running on the remote system.
2788
2789 vFile:setfs:
2790 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
2791 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
2792 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
2793 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
2794
2795 fork stop reason
2796 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
2797
2798 vfork stop reason
2799 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
2800
2801 vforkdone stop reason
2802 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
2803 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
2804
2805 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
2806 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
2807 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
2808 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
2809 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
2810 whether these features are enabled.
2811
2812 * Extended-remote fork events
2813
2814 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
2815 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
2816 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
2817 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
2818
2819 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
2820 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
2821 the btrace record target.
2822 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
2823
2824 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
2825 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
2826
2827 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
2828 targets.
2829
2830 * Removed command line options
2831
2832 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
2833
2834 * Removed targets and native configurations
2835
2836 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
2837 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
2838
2839 * New configure options
2840
2841 --with-intel-pt
2842 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
2843 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
2844
2845 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
2846 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
2847 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
2848 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
2849
2850 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
2851
2852 * Python Scripting
2853
2854 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
2855
2856 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
2857
2858 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
2859
2860 * Python Scripting
2861
2862 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
2863 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
2864 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
2865 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
2866 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
2867 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
2868 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
2869 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
2870 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
2871 selecting a new file to debug.
2872 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
2873 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
2874
2875 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
2876 inferior.
2877
2878 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
2879 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
2880 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
2881 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
2882
2883 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2884
2885 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2886 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2887 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2888 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2889
2890 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
2891 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
2892 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
2893 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
2894 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
2895 interface with this new feature are:
2896
2897 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
2898 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
2899
2900 * New commands
2901
2902 demangle [-l language] [--] name
2903 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
2904 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
2905 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
2906 as "maint demangler-warning".
2907
2908 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
2909 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
2910
2911 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
2912 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
2913 scripts.
2914
2915 maint print user-registers
2916 List all currently available "user" registers.
2917
2918 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
2919 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
2920 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
2921
2922 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
2923 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
2924 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
2925 provided.
2926
2927 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
2928 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
2929 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
2930 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
2931 at resume time.
2932
2933 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
2934 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
2935 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
2936 switched threads meanwhile.
2937
2938 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
2939
2940 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
2941 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
2942 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
2943 is now the default mode.
2944
2945 * New options
2946
2947 set debug symbol-lookup
2948 show debug symbol-lookup
2949 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
2950
2951 * MI changes
2952
2953 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
2954 inferiors that have exited.
2955
2956 * New targets
2957
2958 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
2959
2960 * Removed targets
2961
2962 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2963
2964 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
2965 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
2966 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
2967 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
2968 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
2969
2970 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2971 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2972 its alias "share", instead.
2973
2974 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
2975
2976 * New command line options
2977
2978 -D data-directory
2979 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
2980
2981 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
2982 as specified in ISO C99.
2983
2984 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
2985 with or without disassembly.
2986
2987 * Guile scripting
2988
2989 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
2990 available is determined at configure time.
2991 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
2992 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
2993
2994 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2995
2996 guile [code]
2997 gu [code]
2998 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
2999
3000 guile-repl
3001 gr
3002 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
3003
3004 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
3005 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
3006
3007 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
3008 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
3009
3010 * New options
3011
3012 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
3013 show print symbol-loading
3014 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
3015 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
3016 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
3017 becomes less useful.
3018
3019 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
3020 show guile print-stack
3021 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
3022
3023 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
3024 show auto-load guile-scripts
3025 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
3026
3027 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
3028 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
3029 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
3030 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
3031 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
3032 usage of this option.
3033
3034 set auto-connect-native-target
3035
3036 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
3037 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
3038 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
3039
3040 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
3041 show record btrace replay-memory-access
3042 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
3043
3044 maint set target-async (on|off)
3045 maint show target-async
3046 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
3047 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
3048 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
3049 occurring only in synchronous mode.
3050
3051 set mi-async (on|off)
3052 show mi-async
3053 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
3054 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
3055
3056 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
3057 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
3058
3059 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
3060 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
3061 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
3062 "set target-async on" command.
3063
3064 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3065
3066 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
3067 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
3068 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
3069 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
3070 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
3071
3072 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
3073 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
3074 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
3075
3076 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
3077 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
3078 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
3079 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
3080 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
3081 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
3082 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
3083
3084 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
3085 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
3086
3087 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
3088 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
3089 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
3090
3091 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
3092 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
3093 memory or registers.
3094
3095 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
3096
3097 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
3098 remote. It now works with all targets.
3099
3100 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
3101 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
3102 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
3103 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
3104 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
3105 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
3106 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
3107 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
3108 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
3109 target-stack".
3110
3111 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
3112 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
3113 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
3114
3115 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
3116
3117 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
3118 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
3119 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
3120
3121 * New remote packets
3122
3123 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
3124 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
3125 branch trace incrementally.
3126
3127 * Python Scripting
3128
3129 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
3130 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
3131 available.
3132 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
3133 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
3134 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
3135 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
3136 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
3137
3138 * New targets
3139 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
3140
3141 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
3142 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
3143 its alias "share", instead.
3144
3145 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
3146 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
3147 instead.
3148
3149 * MI changes
3150
3151 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
3152 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
3153 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
3154 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
3155 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
3156 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
3157 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
3158 commands and CLI execution commands.
3159
3160 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
3161
3162 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
3163 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
3164 recording has been added.
3165
3166 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
3167
3168 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
3169 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
3170
3171 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
3172 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
3173 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
3174 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
3175 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
3176 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
3177 "void".
3178
3179 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
3180
3181 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
3182
3183 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
3184 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
3185 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
3186 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
3187
3188 (gdb) p $rax
3189 $1 = <not saved>
3190
3191 (gdb) info registers rax
3192 rax <not saved>
3193
3194 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
3195 "*value not available*".
3196
3197 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
3198 to binaries.
3199
3200 * Python scripting
3201
3202 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
3203 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
3204 ** Line tables representation has been added.
3205 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
3206 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
3207 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
3208
3209 * New targets
3210
3211 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
3212 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
3213 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
3214
3215 * Removed native configurations
3216
3217 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
3218 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
3219
3220 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3221 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3222 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
3223 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
3224 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3225 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3226 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3227
3228 * New commands:
3229 catch rethrow
3230 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
3231 maint check-psymtabs
3232 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
3233 maint check-symtabs
3234 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
3235 maint expand-symtabs
3236 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
3237
3238 show configuration
3239 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
3240
3241 maint set|show per-command
3242 maint set|show per-command space
3243 maint set|show per-command time
3244 maint set|show per-command symtab
3245 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
3246
3247 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
3248 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
3249 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
3250 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
3251 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
3252
3253 info exceptions
3254 info exceptions REGEXP
3255 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
3256 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
3257 are listed.
3258
3259 * New options
3260
3261 set debug symfile off|on
3262 show debug symfile
3263 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
3264 symbol tables within those files
3265
3266 set print raw frame-arguments
3267 show print raw frame-arguments
3268 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
3269 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
3270
3271 set remote trace-status-packet
3272 show remote trace-status-packet
3273 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
3274
3275 set debug nios2
3276 show debug nios2
3277 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
3278
3279 set range-stepping
3280 show range-stepping
3281 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
3282
3283 set startup-with-shell
3284 show startup-with-shell
3285 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
3286 directly.
3287
3288 set code-cache
3289 show code-cache
3290 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
3291 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
3292
3293 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
3294 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
3295 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
3296 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
3297 "set height 0".
3298
3299 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
3300 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
3301 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
3302
3303 * New command-line options
3304 --configuration
3305 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
3306
3307 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
3308 buffer in Common Trace Format.
3309
3310 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
3311 GDB command gcore.
3312
3313 * GDB now implements the C++ 'typeid' operator.
3314
3315 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
3316 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
3317
3318 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
3319 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
3320
3321 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
3322 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
3323 due to an uncaught signal.
3324
3325 * MI changes
3326
3327 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
3328 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
3329 command, which should contain "language-option".
3330
3331 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
3332 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
3333
3334 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
3335 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
3336 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
3337 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
3338 "undefined-command-error-code".
3339
3340 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
3341 Trace Format now.
3342
3343 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
3344
3345 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
3346 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
3347 are displayed.
3348
3349 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
3350 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
3351
3352 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
3353 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
3354 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
3355
3356 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
3357 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
3358 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
3359 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
3360 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
3361 "exec-run-start-option".
3362
3363 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
3364 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
3365
3366 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
3367 the new "info exceptions" command.
3368
3369 * New system-wide configuration scripts
3370 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
3371 configuration scripts for the following systems:
3372 ** ElinOS
3373 ** Wind River Linux
3374
3375 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
3376 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
3377 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
3378 below.
3379
3380 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
3381 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
3382
3383 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
3384 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
3385 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
3386
3387 * New remote packets
3388
3389 vCont;r
3390
3391 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
3392 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
3393 involvemement at each single-step.
3394
3395 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
3396 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
3397 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
3398 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
3399 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
3400 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
3401 speedup.
3402
3403 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3404
3405 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
3406 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
3407
3408 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
3409 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
3410 trace state variables.
3411
3412 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
3413 target.
3414
3415 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
3416 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
3417
3418 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
3419
3420 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
3421 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
3422 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
3423 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3424
3425 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
3426
3427 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
3428 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
3429 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
3430 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
3431
3432 set|show record full insn-number-max
3433 set|show record full stop-at-limit
3434 set|show record full memory-query
3435
3436 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
3437 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
3438 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
3439 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
3440 This new recording method can be enabled using:
3441
3442 record btrace
3443
3444 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
3445 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
3446
3447 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
3448 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
3449 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
3450
3451 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
3452 instruction granularity
3453
3454 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
3455 function granularity
3456
3457 * New native configurations
3458
3459 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
3460 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
3461 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
3462 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
3463
3464 * New targets
3465
3466 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
3467 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
3468 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
3469 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
3470 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
3471
3472 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
3473 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
3474 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
3475 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
3476 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
3477 --data-directory command-line option.
3478
3479 * New command line options:
3480
3481 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
3482 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
3483
3484 * Removed command line options
3485
3486 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
3487 Emacs.
3488
3489 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
3490 type formatting.
3491
3492 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
3493
3494 * Python scripting
3495
3496 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
3497
3498 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
3499
3500 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
3501
3502 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
3503
3504 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
3505 of architecture in the Python API.
3506
3507 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
3508 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
3509
3510 * New Python-based convenience functions:
3511
3512 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
3513 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
3514 ** $_strlen(str)
3515 ** $_regex(str, regex)
3516
3517 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
3518 given an argument.
3519
3520 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
3521 default for GCC since November 2000.
3522
3523 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
3524
3525 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
3526 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
3527
3528 * New configure options
3529
3530 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
3531 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
3532 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
3533 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
3534 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
3535 options allow the user to override that default.
3536 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
3537 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
3538 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
3539
3540 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3541
3542 catch signal
3543 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
3544 conditions to be attached.
3545
3546 maint info bfds
3547 List the BFDs known to GDB.
3548
3549 python-interactive [command]
3550 pi [command]
3551 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
3552 and print the result of expressions.
3553
3554 py [command]
3555 "py" is a new alias for "python".
3556
3557 enable type-printer [name]...
3558 disable type-printer [name]...
3559 Enable or disable type printers.
3560
3561 * Removed commands
3562
3563 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
3564 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
3565 instead.
3566
3567 * New options
3568
3569 set print type methods (on|off)
3570 show print type methods
3571 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
3572 The default is to show them.
3573
3574 set print type typedefs (on|off)
3575 show print type typedefs
3576 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
3577 The default is to show them.
3578
3579 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
3580 show filename-display
3581 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
3582 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
3583
3584 set trace-buffer-size
3585 show trace-buffer-size
3586 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
3587
3588 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
3589 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
3590 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
3591
3592 set debug aarch64
3593 show debug aarch64
3594 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
3595 The default is off.
3596
3597 set debug coff-pe-read
3598 show debug coff-pe-read
3599 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
3600 exported symbols.
3601
3602 set debug mach-o
3603 show debug mach-o
3604 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
3605 processing.
3606
3607 set debug notification
3608 show debug notification
3609 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
3610
3611 * MI changes
3612
3613 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
3614 "=cmd-param-changed".
3615 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
3616 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
3617 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
3618 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
3619 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
3620 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
3621 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
3622 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
3623 "=memory-changed".
3624 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
3625 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
3626 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
3627 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
3628 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
3629 library load/unload events.
3630 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
3631 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
3632 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
3633 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
3634 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
3635 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
3636 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
3637 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
3638
3639 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
3640 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
3641 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
3642 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
3643
3644 * New remote packets
3645
3646 QTBuffer:size
3647 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
3648 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
3649
3650 Qbtrace:bts
3651 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
3652 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
3653 qSupported query.
3654
3655 Qbtrace:off
3656 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
3657 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
3658
3659 qXfer:btrace:read
3660 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
3661 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
3662
3663 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
3664
3665 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
3666 for more x32 ABI info.
3667
3668 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
3669
3670 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
3671
3672 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
3673 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
3674 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
3675 "info os files" lists file descriptors
3676 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
3677 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
3678 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
3679 "info os msg" lists message queues
3680 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
3681
3682 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
3683 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
3684 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
3685 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
3686 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
3687 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
3688
3689 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
3690 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
3691 record/replay support.
3692
3693 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
3694
3695 * Python scripting
3696
3697 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
3698 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
3699
3700 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
3701
3702 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
3703 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
3704
3705 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
3706
3707 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
3708 the source at which the symbol was defined.
3709
3710 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
3711 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
3712 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
3713 symbol's value.
3714
3715 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
3716 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
3717
3718 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
3719 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
3720 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
3721
3722 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
3723 object associated with a PC value.
3724
3725 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
3726 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
3727
3728 * Go language support.
3729 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
3730 language.
3731
3732 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
3733 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
3734
3735 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
3736 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
3737
3738 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
3739 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
3740 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
3741 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
3742 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
3743 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
3744
3745 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
3746 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
3747 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
3748 build/libcpp/expr.c.
3749
3750 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
3751 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
3752
3753 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
3754 since December 2007.
3755
3756 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
3757 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
3758 command does. For instance:
3759
3760 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
3761
3762 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
3763 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
3764 created, using the "condition" command.
3765
3766 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
3767 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
3768
3769 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
3770
3771 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
3772 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
3773 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
3774 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
3775 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
3776 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
3777 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
3778 files with older .gdb_index sections.
3779
3780 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
3781 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
3782 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
3783 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
3784 the .gdb_index section.
3785
3786 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
3787
3788 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
3789 target.
3790
3791 * MI changes
3792
3793 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
3794
3795 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
3796
3797 * New commands
3798
3799 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
3800 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
3801 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
3802
3803 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
3804 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
3805
3806 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
3807 several hits.
3808
3809 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
3810 C++ and Java objects.
3811
3812 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
3813 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
3814 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
3815 configured with '--with-python'.
3816
3817 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
3818 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
3819 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
3820 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
3821 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
3822 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
3823 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
3824
3825 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
3826 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
3827 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
3828 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
3829
3830 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
3831 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
3832 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
3833 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
3834
3835 ** "set print symbol"
3836 "show print symbol"
3837 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
3838 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
3839 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
3840
3841 * Deprecated commands
3842
3843 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
3844 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
3845
3846 * New targets
3847
3848 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3849 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
3850
3851 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
3852 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
3853 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
3854 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
3855 evaluates to true.
3856
3857 * New options
3858
3859 set mips compression
3860 show mips compression
3861 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
3862 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
3863 mips16
3864 micromips
3865 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
3866
3867 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
3868 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
3869 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
3870 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
3871 available mode.
3872 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
3873 target.
3874
3875 set auto-load off
3876 Disable auto-loading globally.
3877
3878 show auto-load
3879 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
3880
3881 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
3882 show auto-load gdb-scripts
3883 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
3884
3885 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
3886 show auto-load python-scripts
3887 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
3888
3889 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
3890 show auto-load local-gdbinit
3891 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
3892
3893 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
3894 show auto-load libthread-db
3895 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
3896
3897 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3898 show auto-load scripts-directory
3899 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
3900 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
3901 of the directories listed by this option.
3902 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3903
3904 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3905 show auto-load safe-path
3906 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
3907 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3908
3909 set debug auto-load on|off
3910 show debug auto-load
3911 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
3912
3913 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
3914 show dprintf-style
3915 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
3916 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
3917 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
3918 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
3919
3920 set dprintf-function <expr>
3921 show dprintf-function
3922 set dprintf-channel <expr>
3923 show dprintf-channel
3924 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
3925 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
3926
3927 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
3928 show disconnected-dprintf
3929 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
3930 after GDB disconnects.
3931
3932 * New configure options
3933
3934 --with-auto-load-dir
3935 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
3936 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
3937 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
3938 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
3939 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
3940
3941 --with-auto-load-safe-path
3942 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
3943 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
3944
3945 --without-auto-load-safe-path
3946 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
3947 security feature.
3948
3949 * New remote packets
3950
3951 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
3952
3953 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
3954 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
3955 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
3956 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
3957
3958 QProgramSignals:
3959
3960 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
3961 program without GDB involvement.
3962
3963 * New command line options
3964
3965 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
3966 before loading inferior.
3967 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
3968 execute it before loading inferior.
3969
3970 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
3971
3972 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
3973 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
3974 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
3975 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
3976 inferior changes.
3977
3978 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
3979 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
3980
3981 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
3982 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
3983 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
3984 target hardware watchpoint.
3985
3986 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
3987 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
3988 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
3989 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
3990
3991 * Python scripting
3992
3993 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
3994 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
3995 existing one.
3996
3997 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
3998 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
3999 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
4000 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
4001 now "message", which just prints the error message without
4002 the stack trace.
4003
4004 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
4005 Python API.
4006
4007 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
4008 modules library. This module provides functionality for
4009 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
4010 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
4011 corresponding value.
4012
4013 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
4014 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
4015 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
4016 on GDB start-up.
4017
4018 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
4019 static_block will return the global and static blocks
4020 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
4021 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
4022
4023 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
4024
4025 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
4026 "gdb.breakpoints".
4027
4028 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
4029 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
4030 available in the CLI.
4031
4032 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
4033 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
4034 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
4035 "some_type.items()".
4036
4037 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
4038 new object file.
4039
4040 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
4041 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
4042 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
4043 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
4044 any anonymous fields.
4045
4046 * MI changes
4047
4048 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
4049 "solib-event".
4050
4051 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
4052 "=breakpoint-modified".
4053
4054 ** New command -ada-task-info.
4055
4056 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
4057 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
4058 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
4059 lives.
4060
4061 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
4062 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
4063 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
4064 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
4065 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
4066
4067 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
4068 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
4069
4070 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
4071 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
4072 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
4073 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
4074 use this option to specify where to find it.
4075
4076 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
4077 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
4078 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
4079 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
4080 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
4081 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
4082 section in the user manual for more details.
4083
4084 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
4085 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
4086 become available after that.
4087
4088 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
4089
4090 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
4091 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
4092 gcc version 4.7.
4093
4094 * New commands
4095
4096 !SHELL COMMAND
4097 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
4098 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
4099
4100 * Changed commands
4101
4102 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
4103 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
4104 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
4105
4106 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
4107 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
4108 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
4109
4110 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
4111 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
4112 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
4113 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
4114 name starts with a hyphen.
4115
4116 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
4117 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
4118 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
4119 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
4120 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
4121 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
4122 number of bytes that will be collected.
4123
4124 tstart [NOTES]
4125 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
4126 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
4127 setting the variable trace-notes.
4128
4129 tstop [NOTES]
4130 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
4131 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
4132 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
4133 trace-stop-notes.
4134
4135 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
4136 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
4137 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
4138 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
4139 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
4140 is running.
4141
4142 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
4143 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
4144 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
4145
4146 * New options
4147
4148 set debug dwarf2-read
4149 show debug dwarf2-read
4150 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
4151 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
4152
4153 set debug symtab-create
4154 show debug symtab-create
4155 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
4156 creation. The default is off.
4157
4158 set extended-prompt
4159 show extended-prompt
4160 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
4161 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
4162 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
4163 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
4164 prompt is displayed.
4165
4166 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
4167 show print entry-values
4168 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
4169 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
4170 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
4171
4172 set debug entry-values
4173 show debug entry-values
4174 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
4175 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
4176
4177 set basenames-may-differ
4178 show basenames-may-differ
4179 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
4180 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
4181 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
4182 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
4183 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
4184 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
4185 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
4186 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
4187
4188 set trace-user
4189 show trace-user
4190 set trace-notes
4191 show trace-notes
4192 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
4193 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
4194 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
4195 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
4196
4197 set trace-stop-notes
4198 show trace-stop-notes
4199 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
4200 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
4201 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
4202 started by someone else.
4203
4204 * New remote packets
4205
4206 QTEnable
4207
4208 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
4209
4210 QTDisable
4211
4212 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
4213
4214 QTNotes
4215
4216 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
4217
4218 qTP
4219
4220 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
4221
4222 qTMinFTPILen
4223
4224 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
4225 be placed.
4226
4227 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
4228 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
4229
4230 * New targets
4231
4232 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
4233
4234 * New Simulators
4235
4236 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
4237
4238 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
4239
4240 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
4241
4242 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
4243
4244 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
4245 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
4246 matches the given regular expression.
4247
4248 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
4249
4250 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
4251 dumping the instruction opcodes.
4252
4253 * New command line options
4254
4255 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
4256 This is mostly for testing purposes.
4257
4258 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
4259 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
4260
4261 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
4262 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
4263 source path list instead of augmenting it.
4264
4265 * GDB now understands thread names.
4266
4267 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
4268 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
4269
4270 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
4271 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
4272
4273 * OpenCL C
4274 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
4275 has been integrated into GDB.
4276
4277 * Python scripting
4278
4279 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
4280 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
4281 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
4282
4283 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
4284 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
4285 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
4286 and allows for more dynamic content.
4287
4288 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
4289 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
4290 have an is_valid method.
4291
4292 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
4293 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
4294 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
4295
4296 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
4297
4298 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
4299 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
4300 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
4301 that function like so:
4302
4303 result = some_value (10,20)
4304
4305 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
4306 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
4307 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
4308
4309 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
4310 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
4311 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
4312 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
4313 New function: register_pretty_printer.
4314
4315 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
4316 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
4317
4318 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
4319
4320 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
4321 selected thread.
4322
4323 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
4324 holds the thread's name.
4325
4326 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
4327 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
4328 occurring in the process being debugged.
4329 The following events are currently supported:
4330 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
4331 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
4332 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
4333
4334 * C++ Improvements:
4335
4336 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
4337 instantiation. For example, if you have:
4338
4339 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
4340
4341 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
4342 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
4343 was added to GCC 4.5.
4344
4345 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
4346 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
4347 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
4348 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
4349 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
4350 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
4351
4352 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
4353 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
4354 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
4355 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
4356 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
4357
4358 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
4359 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
4360 execution to a label.
4361
4362 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
4363 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
4364 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
4365 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
4366
4367 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
4368 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
4369 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
4370 of scope.
4371
4372 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
4373
4374 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
4375 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
4376 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
4377 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
4378 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
4379 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
4380
4381 (gdb) info threads
4382 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
4383
4384 While now you see this:
4385
4386 (gdb) info threads
4387 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
4388
4389 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
4390 dumps.
4391
4392 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
4393 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
4394 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
4395 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
4396
4397 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
4398 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
4399 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
4400 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
4401 section in the user manual for more details.
4402
4403 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
4404
4405 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
4406 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
4407
4408 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
4409
4410 * New native configurations
4411
4412 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
4413
4414 * New targets:
4415
4416 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
4417
4418 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
4419 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
4420 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
4421 in the GDB user manual.
4422
4423 * Guile support was removed.
4424
4425 * New features in the GNU simulator
4426
4427 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
4428
4429 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
4430
4431 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
4432
4433 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
4434
4435 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
4436 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
4437 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
4438 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
4439 was always disabled for such configurations.
4440
4441 * C++ Improvements:
4442
4443 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
4444
4445 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
4446 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
4447 For example:
4448 namespace A
4449 {
4450 class B { };
4451 void foo (B) { }
4452 }
4453 ...
4454 A::B b
4455 foo(b)
4456 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
4457 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
4458 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
4459
4460 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
4461
4462 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
4463 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
4464 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
4465 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
4466 entry.
4467 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
4468 mentioned flavors of operators.
4469
4470 ** static const class members
4471
4472 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
4473 class definition has been fixed.
4474
4475 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
4476
4477 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
4478 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
4479 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
4480 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
4481 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
4482 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
4483
4484 * Static tracepoints
4485
4486 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
4487 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
4488 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
4489 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
4490 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
4491 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
4492 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
4493 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
4494 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
4495 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
4496 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
4497 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
4498 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
4499 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
4500 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
4501 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
4502 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
4503 the "New remote packets" section below.
4504
4505 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
4506
4507 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
4508 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
4509 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
4510 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
4511
4512 * Observer mode
4513
4514 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
4515 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
4516 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
4517 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
4518 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
4519 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
4520 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
4521
4522 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
4523 current thread.
4524
4525 * New remote packets
4526
4527 qGetTIBAddr
4528
4529 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
4530
4531 qRelocInsn
4532
4533 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
4534 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
4535 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
4536 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
4537 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
4538 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
4539
4540 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
4541
4542 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
4543
4544 qTSTMat
4545
4546 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
4547 program.
4548
4549 qXfer:statictrace:read
4550
4551 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
4552 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
4553 to gdb's qSupported query.
4554
4555 QAllow
4556
4557 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
4558
4559 QTDPsrc
4560
4561 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
4562 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
4563
4564 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
4565 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
4566 a directory.
4567
4568 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
4569
4570 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
4571 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
4572 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
4573 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
4574
4575 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
4576 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
4577 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
4578 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
4579 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
4580 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
4581 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
4582
4583 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
4584 for static tracepoints support.
4585
4586 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
4587
4588 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
4589 it understands register description.
4590
4591 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
4592
4593 * X86 general purpose registers
4594
4595 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
4596 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
4597 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
4598 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
4599 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
4600
4601 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
4602 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
4603 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
4604 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
4605 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
4606 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
4607
4608 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
4609 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
4610 in the specified file.
4611
4612 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
4613 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
4614 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
4615 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
4616 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
4617 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
4618 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
4619 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
4620 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
4621 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
4622
4623 * New commands
4624
4625 eval template, expressions...
4626 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
4627 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
4628
4629 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
4630 show target-file-system-kind
4631 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
4632 names.
4633
4634 save breakpoints <filename>
4635 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
4636 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
4637 definitions, use the `source' command.
4638
4639 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
4640 is now deprecated.
4641
4642 info static-tracepoint-markers
4643 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
4644
4645 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
4646 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
4647 function, line, address, or marker ID.
4648
4649 set observer on|off
4650 show observer
4651 Enable and disable observer mode.
4652
4653 set may-write-registers on|off
4654 set may-write-memory on|off
4655 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
4656 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
4657 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
4658 set may-interrupt on|off
4659 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
4660 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
4661 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
4662 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
4663 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
4664 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
4665 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
4666
4667 set record memory-query on|off
4668 show record memory-query
4669 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
4670 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
4671
4672 * Changed commands
4673
4674 disassemble
4675 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
4676
4677 * Python scripting
4678
4679 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
4680 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
4681 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
4682 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
4683 GDB using Python' in the manual.
4684
4685 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
4686 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
4687 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
4688 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
4689
4690 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
4691 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
4692
4693 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
4694
4695 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
4696
4697 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
4698
4699 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
4700 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
4701 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
4702
4703 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
4704 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
4705 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
4706 regular breakpoints.
4707
4708 * New targets
4709
4710 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
4711
4712 * D language support.
4713 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
4714 language.
4715
4716 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
4717 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
4718 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
4719 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
4720 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
4721
4722 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
4723 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
4724 conditions of the form:
4725
4726 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
4727
4728 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
4729 interface mentioned above.
4730
4731 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
4732
4733 * C++ Improvements
4734
4735 ** Namespace Support
4736
4737 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
4738 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
4739 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
4740 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
4741 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
4742
4743 ** Bug Fixes
4744
4745 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
4746 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
4747 qualified name.
4748
4749 ** Cast Operators
4750
4751 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
4752 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
4753
4754 * New targets
4755
4756 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
4757 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
4758
4759 * New Simulators
4760
4761 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
4762 Renesas RX rx
4763
4764 * Multi-program debugging.
4765
4766 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
4767 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
4768 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
4769 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
4770 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
4771 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
4772 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
4773 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
4774
4775 * New tracing features
4776
4777 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
4778
4779 ** Trace state variables
4780
4781 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
4782 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
4783 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
4784 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
4785 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
4786 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
4787 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
4788 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
4789 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
4790 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
4791
4792 ** Fast tracepoints
4793
4794 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
4795 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
4796 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
4797 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
4798 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
4799 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
4800 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
4801 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
4802 the regular trace command.
4803
4804 ** Disconnected tracing
4805
4806 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
4807 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
4808 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
4809 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
4810 connection is lost unexpectedly.
4811
4812 ** Trace files
4813
4814 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
4815 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
4816 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
4817 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
4818 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
4819 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
4820 <name>".
4821
4822 ** Circular trace buffer
4823
4824 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
4825 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
4826 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
4827 not be available for all target agents.
4828
4829 * Changed commands
4830
4831 disassemble
4832 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
4833 the arguments to be comma-separated.
4834
4835 info variables
4836 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
4837 which only declare a variable are not shown.
4838
4839 source
4840 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
4841 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
4842 support.
4843
4844 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
4845 "set script-extension" (see below).
4846
4847 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4848
4849 record save [<FILENAME>]
4850 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
4851 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
4852
4853 record restore <FILENAME>
4854 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
4855 earlier time, for replay debugging.
4856
4857 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
4858 Add a new inferior.
4859
4860 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
4861 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
4862 inferior has loaded.
4863
4864 remove-inferior ID
4865 Remove an inferior.
4866
4867 maint info program-spaces
4868 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
4869
4870 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
4871 show remote interrupt-sequence
4872 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
4873 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
4874 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
4875 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
4876 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
4877
4878 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
4879 show remote interrupt-on-connect
4880 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
4881 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
4882 Linux kernel.
4883
4884 set remotebreak [on | off]
4885 show remotebreak
4886 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
4887
4888 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
4889 Create or modify a trace state variable.
4890
4891 info tvariables
4892 List trace state variables and their values.
4893
4894 delete tvariable $NAME ...
4895 Delete one or more trace state variables.
4896
4897 teval EXPR, ...
4898 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
4899 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
4900
4901 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
4902 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
4903
4904 * New expression syntax
4905
4906 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
4907 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
4908
4909 * New options
4910
4911 set follow-exec-mode new|same
4912 show follow-exec-mode
4913 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
4914 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
4915 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
4916
4917 set default-collect EXPR, ...
4918 show default-collect
4919 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
4920 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
4921 such as registers or a critical global variable.
4922
4923 set disconnected-tracing
4924 show disconnected-tracing
4925 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
4926 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
4927 upon disconnection.
4928
4929 set circular-trace-buffer
4930 show circular-trace-buffer
4931 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
4932 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
4933 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
4934 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
4935
4936 set script-extension off|soft|strict
4937 show script-extension
4938 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
4939 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
4940 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
4941 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
4942 evaluation failed.
4943 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
4944
4945 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
4946 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
4947 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
4948 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
4949 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
4950 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
4951 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
4952 is on.
4953
4954 * Python API Improvements
4955
4956 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
4957 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
4958 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
4959
4960 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
4961 `is_base_class' attribute.
4962
4963 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
4964
4965 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
4966 evaluate an expression.
4967
4968 * New remote packets
4969
4970 QTDV
4971 Define a trace state variable.
4972
4973 qTV
4974 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
4975
4976 QTDisconnected
4977 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
4978
4979 QTBuffer:circular
4980 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
4981
4982 qTfP, qTsP
4983 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
4984
4985 * Bug fixes
4986
4987 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
4988
4989 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
4990 much more reliable. In particular:
4991 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
4992 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
4993 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
4994 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
4995 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
4996 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
4997 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
4998 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
4999 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
5000 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
5001 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
5002 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
5003 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
5004 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
5005 non-threaded programs.
5006
5007 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
5008 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
5009 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
5010 executable program.
5011
5012 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
5013
5014 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
5015 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
5016 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
5017 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
5018 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
5019
5020 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
5021 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
5022 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
5023 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
5024 for tracepoint actions.
5025
5026 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
5027 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
5028 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
5029
5030 * Process record and replay
5031
5032 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
5033 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
5034 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
5035 execute commands.
5036
5037 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
5038 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
5039 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
5040 reverse execution.
5041
5042 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
5043 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
5044 2.6.28 or later.
5045
5046 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
5047 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
5048 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
5049 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
5050 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
5051 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
5052 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
5053 the installation instructions for more information.
5054
5055 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
5056 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
5057 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
5058 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
5059
5060 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
5061 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
5062
5063 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
5064 now complete on file names.
5065
5066 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
5067 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
5068 For instance, consider:
5069
5070 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
5071 # struct example variable;
5072 (gdb) p variable.
5073
5074 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
5075 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
5076
5077 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
5078 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
5079
5080 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
5081 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
5082 macros.
5083
5084 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
5085 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
5086 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
5087
5088 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
5089 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
5090 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
5091 and simulator targets may also provide them.
5092
5093 * New remote packets
5094
5095 qSearch:memory:
5096 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
5097
5098 QStartNoAckMode
5099 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
5100 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
5101 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
5102
5103 vKill
5104 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
5105 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
5106
5107 qXfer:osdata:read
5108 Obtains additional operating system information
5109
5110 qXfer:siginfo:read
5111 qXfer:siginfo:write
5112 Read or write additional signal information.
5113
5114 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
5115
5116 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
5117 packet that permitted the stub to pass a process id was removed.
5118 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
5119
5120 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
5121 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
5122
5123 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
5124 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
5125 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
5126
5127 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
5128 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
5129
5130 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
5131
5132 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
5133
5134 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
5135 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
5136
5137 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote protocol packet now allows passing a
5138 list of section offsets.
5139
5140 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
5141 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
5142 have also been fixed.
5143
5144 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
5145 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
5146 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
5147
5148 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
5149 example, given:
5150
5151 template<typename T> class C { };
5152 C<char const *> c;
5153
5154 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
5155
5156 ptype C<char const *>
5157 ptype C<char const*>
5158 ptype C<const char *>
5159 ptype C<const char*>
5160
5161 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
5162
5163 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
5164 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
5165
5166 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
5167 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
5168 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
5169
5170 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
5171 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
5172
5173 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
5174 gdbserver.
5175
5176 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
5177 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
5178
5179 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
5180 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
5181 as appropriate.
5182
5183 * Python scripting
5184
5185 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
5186 available is determined at configure time.
5187
5188 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
5189
5190 * Ada tasking support
5191
5192 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
5193 been introduced:
5194
5195 info tasks
5196 Print the list of Ada tasks.
5197 info task N
5198 Print detailed information about task number N.
5199 task
5200 Print the task number of the current task.
5201 task N
5202 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
5203
5204 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
5205 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
5206
5207 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
5208
5209 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
5210 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
5211 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
5212 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
5213 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
5214 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
5215 below.
5216
5217 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
5218 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
5219 information.
5220
5221 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
5222 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
5223 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
5224 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
5225 more information.
5226
5227 * Multi-architecture debugging.
5228
5229 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
5230 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
5231 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
5232 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
5233 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
5234
5235 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
5236 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
5237 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
5238 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
5239 --enable-targets configure option.
5240
5241 * Non-stop mode debugging.
5242
5243 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
5244 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
5245 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
5246 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
5247 section in the user manual for more information.
5248
5249 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
5250 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
5251 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
5252 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
5253 extensions on linux targets.
5254
5255 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
5256
5257 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
5258 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
5259 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
5260 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
5261 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
5262 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
5263 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
5264 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
5265 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
5266
5267 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
5268 val1 [, val2, ...]
5269 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
5270
5271 maint set python print-stack
5272 maint show python print-stack
5273 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
5274
5275 python [CODE]
5276 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
5277
5278 macro define
5279 macro list
5280 macro undef
5281 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
5282 interactively.
5283
5284 info os processes
5285 Show operating system information about processes.
5286
5287 info inferiors
5288 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
5289
5290 inferior NUM
5291 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
5292
5293 detach inferior NUM
5294 Detach from inferior number NUM.
5295
5296 kill inferior NUM
5297 Kill inferior number NUM.
5298
5299 * New options
5300
5301 set spu stop-on-load
5302 show spu stop-on-load
5303 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
5304
5305 set spu auto-flush-cache
5306 show spu auto-flush-cache
5307 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
5308 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
5309
5310 set sh calling-convention
5311 show sh calling-convention
5312 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
5313
5314 set debug timestamp
5315 show debug timestamp
5316 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
5317
5318 set disassemble-next-line
5319 show disassemble-next-line
5320 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
5321 the debuggee stops.
5322
5323 set remote noack-packet
5324 show remote noack-packet
5325 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
5326 under "New remote packets."
5327
5328 set remote query-attached-packet
5329 show remote query-attached-packet
5330 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
5331
5332 set remote read-siginfo-object
5333 show remote read-siginfo-object
5334 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
5335 packet.
5336
5337 set remote write-siginfo-object
5338 show remote write-siginfo-object
5339 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
5340 packet.
5341
5342 set remote reverse-continue
5343 show remote reverse-continue
5344 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
5345
5346 set remote reverse-step
5347 show remote reverse-step
5348 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
5349
5350 set displaced-stepping
5351 show displaced-stepping
5352 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
5353 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
5354 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
5355
5356 set debug displaced
5357 show debug displaced
5358 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
5359
5360 maint set internal-error
5361 maint show internal-error
5362 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
5363
5364 maint set internal-warning
5365 maint show internal-warning
5366 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
5367
5368 set exec-wrapper
5369 show exec-wrapper
5370 unset exec-wrapper
5371 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
5372
5373 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
5374 show multiple-symbols
5375 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
5376 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
5377 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
5378
5379 set breakpoint always-inserted
5380 show breakpoint always-inserted
5381 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
5382 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
5383 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
5384
5385 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
5386 show arm fallback-mode
5387 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
5388 show arm force-mode
5389 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
5390 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
5391 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
5392 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
5393
5394 set arm unwind-secure-frames
5395 Enable unwinding from Non-secure to Secure mode on Cortex-M with
5396 Security extension.
5397 This can trigger security exceptions when unwinding exception stacks.
5398
5399 set disable-randomization
5400 show disable-randomization
5401 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
5402 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
5403 multiple debugging sessions.
5404
5405 set non-stop
5406 show non-stop
5407 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
5408 a breakpoint.
5409
5410 set target-async
5411 show target-async
5412 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
5413 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
5414 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
5415 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
5416
5417 set target-wide-charset
5418 show target-wide-charset
5419 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
5420 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
5421
5422 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
5423 show tcp auto-retry
5424 set tcp connect-timeout
5425 show tcp connect-timeout
5426 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
5427 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
5428 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
5429
5430 set libthread-db-search-path
5431 show libthread-db-search-path
5432 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
5433 libthread_db.
5434
5435 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
5436 show schedule-multiple
5437 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
5438 the current process.
5439
5440 set stack-cache
5441 show stack-cache
5442 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
5443 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
5444 affecting correctness.
5445
5446 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
5447 show interactive-mode
5448 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
5449 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
5450 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
5451 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
5452 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
5453
5454 * Removed commands
5455
5456 info forks
5457 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
5458 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
5459 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
5460 command.
5461
5462 fork NUM
5463 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
5464 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
5465 alias for the `fork' command.
5466
5467 process PID
5468 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
5469 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
5470 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
5471
5472 delete fork NUM
5473 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
5474 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
5475 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
5476 fork' command.
5477
5478 detach fork NUM
5479 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
5480 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
5481 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
5482 fork' command.
5483
5484 * New native configurations
5485
5486 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
5487
5488 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
5489
5490 * New targets
5491
5492 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
5493 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
5494 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5495 S+core 3 score-*-*
5496
5497 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
5498 (mingw32ce) debugging.
5499
5500 * Removed commands
5501
5502 catch load
5503 catch unload
5504 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
5505
5506 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
5507
5508 * New native configurations
5509
5510 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
5511 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
5512
5513 * New targets
5514
5515 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
5516 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
5517
5518 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5519
5520 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
5521 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
5522 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
5523 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
5524
5525 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
5526 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
5527
5528 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
5529 is resolved.
5530
5531 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
5532 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
5533 and in inlined functions.
5534
5535 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
5536 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
5537 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
5538
5539 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
5540
5541 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
5542 registers on PowerPC targets.
5543
5544 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
5545 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
5546
5547 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
5548 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
5549
5550 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
5551 extended-remote mode.
5552
5553 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
5554 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
5555 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
5556 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
5557
5558 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
5559 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
5560 target architectures.
5561
5562 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
5563 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
5564 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
5565 stored in two consecutive float registers.
5566
5567 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
5568 breakpoints now.
5569
5570 * Improved support for debugging Ada
5571 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
5572 include:
5573 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
5574 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
5575 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
5576 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
5577 of an assignment
5578 - Improved command completion in Ada
5579 - Several bug fixes
5580
5581 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
5582 process.
5583
5584 * New commands
5585
5586 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
5587 show print frame-arguments
5588 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
5589 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
5590
5591 remote put
5592 remote get
5593 remote delete
5594 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
5595
5596 * New MI commands
5597
5598 -target-file-put
5599 -target-file-get
5600 -target-file-delete
5601 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
5602
5603 * New remote packets
5604
5605 vFile:open:
5606 vFile:close:
5607 vFile:pread:
5608 vFile:pwrite:
5609 vFile:unlink:
5610 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
5611
5612 vAttach
5613 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
5614 mode.
5615
5616 vRun
5617 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
5618
5619 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
5620
5621 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
5622 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
5623 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
5624
5625 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
5626 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
5627 -Bsymbolic linker option.
5628
5629 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
5630 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
5631 is not supported.
5632
5633 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
5634 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
5635
5636 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
5637 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
5638
5639 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
5640
5641 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
5642 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
5643 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
5644
5645 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
5646 automatically displayed as character or string data.
5647
5648 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
5649 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
5650 as strings.
5651
5652 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
5653 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
5654 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
5655
5656 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
5657 iWMMXt coprocessor.
5658
5659 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
5660 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
5661 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
5662
5663 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
5664
5665 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
5666
5667 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
5668 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
5669 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
5670
5671 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
5672 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
5673
5674 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
5675 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
5676 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
5677 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
5678 Windows and SymbianOS).
5679
5680 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
5681 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
5682
5683 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
5684 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
5685
5686 * New commands
5687
5688 set remoteflow
5689 show remoteflow
5690 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
5691 when debugging using remote targets.
5692
5693 set mem inaccessible-by-default
5694 show mem inaccessible-by-default
5695 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
5696 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
5697 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
5698 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
5699 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
5700
5701 set breakpoint auto-hw
5702 show breakpoint auto-hw
5703 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
5704 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
5705 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
5706 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
5707 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
5708 including "next" and "finish".
5709
5710 catch exception
5711 catch exception unhandled
5712 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
5713
5714 catch assert
5715 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
5716
5717 set sysroot
5718 show sysroot
5719 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
5720 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
5721 an alias to "set sysroot".
5722
5723 info spu
5724 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
5725 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
5726 architecture.
5727
5728 * New native configurations
5729
5730 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
5731
5732 set tdesc filename
5733 unset tdesc filename
5734 show tdesc filename
5735 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
5736 not query the target for its built-in description.
5737
5738 * New targets
5739
5740 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
5741 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
5742 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
5743
5744 * New remote packets
5745
5746 QPassSignals:
5747 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
5748 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
5749
5750 qXfer:features:read:
5751 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
5752 features.
5753
5754 qXfer:spu:read:
5755 qXfer:spu:write:
5756 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
5757 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
5758
5759 qXfer:libraries:read:
5760 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
5761 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
5762 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
5763 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
5764
5765 * Removed targets
5766
5767 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
5768
5769 alpha*-*-osf1*
5770 alpha*-*-osf2*
5771 d10v-*-*
5772 hppa*-*-hiux*
5773 i[34567]86-ncr-*
5774 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
5775 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
5776 i[34567]86-*-netware*
5777 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
5778 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
5779 i[34567]86-*-sco*
5780 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
5781 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
5782 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
5783 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
5784 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
5785 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
5786 i[34567]86-*-isc*
5787 m68*-cisco*-*
5788 m68*-tandem-*
5789 mips*-*-pe
5790 rs6000-*-lynxos*
5791 sh*-*-pe
5792
5793 * Other removed features
5794
5795 target abug
5796 target cpu32bug
5797 target est
5798 target rom68k
5799
5800 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
5801
5802 target hms
5803 target e7000
5804 target sh3
5805 target sh3e
5806
5807 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
5808 H8/300.
5809
5810 target ocd
5811
5812 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
5813 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
5814 interfaces.
5815
5816 DWARF 1 support
5817
5818 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
5819 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
5820
5821 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
5822
5823 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
5824 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
5825 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
5826 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
5827
5828 MIPS ".pdr" sections
5829
5830 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
5831 in debugging information.
5832
5833 Scheme support
5834
5835 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
5836 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
5837
5838 set mips stack-arg-size
5839 set mips saved-gpreg-size
5840
5841 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
5842
5843 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
5844
5845 * New targets
5846
5847 Xtensa xtensa-elf
5848 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
5849
5850 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
5851 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
5852 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
5853
5854 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
5855 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
5856 supported.
5857
5858 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
5859 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
5860
5861 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
5862 stub provides the required support.
5863
5864 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
5865 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
5866
5867 * New commands
5868
5869 set substitute-path
5870 unset substitute-path
5871 show substitute-path
5872 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
5873 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
5874 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
5875 between compilation and debugging.
5876
5877 set trace-commands
5878 show trace-commands
5879 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
5880 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
5881 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
5882
5883 * REMOVED features
5884
5885 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
5886
5887 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
5888 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
5889
5890 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
5891
5892 * New remote packets
5893
5894 qSupported:
5895 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
5896 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
5897 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
5898 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
5899 target.
5900
5901 qXfer:auxv:read:
5902 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
5903 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
5904
5905 qXfer:memory-map:read:
5906 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
5907 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
5908
5909 vFlashErase:
5910 vFlashWrite:
5911 vFlashDone:
5912 Erase and program a flash memory device.
5913
5914 * Removed remote packets
5915
5916 qPart:auxv:read:
5917 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
5918 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
5919
5920 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
5921
5922 * New targets
5923
5924 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
5925
5926 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5927
5928 * New commands
5929
5930 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
5931 only if it doesn't already have a value.
5932
5933 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
5934
5935 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
5936
5937 restart <n> Return the program state to a
5938 previously saved state.
5939
5940 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
5941
5942 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
5943
5944 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
5945 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
5946
5947 info forks List forks of the user program that
5948 are available to be debugged.
5949
5950 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
5951 forks of the user program that are
5952 available to be debugged.
5953
5954 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5955 that are available to be debugged (and
5956 kill the forked process).
5957
5958 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5959 that are available to be debugged (and
5960 allow the process to continue).
5961
5962 * New architecture
5963
5964 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
5965
5966 * Improved Windows host support
5967
5968 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
5969 native console support, and remote communications using either
5970 network sockets or serial ports.
5971
5972 * Improved Modula-2 language support
5973
5974 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
5975 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
5976 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
5977 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
5978 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
5979 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
5980
5981 * REMOVED features
5982
5983 The ARM rdi-share module.
5984
5985 The Netware NLM debug server.
5986
5987 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
5988
5989 * New native configurations
5990
5991 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
5992 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
5993
5994 * New targets
5995
5996 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5997
5998 * New command line options
5999
6000 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
6001 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
6002 the child (debugged) program exited with.
6003 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
6004 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
6005 specified multiple times and in conjunction
6006 with the --command (-x) option.
6007
6008 * Deprecated commands removed
6009
6010 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
6011 removed:
6012
6013 Command Replacement
6014 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
6015 othernames set arm disassembler
6016 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
6017 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
6018 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
6019 regs info registers
6020
6021 * New BSD user-level threads support
6022
6023 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
6024 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
6025 configurations are:
6026
6027 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
6028 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
6029 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
6030
6031 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
6032 are not yet supported.
6033
6034 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
6035 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
6036
6037 * REMOVED configurations and files
6038
6039 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
6040 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
6041 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
6042
6043 * New "set print array-indexes" command
6044
6045 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
6046 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
6047 behavior.
6048
6049 * VAX floating point support
6050
6051 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
6052
6053 * User-defined command support
6054
6055 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
6056 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
6057 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
6058
6059 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
6060
6061 * New command line option
6062
6063 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
6064 debugging.
6065
6066 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
6067
6068 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
6069 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
6070 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
6071 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
6072 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
6073
6074 * Internationalization
6075
6076 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
6077 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
6078 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
6079
6080 * Ada
6081
6082 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
6083 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
6084 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
6085
6086 * New native configurations
6087
6088 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
6089
6090 * Remote 'p' packet
6091
6092 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
6093 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
6094
6095 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
6096
6097 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
6098 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
6099 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
6100 i386 application).
6101
6102 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the registers[]
6103 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
6104 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
6105 configurations:
6106
6107 hppa-*-hpux
6108 ia64-*-aix
6109 mips-*-irix*
6110 *-*-lynx
6111 mips-*-linux-gnu
6112 sds protocol
6113 xdr protocol
6114 powerpc bdm protocol
6115
6116 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
6117 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
6118
6119 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6120
6121 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6122 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6123 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6124 permanently REMOVED.
6125
6126 h8300-*-*
6127 mcore-*-*
6128 mn10300-*-*
6129 ns32k-*-*
6130 sh64-*-*
6131 v850-*-*
6132
6133 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
6134
6135 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
6136
6137 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
6138 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
6139 been fixed.
6140
6141 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
6142
6143 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
6144 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
6145 IRIX long double values).
6146
6147 * VAX and "next"
6148
6149 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
6150 command. This problem has been fixed.
6151
6152 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
6153
6154 * Fix for ``many threads''
6155
6156 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
6157 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
6158 error message:
6159
6160 ptrace: No such process.
6161 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
6162
6163 This problem has been fixed.
6164
6165 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
6166
6167 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
6168 GDB to dump core).
6169
6170 * New ``start'' command.
6171
6172 This command runs the program until the beginning of the main procedure.
6173
6174 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
6175
6176 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
6177 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
6178 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
6179
6180 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
6181 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
6182 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
6183 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
6184 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
6185 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
6186 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
6187 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
6188 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
6189
6190 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
6191
6192 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
6193 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
6194 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
6195 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
6196 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
6197
6198 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
6199 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
6200 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
6201
6202 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
6203
6204 * New native configurations
6205
6206 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
6207 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
6208 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
6209 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
6210 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6211 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
6212 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6213
6214 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
6215
6216 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
6217 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
6218 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
6219 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
6220 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
6221 work, was also included.
6222
6223 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
6224 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
6225
6226 h8300-*-*
6227 mcore-*-*
6228 mn10300-*-*
6229 ns32k-*-*
6230 sh64-*-*
6231 v850-*-*
6232 xstormy16-*-*
6233
6234 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
6235 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
6236
6237 * REMOVED configurations and files
6238
6239 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
6240 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
6241 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
6242 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
6243 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
6244 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
6245 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
6246 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
6247 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
6248 sonymips mips-sony-*
6249 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
6250
6251 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
6252
6253 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
6254
6255 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
6256 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
6257 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
6258 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
6259 with GDB".
6260
6261 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
6262
6263 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
6264 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
6265 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
6266 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
6267 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
6268 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
6269 are created.
6270
6271 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
6272
6273 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
6274
6275 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
6276 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
6277 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
6278
6279 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
6280
6281 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
6282 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
6283
6284 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
6285
6286 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
6287 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
6288 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
6289
6290 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
6291
6292 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
6293 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
6294
6295 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
6296
6297 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
6298 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
6299 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
6300
6301 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
6302
6303 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
6304 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
6305 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
6306
6307 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
6308
6309 * Removed --with-mmalloc
6310
6311 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
6312 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
6313
6314 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
6315
6316 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
6317 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
6318 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
6319 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
6320
6321 * Revised SPARC target
6322
6323 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
6324 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
6325 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
6326 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
6327 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
6328
6329 * New C++ demangler
6330
6331 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
6332 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
6333 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
6334 programs.
6335
6336 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
6337
6338 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
6339 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
6340 encountered these.
6341
6342 * C++ nested types and namespaces
6343
6344 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
6345 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
6346 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
6347 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
6348 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
6349 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
6350 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
6351 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
6352 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
6353
6354 * New native configurations
6355
6356 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
6357 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
6358 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
6359 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
6360 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
6361
6362 * New debugging protocols
6363
6364 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
6365
6366 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
6367
6368 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
6369 and its very obscure effect on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
6370 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
6371
6372 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6373
6374 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6375 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6376 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6377 permanently REMOVED.
6378
6379 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
6380 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
6381 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
6382 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
6383 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
6384 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
6385 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
6386 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
6387 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
6388 sonymips mips-sony-*
6389 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
6390
6391 * REMOVED configurations and files
6392
6393 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
6394 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
6395 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6396 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6397 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6398 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
6399 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6400 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
6401 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
6402 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
6403 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
6404 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
6405 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
6406 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
6407 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
6408 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6409 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6410
6411 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
6412
6413 * Objective-C
6414
6415 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
6416 integrated into GDB.
6417
6418 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
6419
6420 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
6421 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
6422 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
6423 backtraces.
6424
6425 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
6426 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
6427 DWARF 2 CFI support.
6428
6429 * Hosted file I/O.
6430
6431 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
6432 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
6433 remote protocol documentation for details.
6434
6435 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
6436
6437 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
6438 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
6439 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
6440 ppc32 on ppc64).
6441
6442 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
6443
6444 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
6445 per-thread variables.
6446
6447 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
6448
6449 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
6450 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
6451
6452 * Separate debug info.
6453
6454 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
6455 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
6456 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
6457 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
6458 and optional debug files.
6459
6460 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
6461
6462 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
6463 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
6464 debugger.
6465
6466 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
6467 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
6468
6469 * Java
6470
6471 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
6472 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
6473 considered "useable".
6474
6475 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
6476
6477 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
6478 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
6479 kernel.
6480
6481 * GDB supports logging output to a file
6482
6483 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
6484 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
6485
6486 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
6487
6488 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
6489 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
6490 command.
6491
6492 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
6493
6494 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
6495 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
6496
6497 * Profiling support
6498
6499 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
6500 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
6501 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
6502 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
6503 data, for more informative profiling results.
6504
6505 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
6506
6507 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
6508 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
6509 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
6510
6511 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
6512 removed.
6513
6514 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
6515 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
6516 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
6517 in a subsequent -var-update.
6518
6519 * New native configurations.
6520
6521 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
6522
6523 * Multi-arched targets.
6524
6525 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
6526 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6527
6528 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6529
6530 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6531 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6532 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6533 permanently REMOVED.
6534
6535 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6536 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6537 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6538 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
6539 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6540 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
6541 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
6542 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
6543 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
6544 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
6545 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6546 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6547
6548 * REMOVED configurations and files
6549
6550 V850EA ISA
6551 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
6552 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
6553 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
6554 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
6555 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
6556 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
6557 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
6558 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
6559 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6560 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6561 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6562 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6563 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6564
6565 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
6566
6567 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
6568 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
6569 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
6570 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
6571 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
6572
6573 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
6574
6575 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
6576
6577 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
6578 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
6579 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
6580 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
6581 shared libs like mad''.
6582
6583 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6584
6585 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
6586 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
6587 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
6588 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6589
6590 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
6591
6592 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
6593 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
6594 they expand.
6595
6596 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
6597 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
6598
6599 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
6600 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
6601
6602 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
6603 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
6604 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
6605 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
6606
6607 * Multi-arched targets.
6608
6609 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
6610 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
6611 NEC V850 v850-*-*
6612 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
6613 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
6614 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
6615
6616 * New targets.
6617
6618 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
6619
6620
6621 * New native configurations
6622
6623 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
6624 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
6625 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
6626 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
6627
6628 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6629
6630 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6631 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6632 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6633 permanently REMOVED.
6634
6635 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6636 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6637 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
6638 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6639 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
6640 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6641 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
6642 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
6643 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
6644 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
6645 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
6646 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
6647 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6648
6649 * OBSOLETE languages
6650
6651 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
6652
6653 * REMOVED configurations and files
6654
6655 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
6656 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6657 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6658 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6659 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6660
6661 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
6662
6663 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
6664
6665 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
6666 commands. The default is 1024.
6667
6668 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
6669
6670 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
6671
6672 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
6673
6674 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
6675 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
6676 from a file into memory (restore).
6677
6678 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
6679
6680 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
6681 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
6682 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
6683
6684 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
6685
6686 * New targets.
6687
6688 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
6689
6690 * Bug fixes
6691
6692 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
6693 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
6694 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
6695
6696 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
6697 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
6698 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
6699
6700 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
6701 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
6702 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
6703
6704 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
6705 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
6706 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
6707
6708 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
6709
6710 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
6711
6712 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
6713 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
6714 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
6715 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
6716 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
6717 (notably embedded) targets.
6718
6719 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
6720
6721 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
6722 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
6723 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
6724 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
6725
6726 * New command line option
6727
6728 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
6729
6730 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
6731
6732 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
6733 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
6734 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
6735 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
6736 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
6737 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
6738 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
6739 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
6740 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
6741 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
6742
6743 * Changes in ARM configurations.
6744
6745 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
6746 configuration is fully multi-arch.
6747
6748 * New native configurations
6749
6750 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
6751 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
6752 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
6753 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
6754
6755 * New targets
6756
6757 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
6758
6759 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6760
6761 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6762 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6763 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6764 permanently REMOVED.
6765
6766 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
6767 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6768 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6769 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6770 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6771
6772 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
6773
6774 * REMOVED configurations and files
6775
6776 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6777 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6778 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6779 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6780 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6781 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6782 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6783 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6784 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6785 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6786 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6787 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6788 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
6789
6790 * Changes to command line processing
6791
6792 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
6793 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
6794
6795 * Changes to key bindings
6796
6797 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
6798
6799 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
6800
6801 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
6802
6803 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
6804 corrupted.
6805
6806 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
6807
6808 Numerous documentation fixes.
6809
6810 Numerous testsuite fixes.
6811
6812 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
6813
6814 * New native configurations
6815
6816 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
6817 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
6818 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
6819 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6820 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
6821 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
6822
6823 * New targets
6824
6825 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
6826 CRIS cris-axis
6827 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
6828
6829 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6830
6831 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
6832 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6833 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6834 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6835 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6836 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6837 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6838 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6839 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6840 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6841 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6842 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6843 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6844 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
6845
6846 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
6847 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
6848
6849 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6850 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6851 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6852 permanently REMOVED.
6853
6854 * REMOVED configurations and files
6855
6856 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6857 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6858 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
6859 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6860 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
6861 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
6862
6863 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
6864
6865 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
6866 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
6867 present.
6868
6869 * Other news:
6870
6871 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
6872
6873 * The MI enabled by default.
6874
6875 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
6876 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
6877 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
6878 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
6879 which is now deprecated.
6880
6881 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
6882
6883 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
6884 main features are supported:
6885
6886 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
6887
6888 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
6889 extension;
6890
6891 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
6892
6893 - a Pascal expression parser.
6894
6895 However, some important features are not yet supported.
6896
6897 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
6898
6899 - there are some problems with boolean types;
6900
6901 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
6902 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
6903
6904 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
6905
6906 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
6907
6908 * Changes in completion.
6909
6910 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
6911 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
6912 users expect at the shell prompt.
6913
6914 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
6915 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
6916 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
6917 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
6918 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
6919 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
6920 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
6921
6922 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
6923
6924 * New platform-independent commands:
6925
6926 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
6927 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
6928 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
6929
6930 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
6931
6932 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
6933 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
6934 many threads as your system allows you to have.
6935
6936 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
6937
6938 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
6939 multi-threaded programs though.
6940
6941 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
6942
6943 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
6944
6945 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
6946 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
6947 supported.)
6948
6949 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
6950
6951 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
6952 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
6953 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
6954 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
6955 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
6956 registers.
6957
6958 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
6959 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
6960 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
6961
6962 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
6963
6964 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
6965 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
6966
6967 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
6968 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
6969 IDT.
6970
6971 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
6972 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
6973 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
6974 a given linear address.
6975
6976 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
6977 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
6978 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
6979
6980 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
6981
6982 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
6983
6984 * Changes in documentation.
6985
6986 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
6987 Documentation License.
6988
6989 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6990 manual.
6991
6992 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
6993
6994 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6995 manual.
6996
6997 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
6998 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
6999 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
7000
7001 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
7002
7003 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
7004 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
7005 contents of this file.
7006
7007 * gdba.el deleted
7008
7009 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
7010
7011 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7012
7013 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
7014
7015 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
7016 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
7017 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
7018 greater level of detail.
7019
7020 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
7021
7022 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
7023 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
7024 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
7025 written.
7026
7027 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
7028
7029 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
7030 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
7031 machines ``out of the box''.
7032
7033 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
7034 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
7035 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
7036 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
7037 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
7038
7039 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
7040 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
7041 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
7042 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
7043 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
7044
7045 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
7046 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
7047 also works.
7048
7049 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
7050 GDB.
7051
7052 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
7053 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
7054 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
7055 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
7056
7057 * New native configurations
7058
7059 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
7060 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
7061
7062 * New targets
7063
7064 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
7065 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
7066 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7067 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7068
7069 * OBSOLETE configurations
7070
7071 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
7072 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
7073 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
7074 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
7075 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7076
7077 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
7078 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
7079 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
7080 be permanently REMOVED.
7081
7082 * Gould support removed
7083
7084 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
7085
7086 * New features for SVR4
7087
7088 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
7089 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
7090 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
7091
7092 * Many C++ enhancements
7093
7094 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
7095 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
7096
7097 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
7098
7099 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
7100 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
7101 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
7102 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
7103
7104 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
7105 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
7106
7107 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
7108
7109 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
7110 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
7111 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
7112
7113 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
7114 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
7115
7116 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
7117
7118 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
7119 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
7120 include ``set remote P-packet''.
7121
7122 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
7123
7124 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
7125 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
7126 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
7127
7128 * ``apropos'' command added.
7129
7130 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
7131 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
7132 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
7133
7134 * New MI interface
7135
7136 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
7137 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7138 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
7139 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
7140 enabled by configuring with:
7141
7142 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
7143
7144 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
7145
7146 * New native configurations
7147
7148 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
7149 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
7150 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
7151
7152 * New targets
7153
7154 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7155 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
7156 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
7157
7158 * OBSOLETE configurations
7159
7160 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
7161
7162 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
7163 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
7164 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
7165 be permanently REMOVED.
7166
7167 * ANSI/ISO C
7168
7169 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
7170 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
7171 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
7172 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
7173 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
7174 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
7175 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
7176 already.
7177
7178 * Readline 2.2
7179
7180 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
7181
7182 * set extension-language
7183
7184 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
7185 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
7186 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
7187 set extension-language .c c++
7188 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
7189 and their associated languages.
7190
7191 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
7192
7193 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
7194 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
7195 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
7196
7197 set processor NAME
7198
7199 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
7200 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
7201
7202 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
7203 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
7204 403 IBM PowerPC 403
7205 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
7206 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
7207 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
7208 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
7209 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
7210 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
7211 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
7212 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
7213
7214 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
7215 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
7216 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
7217 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
7218
7219 * HP-UX support
7220
7221 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
7222 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
7223 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
7224 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
7225 for xdb and dbx commands.
7226
7227 * Catchpoints
7228
7229 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
7230 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
7231 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
7232
7233 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
7234 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
7235 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
7236
7237 * Debugging across forks
7238
7239 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
7240 in the inferior.
7241
7242 * TUI
7243
7244 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
7245 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
7246 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
7247
7248 * GDB remote protocol additions
7249
7250 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
7251 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
7252 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
7253 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
7254
7255 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
7256 full 64-bit address. The command
7257
7258 set remoteaddresssize 32
7259
7260 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
7261 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
7262 will be discarded.
7263
7264 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
7265 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
7266
7267 maint packet heythere
7268
7269 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
7270 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
7271 time.
7272
7273 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
7274 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
7275 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
7276
7277 * Tracing can collect general expressions
7278
7279 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
7280 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
7281 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
7282
7283 * mask-address variable for Mips
7284
7285 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
7286 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
7287 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
7288
7289 * Higher serial baud rates
7290
7291 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
7292 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
7293 to achieve all of these rates.)
7294
7295 * i960 simulator
7296
7297 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
7298 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
7299
7300
7301 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
7302
7303 * New native configurations
7304
7305 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
7306 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
7307 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
7308 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
7309 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
7310 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
7311 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
7312
7313 * New targets
7314
7315 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
7316 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
7317 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
7318 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
7319 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
7320 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
7321 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
7322 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
7323 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
7324 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
7325 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
7326
7327 * New debugging protocols
7328
7329 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
7330 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
7331 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
7332 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
7333 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
7334 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
7335
7336 * DWARF 2
7337
7338 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
7339 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
7340 information.
7341
7342 * Java frontend
7343
7344 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
7345 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
7346
7347 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
7348
7349 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
7350 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
7351 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
7352
7353 * Live range splitting
7354
7355 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
7356 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
7357 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
7358
7359 * Hurd support
7360
7361 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
7362 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
7363
7364 * ARM Thumb support
7365
7366 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
7367 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
7368 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
7369 accordingly.
7370
7371 * MIPS16 support
7372
7373 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
7374 instruction set.
7375
7376 * Overlay support
7377
7378 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
7379 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
7380 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
7381 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
7382 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
7383 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
7384
7385 * info symbol
7386
7387 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
7388 the symbol at the specified address.
7389
7390 * Trace support
7391
7392 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
7393 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
7394 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
7395 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
7396 file tracepoint.c for more details.
7397
7398 * MIPS simulator
7399
7400 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
7401 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
7402 of most MIPS variants.
7403
7404 * Sparc simulator
7405
7406 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
7407 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
7408 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
7409
7410 * set architecture
7411
7412 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
7413 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
7414 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
7415 the possible architectures.
7416
7417 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
7418
7419 * New native configurations
7420
7421 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
7422 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
7423 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
7424 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
7425 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
7426 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
7427
7428 * New targets
7429
7430 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
7431 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
7432 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
7433 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
7434 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
7435 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
7436 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
7437
7438 * PowerPC simulator
7439
7440 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
7441 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
7442 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
7443 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
7444 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
7445
7446 * Solaris 2.5
7447
7448 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
7449
7450 * Windows 95/NT native
7451
7452 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
7453 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
7454 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
7455 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
7456 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
7457
7458 * dont-repeat command
7459
7460 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
7461 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
7462 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
7463 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
7464
7465 * Send break instead of ^C
7466
7467 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
7468 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
7469 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
7470
7471 * Remote protocol timeout
7472
7473 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
7474 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
7475 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
7476
7477 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
7478
7479 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
7480 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
7481 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
7482 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
7483 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
7484
7485 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
7486 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
7487 automatically on hpux10.
7488
7489 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
7490
7491 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
7492
7493 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
7494
7495 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
7496 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
7497 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
7498 every character. The default value is 1050.
7499
7500 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
7501
7502 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
7503 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
7504 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
7505 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
7506 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
7507 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
7508
7509 * Speedups for remote debugging
7510
7511 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
7512 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
7513 and more efficient S-record downloading.
7514
7515 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
7516
7517 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
7518 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
7519
7520 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
7521
7522 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
7523
7524 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
7525 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
7526
7527 * Remote targets use caching
7528
7529 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
7530 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
7531 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
7532 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
7533 off' turns the data cache off.
7534
7535 * Remote targets may have threads
7536
7537 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
7538 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
7539 gdb/remote.c for details.
7540
7541 * NetROM support
7542
7543 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
7544 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
7545 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
7546 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
7547 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
7548 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
7549 sequence is something like
7550
7551 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
7552 load <prog>
7553 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
7554
7555 * Macintosh host
7556
7557 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
7558 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
7559 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
7560 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
7561 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
7562 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
7563 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
7564 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
7565
7566 * Autoconf
7567
7568 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
7569 but does simplify configuration and building.
7570
7571 * hpux10
7572
7573 GDB now supports hpux10.
7574
7575 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
7576
7577 * New native configurations
7578
7579 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
7580 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
7581 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
7582 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
7583
7584 * New targets
7585
7586 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
7587 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
7588 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
7589 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
7590 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7591
7592 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
7593
7594 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
7595 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
7596 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
7597 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
7598 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
7599
7600 * Arguments to user-defined commands
7601
7602 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
7603 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
7604 trivial example:
7605 define adder
7606 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
7607
7608 To execute the command use:
7609 adder 1 2 3
7610
7611 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
7612 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
7613 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
7614
7615 * New `if' and `while' commands
7616
7617 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
7618 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
7619 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
7620 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
7621 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
7622 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
7623 if the expression is zero.
7624
7625 * Fortran source language mode
7626
7627 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
7628 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
7629 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
7630 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
7631 Fortran compilers.
7632
7633 * Better HPUX support
7634
7635 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
7636 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
7637 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
7638 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
7639 that behavior do the following before running the program:
7640
7641 adb -w a.out
7642 __dld_flags?W 0x5
7643 control-d
7644
7645 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
7646 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
7647
7648 adb -w a.out
7649 __dld_flags?W 0x4
7650 control-d
7651
7652 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
7653 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
7654 external linkage.
7655
7656 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
7657 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
7658
7659 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
7660
7661 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
7662 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
7663 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
7664 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
7665 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
7666 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
7667
7668 * New DOS host serial code
7669
7670 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
7671 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
7672 a PC's serial port.
7673
7674 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
7675
7676 * New "complete" command
7677
7678 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
7679 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
7680
7681 * Trailing space optional in prompt
7682
7683 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
7684 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
7685
7686 * Breakpoint hit counts
7687
7688 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
7689 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
7690 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
7691 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
7692 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
7693 that breakpoint.
7694
7695 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
7696
7697 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
7698 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
7699 arrays actually contain only short strings.
7700
7701 * Shared library breakpoints
7702
7703 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
7704 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
7705
7706 * Hardware watchpoints
7707
7708 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
7709 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
7710
7711 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
7712
7713 * Annotations
7714
7715 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
7716 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
7717
7718 * Improved Irix 5 support
7719
7720 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
7721
7722 * Improved HPPA support
7723
7724 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
7725
7726 * New native configurations
7727
7728 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
7729 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
7730 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
7731 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
7732
7733 * New targets
7734
7735 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
7736 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
7737 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
7738
7739 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
7740
7741 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
7742 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
7743
7744 * Fixes
7745
7746 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
7747 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
7748
7749 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
7750
7751 * Irix 5 is now supported
7752
7753 * HPPA support
7754
7755 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
7756 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
7757 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
7758 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
7759 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
7760
7761
7762 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
7763
7764 * User visible changes:
7765
7766 * Remote Debugging
7767
7768 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
7769 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
7770 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
7771 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
7772 debugging info for the mips target).
7773
7774 * DEC Alpha native support
7775
7776 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
7777 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
7778 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
7779 Alpha-specific notes.
7780
7781 * Preliminary thread implementation
7782
7783 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
7784
7785 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
7786
7787 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
7788 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
7789 for details).
7790
7791 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
7792
7793 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
7794 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
7795 call methods, ...etc.
7796
7797 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
7798
7799 * User visible changes:
7800
7801 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
7802 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
7803 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
7804 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
7805
7806 Filename completion now works.
7807
7808 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
7809 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
7810 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
7811
7812 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
7813 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
7814 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
7815 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
7816 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
7817
7818 * DEC alpha support
7819
7820 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
7821 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
7822
7823
7824 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
7825
7826 * Testsuite
7827
7828 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
7829 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
7830 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
7831
7832 * C++ demangling
7833
7834 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
7835 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
7836 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
7837 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
7838 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
7839
7840 * Simulators
7841
7842 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
7843 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
7844 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
7845
7846 * New targets supported
7847
7848 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7849 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
7850 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
7851 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
7852 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
7853
7854 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
7855 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
7856 GO32 memory extender.
7857
7858 * New remote protocols
7859
7860 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
7861
7862 * New source languages supported
7863
7864 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
7865 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
7866 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
7867
7868
7869 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
7870
7871 * HP Precision Architecture supported
7872
7873 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
7874 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
7875 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
7876 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
7877 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
7878 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
7879
7880 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
7881
7882 * Faster and better demangling
7883
7884 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
7885 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
7886 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
7887 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
7888 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
7889 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
7890 symbol lookups.
7891
7892 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
7893 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
7894 compiler does not actually implement.
7895
7896 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
7897
7898 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
7899 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
7900 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
7901 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
7902 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
7903 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
7904 fix.
7905
7906 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
7907 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
7908
7909 * Improved configure script
7910
7911 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
7912 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
7913 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
7914 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
7915
7916 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
7917 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
7918 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
7919 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
7920 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
7921 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
7922
7923 * Documentation improvements
7924
7925 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
7926 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
7927 before submitting changes.
7928
7929 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
7930 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
7931 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
7932 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
7933 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
7934
7935 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
7936 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
7937 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
7938 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
7939 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
7940 around this problem.
7941
7942 * New features
7943
7944 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
7945 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
7946 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
7947 the target program.
7948
7949 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
7950 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
7951
7952 * New native hosts supported
7953
7954 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
7955 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
7956
7957 * New targets supported
7958
7959 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
7960
7961 * New file formats supported
7962
7963 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
7964 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
7965
7966 * Major bug fixes
7967
7968 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
7969
7970 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
7971 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
7972
7973 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
7974 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
7975 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
7976
7977 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
7978 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
7979
7980 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
7981 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
7982 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
7983 libraries.
7984
7985 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
7986 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
7987 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
7988 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
7989 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
7990
7991 * Internal improvements
7992
7993 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
7994 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
7995
7996 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
7997 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
7998 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
7999 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
8000 shared code that handles any of them.
8001
8002 * New command line options
8003
8004 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
8005
8006 * Mmalloc licensing
8007
8008 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
8009 General Public License.
8010
8011 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
8012
8013 * Host/native/target split
8014
8015 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
8016 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
8017 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
8018 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
8019 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
8020
8021 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
8022 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
8023 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
8024 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
8025 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
8026 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
8027 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
8028
8029 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
8030 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
8031 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
8032
8033 * New hosts supported
8034
8035 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
8036 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
8037 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
8038
8039 * New targets supported
8040
8041 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
8042 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
8043
8044 * New native hosts supported
8045
8046 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
8047 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
8048 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
8049
8050 * New file formats supported
8051
8052 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
8053 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
8054 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
8055
8056 * New commands
8057
8058 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
8059 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
8060 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
8061
8062 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
8063
8064 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
8065 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
8066 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
8067 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
8068
8069 * C++ improvements
8070
8071 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
8072 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
8073 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
8074
8075 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
8076
8077 * Major bug fixes
8078
8079 The crash that occurred when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
8080 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
8081 by the compiler.
8082
8083 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
8084 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
8085
8086 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
8087 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
8088 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
8089 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
8090 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
8091 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
8092
8093 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
8094 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
8095 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
8096 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
8097
8098 * AMD 29k support
8099
8100 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
8101 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
8102 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
8103 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
8104 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
8105
8106 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
8107 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
8108 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
8109 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
8110
8111 * Remote interfaces
8112
8113 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
8114 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
8115 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
8116 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
8117 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
8118 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
8119 each instruction being stepped through.
8120
8121 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
8122 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
8123
8124 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
8125 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
8126 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
8127 processor with a serial port.
8128
8129 * Configuration
8130
8131 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
8132 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
8133 supported, and what files each one uses.
8134
8135 * Library changes
8136
8137 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
8138 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
8139 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
8140 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
8141
8142 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
8143 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
8144 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
8145 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
8146
8147 * Documentation
8148
8149 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
8150 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
8151 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
8152 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
8153 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
8154 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
8155
8156 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
8157
8158
8159 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
8160
8161 * Better support for C++ function names
8162
8163 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
8164 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
8165 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
8166 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
8167 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
8168
8169 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
8170 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
8171 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
8172 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
8173 for the list of formats.
8174
8175 * G++ symbol mangling problem
8176
8177 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
8178 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
8179 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
8180 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compiling gdb/symtab.c. The
8181 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
8182 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
8183 this problem.)
8184
8185 * New 'maintenance' command
8186
8187 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
8188 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
8189 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
8190
8191 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
8192 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
8193 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
8194 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
8195 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
8196 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
8197
8198 The following commands are new:
8199
8200 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
8201 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
8202 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
8203
8204 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
8205
8206 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
8207 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
8208 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
8209 read after argv processing.
8210
8211 * New hosts supported
8212
8213 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
8214
8215 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
8216
8217 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
8218 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
8219 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
8220 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
8221 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
8222 It costs extra.
8223
8224 * New targets supported
8225
8226 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
8227
8228 * More smarts about finding #include files
8229
8230 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
8231 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
8232 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
8233 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
8234 the one that contains your sources.
8235
8236 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
8237 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
8238 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
8239
8240 * Interesting infernals change
8241
8242 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
8243 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
8244 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
8245 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
8246
8247 * Bug fixes (of course!)
8248
8249 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
8250 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
8251 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
8252
8253 See the ChangeLog for details.
8254
8255 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
8256
8257 * New machines supported (host and target)
8258
8259 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
8260
8261 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
8262
8263 * New malloc package
8264
8265 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
8266 Mmalloc is capable of handling multiple heaps of memory. It is also
8267 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
8268 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
8269 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
8270 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
8271
8272 * info proc
8273
8274 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
8275 'help info proc' for details.
8276
8277 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
8278
8279 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
8280 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
8281 possible.
8282
8283 * File name changes for MS-DOS
8284
8285 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
8286 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
8287 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
8288 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
8289 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
8290 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
8291
8292 * Cross byte order fixes
8293
8294 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
8295 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
8296
8297 * New -mapped and -readnow options
8298
8299 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
8300 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
8301 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
8302 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
8303 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
8304 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
8305 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
8306 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
8307 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
8308 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
8309
8310 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
8311 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
8312 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
8313 slower, but makes future operations faster.
8314
8315 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
8316 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
8317 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
8318 use is:
8319
8320 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
8321
8322 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
8323 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
8324 shared across multiple host platforms.
8325
8326 * longjmp() handling
8327
8328 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
8329 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
8330 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
8331 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
8332
8333 * Solaris 2.0
8334
8335 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
8336 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
8337 reading symbols.
8338
8339 * Bug fixes
8340
8341 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
8342 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
8343 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
8344
8345 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
8346
8347 * New machines supported (host and target)
8348
8349 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
8350 (except core files)
8351 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
8352 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
8353
8354 * New machines supported (target)
8355
8356 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
8357
8358 * C++ support
8359
8360 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
8361 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
8362 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
8363
8364 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
8365 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
8366 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
8367 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
8368 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
8369 released.
8370
8371 * New features for SVR4
8372
8373 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
8374 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
8375 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
8376
8377 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
8378 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
8379 it prints the address mappings of the process.
8380
8381 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
8382 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
8383
8384 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
8385
8386 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
8387 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
8388 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
8389 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
8390 same code linked statically.
8391
8392 * New Getopt
8393
8394 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
8395 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
8396 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
8397 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
8398 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
8399 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
8400
8401 * Bugs fixed
8402
8403 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
8404 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
8405 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
8406
8407
8408 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
8409
8410 * New machines supported (host and target)
8411
8412 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
8413 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
8414 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
8415
8416 * Almost SCO Unix support
8417
8418 We had hoped to support:
8419 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
8420 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
8421 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
8422 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
8423
8424 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
8425
8426 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
8427 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
8428 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
8429 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
8430 reqired (if any).
8431
8432 * New Readline
8433
8434 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
8435 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
8436 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
8437
8438 * Bugs fixed
8439
8440 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
8441 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
8442 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
8443
8444 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
8445
8446 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
8447 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
8448 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
8449
8450 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
8451 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
8452 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
8453 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
8454 version 2.
8455
8456 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
8457 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
8458 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
8459 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
8460 situation somewhat.
8461
8462 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
8463 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
8464 methods.
8465
8466 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
8467 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
8468 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
8469
8470
8471 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
8472
8473 * Improved configuration
8474
8475 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
8476 Porting BFD is simpler.
8477
8478 * Stepping improved
8479
8480 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
8481 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
8482 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
8483 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
8484
8485 * Bug fixing
8486
8487 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
8488
8489 * New host supported (not target)
8490
8491 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
8492
8493
8494 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
8495
8496 * Multiple source language support
8497
8498 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
8499 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
8500 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
8501 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
8502 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
8503 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
8504
8505 * GDB and Modula-2
8506
8507 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
8508 currently under development at the State University of New York at
8509 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
8510 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
8511
8512 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
8513 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
8514 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
8515
8516 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
8517 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
8518
8519 * set write on/off
8520
8521 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
8522 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
8523 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
8524 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
8525 effect immediately.
8526
8527 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
8528
8529 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
8530 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
8531 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
8532 examining core files.
8533
8534 * set listsize
8535
8536 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
8537 The default is 10.
8538
8539 * New machines supported (host and target)
8540
8541 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
8542 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
8543 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
8544
8545 * New hosts supported (not targets)
8546
8547 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
8548
8549 * New targets supported (not hosts)
8550
8551 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
8552 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
8553 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
8554
8555 * New remote interfaces
8556
8557 AMD 29000 Adapt
8558 AMD 29000 Minimon
8559
8560
8561 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
8562
8563 * New Facilities
8564
8565 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
8566
8567 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
8568 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
8569 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
8570 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
8571 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
8572 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
8573 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
8574 stub on the target system.
8575
8576 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
8577
8578 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
8579 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
8580 object file types such as a.out and coff.
8581
8582 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
8583 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
8584
8585
8586 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
8587
8588 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
8589 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
8590
8591 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
8592 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
8593 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
8594
8595 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
8596 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
8597 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
8598 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
8599
8600 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
8601 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
8602 it is already running. Default is ON.
8603
8604 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
8605 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
8606 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
8607 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
8608 Default is ON.
8609
8610 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
8611 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
8612 or the value of the environment variable
8613 GDBHISTFILE.
8614
8615 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
8616 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
8617 HISTSIZE.
8618
8619 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
8620 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
8621 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
8622
8623 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
8624 history expansion will be performed on
8625 command line input. The default is OFF.
8626
8627 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
8628 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
8629 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
8630
8631 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
8632 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
8633 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
8634 variable TERM.
8635
8636 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
8637 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
8638 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
8639 variable TERM.
8640
8641 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
8642 ``set width'' instead.
8643
8644 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
8645 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
8646 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
8647 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
8648
8649 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
8650 is OFF.
8651
8652 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
8653 "raw" form if off.
8654
8655 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
8656 like instructions.
8657
8658 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
8659
8660
8661 * Support for Epoch Environment.
8662
8663 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
8664 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
8665 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
8666 window.
8667
8668
8669 * Support for Shared Libraries
8670
8671 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
8672 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
8673 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
8674 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
8675 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
8676 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
8677 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
8678 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
8679
8680 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
8681 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
8682 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
8683
8684 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
8685
8686
8687 * Watchpoints
8688
8689 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
8690 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
8691 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
8692 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
8693 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
8694 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
8695
8696 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
8697
8698 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
8699
8700 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
8701 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
8702 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
8703
8704
8705 * C++ multiple inheritance
8706
8707 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
8708 for C++ programs.
8709
8710 * C++ exception handling
8711
8712 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
8713 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
8714 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
8715 handler's context).
8716
8717 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
8718 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
8719 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
8720
8721 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
8722 current stack frame.
8723
8724
8725 * Minor command changes
8726
8727 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
8728 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
8729 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
8730
8731 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
8732 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
8733 frames without printing.
8734
8735 * New directory command
8736
8737 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
8738 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
8739 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
8740 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
8741 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
8742
8743 * Configuring GDB for compilation
8744
8745 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
8746 for more details.
8747
8748 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
8749 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
8750 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
8751 where the program that you are debugging will run.