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