1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.6
6 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
7 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
9 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
10 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
11 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
12 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
13 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
14 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
17 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
19 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
21 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
22 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
23 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
24 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
29 (gdb) info registers rax
32 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
33 "*value not available*".
37 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
41 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
42 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
43 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
45 * Removed native configurations
47 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
48 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
50 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
51 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
52 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
53 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
54 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
55 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
56 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
60 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
62 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
64 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
66 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
69 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
71 maint set|show per-command
72 maint set|show per-command space
73 maint set|show per-command time
74 maint set|show per-command symtab
75 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
79 set debug symfile off|on
81 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
82 symbol tables within those files
84 set print raw frame-arguments
85 show print raw frame-arguments
86 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
87 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
89 set remote trace-status-packet
90 show remote trace-status-packet
91 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
95 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
99 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
101 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
102 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
103 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
104 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
107 * New command-line options
109 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
111 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
112 buffer in Common Trace Format.
114 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
117 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
119 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
120 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
122 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
123 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
125 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
126 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
127 due to an uncaught signal.
131 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
134 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
136 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
137 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
140 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
141 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
143 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
144 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
145 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
147 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
148 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
149 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
152 * New system-wide configuration scripts
153 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
154 configuration scripts for the following systems:
158 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
159 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
160 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
163 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
164 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
166 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
167 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
168 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
174 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
175 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
176 involvemement at each single-step.
178 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
179 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
180 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
181 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
182 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
183 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
186 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
188 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
189 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
191 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
192 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
193 trace state variables.
195 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
198 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
199 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
201 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
203 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
204 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
205 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
206 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
208 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
210 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
211 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
212 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
213 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
215 set|show record full insn-number-max
216 set|show record full stop-at-limit
217 set|show record full memory-query
219 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
220 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
221 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
222 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
223 This new recording method can be enabled using:
227 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
228 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
230 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
231 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
232 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
234 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
235 instruction granularity
237 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
240 * New native configurations
242 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
243 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
244 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
245 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
249 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
250 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
251 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
252 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
253 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
255 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
256 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
257 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
258 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
259 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
260 --data-directory command-line option.
262 * New command line options:
264 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
265 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
267 * Removed command line options
269 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
272 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
275 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
279 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
281 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
283 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
285 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
287 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
288 of architecture in the Python API.
290 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
291 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
293 * New Python-based convenience functions:
295 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
296 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
298 ** $_regex(str, regex)
300 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
303 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
304 default for GCC since November 2000.
306 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
308 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
309 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
311 * New configure options
313 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
314 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
315 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
316 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
317 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
318 options allow the user to override that default.
319 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
320 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
321 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
323 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
326 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
327 conditions to be attached.
330 List the BFDs known to GDB.
332 python-interactive [command]
334 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
335 and print the result of expressions.
338 "py" is a new alias for "python".
340 enable type-printer [name]...
341 disable type-printer [name]...
342 Enable or disable type printers.
346 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
347 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
352 set print type methods (on|off)
353 show print type methods
354 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
355 The default is to show them.
357 set print type typedefs (on|off)
358 show print type typedefs
359 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
360 The default is to show them.
362 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
363 show filename-display
364 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
365 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
367 set trace-buffer-size
368 show trace-buffer-size
369 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
371 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
372 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
373 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
377 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
380 set debug coff-pe-read
381 show debug coff-pe-read
382 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
387 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
390 set debug notification
391 show debug notification
392 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
396 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
397 "=cmd-param-changed".
398 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
399 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
400 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
401 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
402 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
403 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
404 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
405 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
407 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
408 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
409 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
410 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
411 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
412 library load/unload events.
413 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
414 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
415 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
416 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
417 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
418 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
419 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
420 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
422 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
423 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
424 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
425 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
430 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
431 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
434 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
435 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
439 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
440 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
443 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
444 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
446 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
448 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
449 for more x32 ABI info.
451 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
453 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
455 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
456 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
457 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
458 "info os files" lists file descriptors
459 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
460 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
461 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
462 "info os msg" lists message queues
463 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
465 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
466 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
467 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
468 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
469 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
470 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
472 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
473 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
474 record/replay support.
476 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
480 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
483 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
485 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
486 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
488 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
490 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
491 the source at which the symbol was defined.
493 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
494 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
495 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
498 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
499 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
501 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
502 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
503 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
505 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
506 object associated with a PC value.
508 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
509 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
511 * Go language support.
512 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
515 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
516 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
518 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
519 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
521 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
522 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
523 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
524 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
525 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
528 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
529 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
530 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
533 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
534 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
536 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
539 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
540 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
541 command does. For instance:
543 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
545 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
546 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
547 created, using the "condition" command.
549 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
550 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
552 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
554 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
555 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
556 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
557 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
558 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
559 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
560 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
561 files with older .gdb_index sections.
563 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
564 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
565 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
566 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
567 the .gdb_index section.
569 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
571 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
576 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
578 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
582 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
583 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
584 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
586 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
587 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
589 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
592 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
593 C++ and Java objects.
595 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
596 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
597 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
598 configured with '--with-python'.
600 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
601 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
602 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
603 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
604 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
605 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
606 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
608 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
609 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
610 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
611 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
613 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
614 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
615 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
616 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
618 ** "set print symbol"
620 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
621 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
622 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
624 * Deprecated commands
626 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
627 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
631 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
632 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
634 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
635 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
636 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
637 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
643 show mips compression
644 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
645 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
648 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
650 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
651 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
652 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
653 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
655 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
659 Disable auto-loading globally.
662 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
664 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
665 show auto-load gdb-scripts
666 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
668 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
669 show auto-load python-scripts
670 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
672 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
673 show auto-load local-gdbinit
674 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
676 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
677 show auto-load libthread-db
678 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
680 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
681 show auto-load scripts-directory
682 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
683 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
684 of the directories listed by this option.
685 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
687 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
688 show auto-load safe-path
689 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
690 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
692 set debug auto-load on|off
694 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
696 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
698 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
699 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
700 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
701 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
703 set dprintf-function <expr>
704 show dprintf-function
705 set dprintf-channel <expr>
707 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
708 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
710 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
711 show disconnected-dprintf
712 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
713 after GDB disconnects.
715 * New configure options
718 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
719 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
720 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
721 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
722 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
724 --with-auto-load-safe-path
725 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
726 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
728 --without-auto-load-safe-path
729 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
734 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
736 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
737 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
738 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
739 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
743 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
744 program without GDB involvement.
746 * New command line options
748 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
749 before loading inferior.
750 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
751 execute it before loading inferior.
753 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
755 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
756 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
757 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
758 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
761 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
762 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
764 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
765 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
766 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
767 target hardware watchpoint.
769 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
770 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
771 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
772 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
776 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
777 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
780 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
781 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
782 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
783 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
784 now "message", which just prints the error message without
787 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
790 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
791 modules library. This module provides functionality for
792 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
793 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
796 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
797 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
798 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
801 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
802 static_block will return the global and static blocks
803 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
804 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
806 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
808 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
811 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
812 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
813 available in the CLI.
815 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
816 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
817 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
820 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
823 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
824 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
825 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
826 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
827 any anonymous fields.
831 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
834 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
835 "=breakpoint-modified".
837 ** New command -ada-task-info.
839 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
840 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
841 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
844 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
845 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
846 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
847 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
848 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
850 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
851 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
853 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
854 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
855 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
856 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
857 use this option to specify where to find it.
859 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
860 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
861 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
862 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
863 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
864 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
865 section in the user manual for more details.
867 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
868 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
869 become available after that.
871 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
873 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
874 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
880 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
881 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
885 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
886 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
887 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
889 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
890 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
891 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
893 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
894 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
895 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
896 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
897 name starts with a hyphen.
899 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
900 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
901 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
902 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
903 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
904 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
905 number of bytes that will be collected.
908 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
909 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
910 setting the variable trace-notes.
913 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
914 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
915 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
918 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
919 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
920 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
921 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
922 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
925 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
926 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
927 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
931 set debug dwarf2-read
932 show debug dwarf2-read
933 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
934 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
936 set debug symtab-create
937 show debug symtab-create
938 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
939 creation. The default is off.
943 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
944 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
945 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
946 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
949 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
950 show print entry-values
951 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
952 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
953 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
955 set debug entry-values
956 show debug entry-values
957 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
958 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
960 set basenames-may-differ
961 show basenames-may-differ
962 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
963 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
964 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
965 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
966 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
967 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
968 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
969 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
975 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
976 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
977 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
978 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
981 show trace-stop-notes
982 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
983 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
984 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
985 started by someone else.
991 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
995 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
999 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
1003 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
1007 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
1010 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
1011 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
1015 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
1019 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1021 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
1023 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
1025 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
1027 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
1028 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
1029 matches the given regular expression.
1031 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1033 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1034 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1036 * New command line options
1038 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1039 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1041 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1042 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1044 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1045 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1046 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1048 * GDB now understands thread names.
1050 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1051 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1053 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1054 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1057 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1058 has been integrated into GDB.
1062 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1063 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1064 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1066 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1067 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1068 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1069 and allows for more dynamic content.
1071 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1072 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1073 have an is_valid method.
1075 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1076 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1077 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1079 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1081 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1082 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1083 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1084 that function like so:
1086 result = some_value (10,20)
1088 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1089 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1090 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1092 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1093 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1094 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1095 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1096 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1098 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1099 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1101 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1103 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1106 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1107 holds the thread's name.
1109 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1110 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
1111 occurring in the process being debugged.
1112 The following events are currently supported:
1113 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1114 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1115 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1119 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1120 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1122 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1124 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1125 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1126 was added to GCC 4.5.
1128 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1129 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1130 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1131 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1132 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1133 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1135 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1136 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1137 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1138 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1139 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1141 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1142 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1143 execution to a label.
1145 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1146 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1147 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1148 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1150 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
1151 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
1152 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1155 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1157 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1158 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1159 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1160 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1161 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1162 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1165 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1167 While now you see this:
1170 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1172 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1175 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1176 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1177 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1178 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1180 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1181 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1182 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1183 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1184 section in the user manual for more details.
1186 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1188 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1189 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
1191 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1193 * New native configurations
1195 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1199 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1201 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1202 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1203 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1204 in the GDB user manual.
1206 * Guile support was removed.
1208 * New features in the GNU simulator
1210 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1212 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1214 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
1216 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
1218 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1219 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1220 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1221 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1222 was always disabled for such configurations.
1226 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1228 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1229 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1239 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1240 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1241 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1243 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1245 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1246 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1247 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1248 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1250 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1251 mentioned flavors of operators.
1253 ** static const class members
1255 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1256 class definition has been fixed.
1258 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
1260 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1261 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1262 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1263 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1264 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1265 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1267 * Static tracepoints
1269 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1270 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1271 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1272 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1273 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1274 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1275 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1276 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1277 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1278 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1279 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1280 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1281 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1282 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1283 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1284 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1285 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1286 the "New remote packets" section below.
1288 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1290 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1291 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1292 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1293 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1297 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1298 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1299 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1300 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1301 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1302 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1303 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1305 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1308 * New remote packets
1312 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1316 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1317 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1318 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1319 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1320 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1321 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1325 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1329 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1332 qXfer:statictrace:read
1334 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1335 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1336 to gdb's qSupported query.
1340 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1344 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1345 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1347 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1348 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1351 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1353 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1354 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1355 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1356 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1358 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1359 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1360 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1361 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1362 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1363 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1364 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1366 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1367 for static tracepoints support.
1369 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1371 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1372 it understands register description.
1374 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1376 * X86 general purpose registers
1378 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1379 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1380 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1381 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1382 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1384 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
1385 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1386 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1387 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1388 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1389 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
1391 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1392 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1393 in the specified file.
1395 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1396 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1397 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1398 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1399 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1400 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1401 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1402 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1403 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1404 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1408 eval template, expressions...
1409 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1410 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1412 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1413 show target-file-system-kind
1414 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1417 save breakpoints <filename>
1418 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1419 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1420 definitions, use the `source' command.
1422 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1425 info static-tracepoint-markers
1426 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1428 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1429 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1430 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1434 Enable and disable observer mode.
1436 set may-write-registers on|off
1437 set may-write-memory on|off
1438 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1439 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1440 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1441 set may-interrupt on|off
1442 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1443 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1444 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1445 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1446 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1447 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1448 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1450 set record memory-query on|off
1451 show record memory-query
1452 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1453 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1458 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1462 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1463 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1464 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1465 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1466 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1468 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
1469 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1470 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1471 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
1473 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
1474 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1476 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
1478 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
1480 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1482 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1483 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1484 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1486 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1487 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1488 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1489 regular breakpoints.
1493 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1495 * D language support.
1496 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1499 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1500 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1501 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1502 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1503 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1505 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1506 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1507 conditions of the form:
1509 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1511 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1512 interface mentioned above.
1514 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
1518 ** Namespace Support
1520 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1521 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1522 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1523 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1524 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1528 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1529 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1534 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1535 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1539 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
1544 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
1547 * Multi-program debugging.
1549 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1550 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1551 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1552 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1553 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1554 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1555 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1556 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1558 * New tracing features
1560 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1562 ** Trace state variables
1564 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1565 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1566 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1567 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1568 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1569 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1570 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1571 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1572 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1573 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
1577 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1578 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1579 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1580 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1581 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1582 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1583 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1584 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1585 the regular trace command.
1587 ** Disconnected tracing
1589 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1590 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1591 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1592 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1593 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1597 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1598 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1599 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1600 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1601 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1602 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1605 ** Circular trace buffer
1607 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1608 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1609 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1610 not be available for all target agents.
1615 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1616 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1619 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1620 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1623 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1624 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1627 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1628 "set script-extension" (see below).
1630 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1632 record save [<FILENAME>]
1633 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1634 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1636 record restore <FILENAME>
1637 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1638 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1640 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1643 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1644 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1645 inferior has loaded.
1650 maint info program-spaces
1651 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1653 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1654 show remote interrupt-sequence
1655 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1656 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1657 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1658 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1659 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1661 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1662 show remote interrupt-on-connect
1663 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1664 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1667 set remotebreak [on | off]
1669 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1671 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1672 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1675 List trace state variables and their values.
1677 delete tvariable $NAME ...
1678 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1681 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1682 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1684 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1685 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1687 * New expression syntax
1689 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1690 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1694 set follow-exec-mode new|same
1695 show follow-exec-mode
1696 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1697 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1698 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1700 set default-collect EXPR, ...
1701 show default-collect
1702 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1703 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1704 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1706 set disconnected-tracing
1707 show disconnected-tracing
1708 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1709 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1712 set circular-trace-buffer
1713 show circular-trace-buffer
1714 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1715 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1716 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1717 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1719 set script-extension off|soft|strict
1720 show script-extension
1721 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1722 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1723 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1724 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1726 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1728 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1729 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1730 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1731 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1732 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1733 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1734 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1737 * Python API Improvements
1739 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1740 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1741 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1743 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1744 `is_base_class' attribute.
1746 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1748 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1749 evaluate an expression.
1751 * New remote packets
1754 Define a trace state variable.
1757 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1760 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1763 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1766 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1770 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1772 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1773 much more reliable. In particular:
1774 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1775 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1776 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1777 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1778 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1779 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1780 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1781 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1782 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1783 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1784 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1785 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1786 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1787 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1788 non-threaded programs.
1790 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1791 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1792 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1795 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1797 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1798 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1799 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1800 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1801 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1803 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1804 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1805 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1806 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1807 for tracepoint actions.
1809 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1810 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1811 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1813 * Process record and replay
1815 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1816 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1817 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1820 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1821 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1822 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1825 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1826 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1829 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1830 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1831 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1832 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1833 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1834 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1835 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1836 the installation instructions for more information.
1838 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1839 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1840 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1841 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1843 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1844 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1846 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1847 now complete on file names.
1849 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1850 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1851 For instance, consider:
1853 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1854 # struct example variable;
1857 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1858 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1860 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1861 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1863 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1864 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1867 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1868 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1869 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1871 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1872 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1873 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1874 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1876 * New remote packets
1879 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1882 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1883 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1884 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1887 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1888 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1891 Obtains additional operating system information
1895 Read or write additional signal information.
1897 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1899 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1900 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1901 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1903 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1904 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1906 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1907 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1908 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1910 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1911 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1913 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1915 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1917 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1918 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1920 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1921 list of section offsets.
1923 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1924 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1925 have also been fixed.
1927 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1928 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1929 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1931 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1934 template<typename T> class C { };
1937 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1939 ptype C<char const *>
1940 ptype C<char const*>
1941 ptype C<const char *>
1942 ptype C<const char*>
1944 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1946 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1947 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1949 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1950 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1951 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1953 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1954 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1956 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1959 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1960 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1962 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1963 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1968 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1969 available is determined at configure time.
1971 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1973 * Ada tasking support
1975 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1979 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1981 Print detailed information about task number N.
1983 Print the task number of the current task.
1985 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1987 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1988 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1990 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1992 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1993 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1994 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1995 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1996 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1997 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
2000 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
2001 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
2004 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
2005 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
2006 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
2007 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
2010 * Multi-architecture debugging.
2012 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
2013 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
2014 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
2015 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
2016 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
2018 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
2019 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
2020 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
2021 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
2022 --enable-targets configure option.
2024 * Non-stop mode debugging.
2026 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
2027 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
2028 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
2029 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
2030 section in the user manual for more information.
2032 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2033 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2034 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2035 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2036 extensions on linux targets.
2038 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2040 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2041 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2042 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2043 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2044 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2045 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2046 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2047 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2048 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2050 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2052 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2054 maint set python print-stack
2055 maint show python print-stack
2056 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2059 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2064 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2068 Show operating system information about processes.
2071 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2074 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2077 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2080 Kill inferior number NUM.
2084 set spu stop-on-load
2085 show spu stop-on-load
2086 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2088 set spu auto-flush-cache
2089 show spu auto-flush-cache
2090 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2091 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2093 set sh calling-convention
2094 show sh calling-convention
2095 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2098 show debug timestamp
2099 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2101 set disassemble-next-line
2102 show disassemble-next-line
2103 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2106 set remote noack-packet
2107 show remote noack-packet
2108 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2109 under "New remote packets."
2111 set remote query-attached-packet
2112 show remote query-attached-packet
2113 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2115 set remote read-siginfo-object
2116 show remote read-siginfo-object
2117 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2120 set remote write-siginfo-object
2121 show remote write-siginfo-object
2122 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2125 set remote reverse-continue
2126 show remote reverse-continue
2127 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2129 set remote reverse-step
2130 show remote reverse-step
2131 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2133 set displaced-stepping
2134 show displaced-stepping
2135 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2136 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2137 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2140 show debug displaced
2141 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2143 maint set internal-error
2144 maint show internal-error
2145 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2147 maint set internal-warning
2148 maint show internal-warning
2149 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
2154 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2156 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2157 show multiple-symbols
2158 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2159 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2160 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2162 set breakpoint always-inserted
2163 show breakpoint always-inserted
2164 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2165 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2166 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2168 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2169 show arm fallback-mode
2170 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2172 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2173 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2174 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2175 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2177 set disable-randomization
2178 show disable-randomization
2179 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2180 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2181 multiple debugging sessions.
2185 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2190 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2191 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2192 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2193 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2195 set target-wide-charset
2196 show target-wide-charset
2197 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2198 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2200 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2202 set tcp connect-timeout
2203 show tcp connect-timeout
2204 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2205 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2206 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2208 set libthread-db-search-path
2209 show libthread-db-search-path
2210 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2213 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2214 show schedule-multiple
2215 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2216 the current process.
2220 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2221 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2222 affecting correctness.
2224 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2225 show interactive-mode
2226 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2227 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2228 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2229 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2230 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2235 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2236 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2237 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2241 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2242 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2243 alias for the `fork' command.
2246 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2247 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2248 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2251 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2252 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2253 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2257 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2258 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2259 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2262 * New native configurations
2264 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2266 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2270 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
2271 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
2272 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
2275 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2276 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2282 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2284 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
2286 * New native configurations
2288 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
2289 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
2293 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
2294 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
2296 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2298 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2299 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2300 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2301 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2303 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2304 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2306 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
2309 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
2310 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2311 and in inlined functions.
2313 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2314 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2315 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2317 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2319 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2320 registers on PowerPC targets.
2322 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2323 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2325 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2326 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2328 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2329 extended-remote mode.
2331 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
2332 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2333 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2334 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
2336 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2337 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2338 target architectures.
2340 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2341 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2342 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2343 stored in two consecutive float registers.
2345 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2348 * Improved support for debugging Ada
2349 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2351 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2352 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2353 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2354 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2356 - Improved command completion in Ada
2359 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2364 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2365 show print frame-arguments
2366 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2367 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2372 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2379 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2381 * New remote packets
2388 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
2391 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2395 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2397 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
2399 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2400 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2401 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2403 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2404 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2405 -Bsymbolic linker option.
2407 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2408 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2411 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2412 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2414 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
2415 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
2417 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2419 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2420 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2421 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2423 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2424 automatically displayed as character or string data.
2426 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2427 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2430 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2431 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
2432 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
2434 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2437 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2438 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2439 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2441 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2443 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2445 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2446 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2447 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2449 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2450 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2452 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2453 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2454 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2455 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2456 Windows and SymbianOS).
2458 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2459 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
2461 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2462 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
2468 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2469 when debugging using remote targets.
2471 set mem inaccessible-by-default
2472 show mem inaccessible-by-default
2473 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2474 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2475 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2476 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2477 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2479 set breakpoint auto-hw
2480 show breakpoint auto-hw
2481 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2482 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2483 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2484 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2485 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2486 including "next" and "finish".
2489 catch exception unhandled
2490 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2493 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2497 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2498 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2499 an alias to "set sysroot".
2502 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2503 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2506 * New native configurations
2508 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2511 unset tdesc filename
2513 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2514 not query the target for its built-in description.
2518 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
2519 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
2520 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
2522 * New remote packets
2525 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2526 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2528 qXfer:features:read:
2529 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2534 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2535 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2537 qXfer:libraries:read:
2538 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2539 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2540 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2541 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2545 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2553 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2554 i[34567]86-*-netware*
2555 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2556 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2558 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2561 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2562 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2571 * Other removed features
2578 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2585 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2590 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2591 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2596 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2597 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2599 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2601 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2602 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2603 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2604 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2606 MIPS ".pdr" sections
2608 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2609 in debugging information.
2613 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2614 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2616 set mips stack-arg-size
2617 set mips saved-gpreg-size
2619 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2621 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
2626 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
2628 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2629 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2630 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2632 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2633 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2636 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2637 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2639 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2640 stub provides the required support.
2642 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2643 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2648 unset substitute-path
2649 show substitute-path
2650 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2651 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2652 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2653 between compilation and debugging.
2657 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2658 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2659 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2663 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2665 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2666 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2668 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2670 * New remote packets
2673 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2674 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2675 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2676 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2680 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2681 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2683 qXfer:memory-map:read:
2684 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2685 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2690 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2692 * Removed remote packets
2695 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2696 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2698 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
2702 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2704 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2708 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2709 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2711 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2713 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2715 restart <n> Return the program state to a
2716 previously saved state.
2718 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2720 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2722 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2723 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2725 info forks List forks of the user program that
2726 are available to be debugged.
2728 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2729 forks of the user program that are
2730 available to be debugged.
2732 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2733 that are available to be debugged (and
2734 kill the forked process).
2736 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2737 that are available to be debugged (and
2738 allow the process to continue).
2742 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2744 * Improved Windows host support
2746 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2747 native console support, and remote communications using either
2748 network sockets or serial ports.
2750 * Improved Modula-2 language support
2752 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2753 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2754 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2755 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2756 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2757 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2761 The ARM rdi-share module.
2763 The Netware NLM debug server.
2765 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2767 * New native configurations
2769 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2770 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2774 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2776 * New command line options
2778 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2779 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2780 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2781 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2782 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2783 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2784 with the --command (-x) option.
2786 * Deprecated commands removed
2788 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2792 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2793 othernames set arm disassembler
2794 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2795 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2796 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2799 * New BSD user-level threads support
2801 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2802 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2805 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2806 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2807 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2809 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2810 are not yet supported.
2812 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2813 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2815 * REMOVED configurations and files
2817 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2818 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2819 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2821 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2823 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2824 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2827 * VAX floating point support
2829 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2831 * User-defined command support
2833 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2834 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2835 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2837 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2839 * New command line option
2841 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2844 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2846 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2847 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2848 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2849 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2850 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
2852 * Internationalization
2854 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2855 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2856 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2860 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2861 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2862 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2864 * New native configurations
2866 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2870 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2871 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2873 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2875 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2876 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2877 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2880 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2881 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2882 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2892 powerpc bdm protocol
2894 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2895 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2897 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2899 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2900 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2901 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2902 permanently REMOVED.
2911 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2913 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2915 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2916 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2919 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2921 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2922 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2923 IRIX long double values).
2927 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2928 command. This problem has been fixed.
2930 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2932 * Fix for ``many threads''
2934 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2935 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2938 ptrace: No such process.
2939 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2941 This problem has been fixed.
2943 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2945 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2948 * New ``start'' command.
2950 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2952 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2954 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2955 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2956 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2958 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2959 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2960 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2961 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2962 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2963 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2964 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2965 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2966 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2968 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2970 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2971 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2972 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2973 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2974 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2976 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2977 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2978 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2980 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2982 * New native configurations
2984 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2985 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2986 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2987 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2988 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2989 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2990 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2992 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2994 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2995 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2996 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2997 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2998 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2999 work, was also included.
3001 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
3002 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
3012 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3013 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
3015 * REMOVED configurations and files
3017 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3018 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3019 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3020 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3021 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3022 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3023 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3024 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3025 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3026 sonymips mips-sony-*
3027 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3029 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3031 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3033 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3034 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3035 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3036 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3039 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3041 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3042 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3043 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3044 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3045 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3046 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3049 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3051 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
3053 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3054 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3055 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3057 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3059 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3060 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3062 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3064 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3065 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3066 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3068 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3070 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3071 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3073 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3075 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3076 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3077 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3079 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3081 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3082 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3083 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3085 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
3087 * Removed --with-mmalloc
3089 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3090 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3092 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
3094 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3095 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3096 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3097 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3099 * Revised SPARC target
3101 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3102 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
3103 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3104 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3105 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
3109 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3110 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3111 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3114 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3116 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3117 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3120 * C++ nested types and namespaces
3122 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3123 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3124 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3125 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3126 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3127 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3128 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3129 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3130 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3132 * New native configurations
3134 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
3135 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3136 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
3137 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3138 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
3140 * New debugging protocols
3142 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3144 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3146 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3147 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3148 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3150 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3152 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3153 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3154 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3155 permanently REMOVED.
3157 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3158 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3159 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3160 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3161 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3162 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3163 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3164 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3165 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3166 sonymips mips-sony-*
3167 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3169 * REMOVED configurations and files
3171 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3172 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3173 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3174 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3175 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3176 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3177 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3178 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3179 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3180 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
3181 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3182 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3183 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3184 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3185 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
3186 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3187 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3189 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3193 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3194 integrated into GDB.
3196 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3198 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3199 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3200 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3203 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3204 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3205 DWARF 2 CFI support.
3209 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3210 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3211 remote protocol documentation for details.
3213 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
3215 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3216 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3217 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3220 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3222 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3223 per-thread variables.
3225 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3227 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3228 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3230 * Separate debug info.
3232 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3233 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3234 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3235 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3236 and optional debug files.
3238 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3240 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3241 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3244 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3245 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3249 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3250 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3251 considered "useable".
3253 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3255 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3256 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3259 * GDB supports logging output to a file
3261 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3262 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
3264 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3266 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3267 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3270 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
3272 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3273 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3277 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3278 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3279 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3280 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3281 data, for more informative profiling results.
3283 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3285 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3286 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
3287 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
3289 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3292 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3293 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3294 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3295 in a subsequent -var-update.
3297 * New native configurations.
3299 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3301 * Multi-arched targets.
3303 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
3304 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3306 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3308 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3309 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3310 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3311 permanently REMOVED.
3313 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3314 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3315 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3316 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3317 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3318 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3319 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3320 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3321 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3322 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3323 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3324 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3326 * REMOVED configurations and files
3329 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3330 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3331 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3332 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3333 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3334 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3336 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3337 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3338 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3339 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3340 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3341 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3343 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
3345 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3346 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3347 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3348 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3349 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3351 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
3353 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3355 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3356 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3357 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3358 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3359 shared libs like mad''.
3361 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
3363 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3364 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3365 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3366 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
3368 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3370 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3371 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3374 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3375 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3377 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3378 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3380 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3381 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3382 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3383 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3385 * Multi-arched targets.
3387 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3388 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
3390 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
3391 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3392 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3396 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3399 * New native configurations
3401 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
3402 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
3403 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
3404 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
3406 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3408 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3409 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3410 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3411 permanently REMOVED.
3413 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3414 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3415 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3416 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3417 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3418 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3419 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3420 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3421 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3422 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3424 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3425 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3427 * OBSOLETE languages
3429 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3431 * REMOVED configurations and files
3433 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3434 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3435 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3436 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3437 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3439 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3441 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3443 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3444 commands. The default is 1024.
3446 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3448 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3450 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3452 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3453 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3454 from a file into memory (restore).
3456 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3458 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3459 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3460 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3462 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3470 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3471 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3472 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3474 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3475 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3476 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3478 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3479 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3480 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3482 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3483 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3484 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3486 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
3488 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3490 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3491 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3492 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3493 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3494 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3495 (notably embedded) targets.
3497 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3499 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3500 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3501 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3502 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
3504 * New command line option
3506 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3508 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3510 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3511 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3512 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3513 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3514 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3515 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3516 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3517 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3518 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3519 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3521 * Changes in ARM configurations.
3523 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3524 configuration is fully multi-arch.
3526 * New native configurations
3528 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
3529 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
3530 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
3531 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
3535 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3537 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3539 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3540 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3541 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3542 permanently REMOVED.
3544 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3545 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3546 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3547 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3548 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3550 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3552 * REMOVED configurations and files
3554 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3556 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3557 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3558 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3559 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3560 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3561 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3562 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3563 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3564 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3565 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3566 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
3568 * Changes to command line processing
3570 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3571 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3573 * Changes to key bindings
3575 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3577 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3579 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3581 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3584 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3586 Numerous documentation fixes.
3588 Numerous testsuite fixes.
3590 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
3592 * New native configurations
3594 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3595 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
3596 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
3597 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3598 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
3599 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
3603 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
3605 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
3607 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3609 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
3610 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3611 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3612 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3613 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3615 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3616 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3617 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3618 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3619 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3620 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3621 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3622 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
3624 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3625 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3627 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3628 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3629 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3630 permanently REMOVED.
3632 * REMOVED configurations and files
3634 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3635 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3637 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3641 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
3643 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
3644 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3649 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3651 * The MI enabled by default.
3653 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3654 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3655 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3656 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3657 which is now deprecated.
3659 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3661 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3662 main features are supported:
3664 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3666 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3669 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3671 - a Pascal expression parser.
3673 However, some important features are not yet supported.
3675 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3677 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3679 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3680 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3682 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3684 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3686 * Changes in completion.
3688 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3689 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3690 users expect at the shell prompt.
3692 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3693 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3694 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3695 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3696 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3697 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3698 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3700 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3702 * New platform-independent commands:
3704 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3705 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3706 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3708 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3710 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3711 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3712 many threads as your system allows you to have.
3714 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3716 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3717 multi-threaded programs though.
3719 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
3721 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3723 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3724 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3727 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3729 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3730 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3731 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3732 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3733 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3736 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3737 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3738 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3740 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3742 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3743 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3745 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3746 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3749 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3750 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3751 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3752 a given linear address.
3754 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3755 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3756 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3758 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3760 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3762 * Changes in documentation.
3764 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3765 Documentation License.
3767 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3770 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3772 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3775 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3776 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3777 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3779 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3781 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3782 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3783 contents of this file.
3787 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3789 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3791 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3793 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3794 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3795 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3796 greater level of detail.
3798 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3800 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3801 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3802 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3805 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3807 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3808 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3809 machines ``out of the box''.
3811 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3812 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3813 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3814 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3815 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3817 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3818 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3819 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3820 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3821 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3823 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3824 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3827 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3830 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3831 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3832 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3833 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3835 * New native configurations
3837 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3838 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3842 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3843 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3844 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
3845 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3847 * OBSOLETE configurations
3849 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3850 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3852 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3855 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3856 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3857 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3858 be permanently REMOVED.
3860 * Gould support removed
3862 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3864 * New features for SVR4
3866 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3867 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3868 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3870 * Many C++ enhancements
3872 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3873 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3875 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3877 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3878 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3879 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3880 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3882 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3883 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3885 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3887 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3888 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3889 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3891 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3892 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3894 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3896 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3897 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3898 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3900 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3902 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3903 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3904 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3906 * ``apropos'' command added.
3908 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3909 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3910 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3914 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3915 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3916 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3917 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3918 enabled by configuring with:
3920 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3922 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3924 * New native configurations
3926 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3927 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3928 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3932 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3933 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3934 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3936 * OBSOLETE configurations
3938 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3940 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3941 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3942 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3943 be permanently REMOVED.
3947 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3948 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3949 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3950 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3951 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3952 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3953 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3958 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3960 * set extension-language
3962 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3963 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3964 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3965 set extension-language .c c++
3966 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3967 and their associated languages.
3969 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3971 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3972 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3973 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3977 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3978 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3980 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3981 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3983 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3984 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3985 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3986 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3987 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3988 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3989 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3990 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3992 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3993 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3994 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3995 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3999 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
4000 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
4001 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
4002 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
4003 for xdb and dbx commands.
4007 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
4008 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
4009 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
4011 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
4012 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
4013 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
4015 * Debugging across forks
4017 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
4022 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
4023 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
4024 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
4026 * GDB remote protocol additions
4028 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
4029 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
4030 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4031 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4033 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4034 full 64-bit address. The command
4036 set remoteaddresssize 32
4038 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4039 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4042 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4043 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4045 maint packet heythere
4047 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4048 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4051 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4052 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4053 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4055 * Tracing can collect general expressions
4057 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4058 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4059 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4061 * mask-address variable for Mips
4063 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4064 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4065 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4067 * Higher serial baud rates
4069 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4070 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4071 to achieve all of these rates.)
4075 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4076 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4079 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4081 * New native configurations
4083 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4084 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4085 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4086 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4087 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4088 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4089 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4093 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4094 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4095 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4096 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4097 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4098 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4099 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4100 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4101 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4102 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4103 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4105 * New debugging protocols
4107 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4108 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4109 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4110 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4111 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4112 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4116 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4117 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4122 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4123 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4125 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4127 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4128 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4129 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4131 * Live range splitting
4133 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4134 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4135 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4139 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4140 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4144 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4145 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4146 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4151 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4156 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4157 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4158 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4159 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4160 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4161 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4165 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4166 the symbol at the specified address.
4170 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4171 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4172 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4173 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4174 file tracepoint.c for more details.
4178 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4179 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4180 of most MIPS variants.
4184 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4185 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4186 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4190 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4191 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4192 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4193 the possible architectures.
4195 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4197 * New native configurations
4199 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4200 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4201 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4202 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4203 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4204 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4208 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4209 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4210 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4211 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4212 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4214 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4218 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4219 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4220 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4221 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4222 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4226 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4228 * Windows 95/NT native
4230 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4231 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4232 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4233 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4234 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4236 * dont-repeat command
4238 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4239 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4240 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4241 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4243 * Send break instead of ^C
4245 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4246 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4247 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4249 * Remote protocol timeout
4251 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4252 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4253 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4255 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4257 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4258 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4259 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4260 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4261 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4263 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4264 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4265 automatically on hpux10.
4267 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4269 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4271 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4273 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4274 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4275 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4276 every character. The default value is 1050.
4278 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4280 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4281 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4282 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4283 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4284 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4285 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4287 * Speedups for remote debugging
4289 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4290 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4291 and more efficient S-record downloading.
4293 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4295 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4296 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4298 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4300 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
4302 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4303 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4305 * Remote targets use caching
4307 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4308 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4309 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4310 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4311 off' turns the the data cache off.
4313 * Remote targets may have threads
4315 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4316 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4317 gdb/remote.c for details.
4321 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4322 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4323 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4324 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4325 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4326 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4327 sequence is something like
4329 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4331 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4335 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4336 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4337 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4338 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4339 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4340 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4341 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4342 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4346 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4347 but does simplify configuration and building.
4351 GDB now supports hpux10.
4353 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4355 * New native configurations
4357 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4358 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4359 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4360 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4364 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4365 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4366 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4367 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4370 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4372 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4373 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4374 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4375 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4376 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4378 * Arguments to user-defined commands
4380 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4381 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4384 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4386 To execute the command use:
4389 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4390 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4391 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4393 * New `if' and `while' commands
4395 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4396 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4397 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4398 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4399 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4400 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4401 if the expression is zero.
4403 * Fortran source language mode
4405 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4406 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4407 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4408 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4411 * Better HPUX support
4413 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4414 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4415 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4416 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4417 that behavior do the following before running the program:
4423 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4424 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4430 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4431 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4434 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4435 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4437 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4439 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4440 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4441 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4442 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4443 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4444 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4446 * New DOS host serial code
4448 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4449 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4452 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4454 * New "complete" command
4456 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4457 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4459 * Trailing space optional in prompt
4461 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4462 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4464 * Breakpoint hit counts
4466 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4467 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4468 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4469 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4470 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4473 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4475 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4476 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4477 arrays actually contain only short strings.
4479 * Shared library breakpoints
4481 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4482 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4484 * Hardware watchpoints
4486 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4487 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4489 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
4493 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4494 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4496 * Improved Irix 5 support
4498 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4500 * Improved HPPA support
4502 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4504 * New native configurations
4506 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4507 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4508 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4509 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4513 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4514 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4517 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4519 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4520 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4524 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4525 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4527 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4529 * Irix 5 is now supported
4533 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4534 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4535 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4536 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4537 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4540 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4542 * User visible changes:
4546 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4547 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4548 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4549 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4550 debugging info for the mips target).
4552 * DEC Alpha native support
4554 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4555 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4556 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4557 Alpha-specific notes.
4559 * Preliminary thread implementation
4561 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4563 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
4565 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4566 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4569 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4571 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4572 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4573 call methods, ...etc.
4575 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4577 * User visible changes:
4579 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4580 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4581 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4582 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4584 Filename completion now works.
4586 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4587 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4588 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4590 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4591 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4592 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4593 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4594 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4598 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4599 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4602 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4606 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4607 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4608 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4612 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4613 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4614 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4615 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4616 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4620 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4621 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4622 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4624 * New targets supported
4626 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4627 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4628 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4629 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4630 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4632 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4633 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4634 GO32 memory extender.
4636 * New remote protocols
4638 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4640 * New source languages supported
4642 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4643 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4644 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4647 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4649 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4651 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4652 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4653 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4654 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4655 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4656 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4658 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4660 * Faster and better demangling
4662 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4663 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4664 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4665 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4666 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4667 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4670 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4671 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4672 compiler does not actually implement.
4674 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4676 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4677 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4678 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4679 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4680 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4681 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4684 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4685 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4687 * Improved configure script
4689 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4690 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4691 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4692 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4694 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4695 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4696 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4697 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4698 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4699 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4701 * Documentation improvements
4703 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4704 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4705 before submitting changes.
4707 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4708 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4709 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4710 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4711 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4713 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4714 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4715 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4716 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4717 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4718 around this problem.
4722 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4723 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4724 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4727 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4728 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4730 * New native hosts supported
4732 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4733 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4735 * New targets supported
4737 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4739 * New file formats supported
4741 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4742 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4746 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4748 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4749 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4751 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4752 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4753 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4755 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4756 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4758 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4759 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4760 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4763 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4764 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4765 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4766 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4767 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4769 * Internal improvements
4771 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4772 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4774 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4775 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4776 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4777 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4778 shared code that handles any of them.
4780 * New command line options
4782 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4786 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4787 General Public License.
4789 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4791 * Host/native/target split
4793 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4794 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4795 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4796 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4797 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4799 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4800 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4801 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4802 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4803 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4804 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4805 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4807 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4808 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4809 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4811 * New hosts supported
4813 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4814 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4815 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4817 * New targets supported
4819 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4820 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4822 * New native hosts supported
4824 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4825 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4826 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4828 * New file formats supported
4830 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4831 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4832 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4836 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4837 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4838 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4840 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4842 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4843 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4844 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4845 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4849 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4850 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4851 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4853 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4857 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4858 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4861 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4862 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4864 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4865 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4866 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4867 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4868 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4869 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4871 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4872 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4873 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4874 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4878 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4879 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4880 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4881 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4882 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4884 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4885 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4886 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4887 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4891 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4892 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4893 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4894 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4895 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4896 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4897 each instruction being stepped through.
4899 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4900 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4902 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4903 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4904 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4905 processor with a serial port.
4909 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4910 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4911 supported, and what files each one uses.
4915 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4916 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4917 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4918 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4920 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4921 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4922 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4923 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4927 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4928 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4929 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4930 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4931 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4932 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4934 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4937 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4939 * Better support for C++ function names
4941 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4942 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4943 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4944 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4945 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4947 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4948 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4949 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4950 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4951 for the list of formats.
4953 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4955 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4956 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4957 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4958 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4959 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4960 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4963 * New 'maintenance' command
4965 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4966 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4967 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4969 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4970 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4971 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4972 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4973 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4974 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4976 The following commands are new:
4978 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4979 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4980 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4982 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4984 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4985 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4986 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4987 read after argv processing.
4989 * New hosts supported
4991 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4993 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4995 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4996 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4997 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4998 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4999 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
5002 * New targets supported
5004 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5006 * More smarts about finding #include files
5008 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
5009 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
5010 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
5011 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
5012 the one that contains your sources.
5014 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
5015 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
5016 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
5018 * Interesting infernals change
5020 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
5021 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
5022 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
5023 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
5025 * Bug fixes (of course!)
5027 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
5028 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
5029 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5031 See the ChangeLog for details.
5033 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5035 * New machines supported (host and target)
5037 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5039 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5041 * New malloc package
5043 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5044 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5045 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5046 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5047 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5048 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5052 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5053 'help info proc' for details.
5055 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5057 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5058 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5061 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5063 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5064 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5065 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5066 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5067 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5068 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5070 * Cross byte order fixes
5072 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5073 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5075 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5077 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5078 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5079 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5080 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5081 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5082 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5083 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5084 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5085 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5086 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5088 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5089 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5090 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5091 slower, but makes future operations faster.
5093 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5094 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5095 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5098 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5100 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5101 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5102 shared across multiple host platforms.
5104 * longjmp() handling
5106 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5107 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5108 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5109 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5113 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5114 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5119 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5120 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5121 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5123 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5125 * New machines supported (host and target)
5127 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5129 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5130 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5132 * New machines supported (target)
5134 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5138 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5139 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5140 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5142 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5143 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5144 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5145 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5146 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5149 * New features for SVR4
5151 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5152 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5153 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5155 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5156 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5157 it prints the address mappings of the process.
5159 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5160 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5162 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5164 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5165 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5166 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5167 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5168 same code linked statically.
5172 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5173 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5174 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5175 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5176 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5177 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5181 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5182 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5183 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5186 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5188 * New machines supported (host and target)
5190 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5191 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5192 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5194 * Almost SCO Unix support
5196 We had hoped to support:
5197 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5198 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5199 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5200 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5202 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5204 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5205 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5206 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5207 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5212 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5213 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5214 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5218 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5219 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5220 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5222 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5224 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5225 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5226 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5228 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5229 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5230 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5231 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5234 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5235 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5236 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5237 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5240 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5241 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5244 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5245 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5246 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5249 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5251 * Improved configuration
5253 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5254 Porting BFD is simpler.
5258 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5259 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5260 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5261 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5265 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5267 * New host supported (not target)
5269 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5272 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5274 * Multiple source language support
5276 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5277 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5278 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5279 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5280 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5281 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5285 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5286 currently under development at the State University of New York at
5287 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5288 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5290 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5291 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5292 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5294 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5295 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5299 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5300 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5301 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5302 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5305 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5307 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5308 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5309 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5310 examining core files.
5314 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5317 * New machines supported (host and target)
5319 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5320 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5321 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5323 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5325 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5327 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5329 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5330 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5331 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5333 * New remote interfaces
5339 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5343 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5345 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5346 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5347 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5348 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5349 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5350 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5351 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5352 stub on the target system.
5354 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5356 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5357 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5358 object file types such as a.out and coff.
5360 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5361 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5364 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5366 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5367 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5369 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5370 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5371 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5373 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5374 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5375 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5376 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5378 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5379 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5380 it is already running. Default is ON.
5382 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5383 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5384 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5385 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5388 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5389 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5390 or the value of the environment variable
5393 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5394 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5397 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5398 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5399 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5401 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5402 history expansion will be performed on
5403 command line input. The default is OFF.
5405 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5406 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5407 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5409 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5410 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5411 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5414 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5415 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5416 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5419 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5420 ``set width'' instead.
5422 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5423 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5424 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5425 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5427 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5430 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5433 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5436 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5439 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5441 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5442 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5443 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5447 * Support for Shared Libraries
5449 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5450 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5451 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5452 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5453 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5454 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5455 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5456 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5458 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5459 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5460 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5462 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5467 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5468 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5469 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5470 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5471 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5472 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5474 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5476 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5478 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5479 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5480 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5483 * C++ multiple inheritance
5485 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5488 * C++ exception handling
5490 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5491 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5492 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5495 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5496 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5497 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5499 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5500 current stack frame.
5503 * Minor command changes
5505 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5506 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5507 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5509 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5510 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5511 frames without printing.
5513 * New directory command
5515 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5516 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5517 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5518 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5519 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5521 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5523 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5526 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5527 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5528 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5529 where the program that you are debugging will run.