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