1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.9
7 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
8 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
9 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
10 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
11 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
12 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
13 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
15 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
17 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
19 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
20 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
23 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
24 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
25 and may include things like its command line arguments.
27 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
28 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
29 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
30 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
31 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
32 backward compatibility.
34 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
35 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
36 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
37 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
39 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
40 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
41 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
42 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
45 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
47 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
51 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
52 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
53 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
54 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
58 maint print symbol-cache
59 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
61 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
62 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
64 maint flush-symbol-cache
65 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
69 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
75 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
76 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
77 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
78 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
80 maint set symbol-cache-size
81 maint show symbol-cache-size
82 Control the size of the symbol cache.
84 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
85 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
87 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
88 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
90 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
91 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
93 * Python/Guile scripting
95 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
96 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
100 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
101 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
103 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
104 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
107 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
108 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
109 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
113 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
114 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
117 Return information about files on the remote system.
120 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
121 create a process running on the remote system.
123 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
124 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
125 the btrace record target.
126 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
128 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
129 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
131 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
134 * Removed command line options
136 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
138 * Removed targets and native configurations
140 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
141 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
143 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
145 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
149 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
150 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
151 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
152 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
153 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
154 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
155 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
156 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
157 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
158 selecting a new file to debug.
159 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
160 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
162 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
165 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
166 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
167 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
168 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
170 * New Python-based convenience functions:
172 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
173 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
174 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
175 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
177 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
178 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
179 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
180 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
181 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
182 interface with this new feature are:
184 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
185 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
189 demangle [-l language] [--] name
190 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
191 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
192 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
193 as "maint demangler-warning".
195 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
196 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
198 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
199 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
202 maint print user-registers
203 List all currently available "user" registers.
205 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
206 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
207 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
209 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
210 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
211 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
214 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
215 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
216 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
217 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
220 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
221 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
222 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
223 switched threads meanwhile.
225 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
227 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
228 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
229 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
230 is now the default mode.
234 set debug symbol-lookup
235 show debug symbol-lookup
236 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
240 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
241 inferiors that have exited.
245 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
249 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
251 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
252 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
253 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
254 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
255 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
257 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
258 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
259 its alias "share", instead.
261 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
263 * New command line options
266 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
268 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
269 as specified in ISO C99.
271 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
272 with or without disassembly.
276 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
277 available is determined at configure time.
278 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
279 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
281 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
285 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
289 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
291 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
292 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
294 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
295 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
299 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
300 show print symbol-loading
301 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
302 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
303 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
306 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
307 show guile print-stack
308 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
310 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
311 show auto-load guile-scripts
312 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
314 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
315 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
316 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
317 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
318 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
319 usage of this option.
321 set auto-connect-native-target
323 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
324 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
325 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
327 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
328 show record btrace replay-memory-access
329 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
331 maint set target-async (on|off)
332 maint show target-async
333 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
334 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
335 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
336 occurring only in synchronous mode.
338 set mi-async (on|off)
340 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
341 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
343 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
344 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
346 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
347 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
348 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
349 "set target-async on" command.
351 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
353 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
354 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
355 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
356 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
357 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
359 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
360 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
361 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
363 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
364 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
365 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
366 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
367 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
368 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
369 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
371 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
372 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
374 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
375 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
376 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
378 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
379 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
382 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
384 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
385 remote. It now works with all targets.
387 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
388 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
389 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
390 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
391 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
392 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
393 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
394 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
395 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
398 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
399 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
400 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
402 * GDB now supports access to Intel(R) MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
404 * Support for Intel(R) AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
405 Support displaying and modifying Intel(R) AVX-512 registers
406 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
410 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
411 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
412 branch trace incrementally.
416 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
417 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
419 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
420 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
421 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
422 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
423 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
426 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
428 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
429 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
430 its alias "share", instead.
432 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
433 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
438 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
439 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
440 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
441 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
442 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
443 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
444 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
445 commands and CLI execution commands.
447 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
449 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
450 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
451 recording has been added.
453 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
455 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
456 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
458 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
459 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
460 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
461 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
462 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
463 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
466 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
468 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
470 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
471 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
472 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
473 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
478 (gdb) info registers rax
481 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
482 "*value not available*".
484 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
489 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
490 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
491 ** Line tables representation has been added.
492 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
493 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
494 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
498 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
499 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
500 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
502 * Removed native configurations
504 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
505 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
507 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
508 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
509 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
510 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
511 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
512 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
513 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
517 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
519 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
521 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
523 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
526 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
528 maint set|show per-command
529 maint set|show per-command space
530 maint set|show per-command time
531 maint set|show per-command symtab
532 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
534 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
535 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
536 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
537 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
538 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
541 info exceptions REGEXP
542 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
543 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
548 set debug symfile off|on
550 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
551 symbol tables within those files
553 set print raw frame-arguments
554 show print raw frame-arguments
555 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
556 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
558 set remote trace-status-packet
559 show remote trace-status-packet
560 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
564 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
568 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
570 set startup-with-shell
571 show startup-with-shell
572 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
577 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
578 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
580 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
581 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
582 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
583 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
586 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
587 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
588 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
590 * New command-line options
592 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
594 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
595 buffer in Common Trace Format.
597 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
600 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
602 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
603 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
605 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
606 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
608 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
609 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
610 due to an uncaught signal.
614 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
615 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
616 command, which should contain "language-option".
618 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
619 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
621 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
622 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
623 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
624 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
625 "undefined-command-error-code".
627 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
630 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
632 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
633 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
636 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
637 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
639 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
640 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
641 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
643 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
644 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
645 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
646 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
647 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
648 "exec-run-start-option".
650 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
651 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
653 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
654 the new "info exceptions" command.
656 * New system-wide configuration scripts
657 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
658 configuration scripts for the following systems:
662 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
663 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
664 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
667 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
668 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
670 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
671 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
672 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
678 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
679 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
680 involvemement at each single-step.
682 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
683 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
684 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
685 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
686 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
687 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
690 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
692 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
693 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
695 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
696 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
697 trace state variables.
699 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
702 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
703 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
705 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
707 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
708 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
709 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
710 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
712 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
714 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
715 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
716 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
717 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
719 set|show record full insn-number-max
720 set|show record full stop-at-limit
721 set|show record full memory-query
723 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
724 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
725 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
726 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
727 This new recording method can be enabled using:
731 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
732 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
734 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
735 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
736 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
738 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
739 instruction granularity
741 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
744 * New native configurations
746 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
747 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
748 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
749 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
753 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
754 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
755 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
756 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
757 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
759 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
760 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
761 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
762 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
763 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
764 --data-directory command-line option.
766 * New command line options:
768 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
769 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
771 * Removed command line options
773 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
776 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
779 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
783 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
785 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
787 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
789 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
791 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
792 of architecture in the Python API.
794 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
795 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
797 * New Python-based convenience functions:
799 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
800 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
802 ** $_regex(str, regex)
804 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
807 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
808 default for GCC since November 2000.
810 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
812 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
813 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
815 * New configure options
817 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
818 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
819 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
820 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
821 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
822 options allow the user to override that default.
823 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
824 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
825 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
827 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
830 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
831 conditions to be attached.
834 List the BFDs known to GDB.
836 python-interactive [command]
838 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
839 and print the result of expressions.
842 "py" is a new alias for "python".
844 enable type-printer [name]...
845 disable type-printer [name]...
846 Enable or disable type printers.
850 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
851 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
856 set print type methods (on|off)
857 show print type methods
858 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
859 The default is to show them.
861 set print type typedefs (on|off)
862 show print type typedefs
863 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
864 The default is to show them.
866 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
867 show filename-display
868 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
869 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
871 set trace-buffer-size
872 show trace-buffer-size
873 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
875 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
876 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
877 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
881 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
884 set debug coff-pe-read
885 show debug coff-pe-read
886 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
891 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
894 set debug notification
895 show debug notification
896 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
900 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
901 "=cmd-param-changed".
902 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
903 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
904 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
905 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
906 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
907 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
908 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
909 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
911 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
912 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
913 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
914 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
915 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
916 library load/unload events.
917 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
918 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
919 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
920 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
921 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
922 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
923 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
924 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
926 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
927 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
928 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
929 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
934 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
935 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
938 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
939 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
943 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
944 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
947 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
948 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
950 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
952 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
953 for more x32 ABI info.
955 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
957 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
959 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
960 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
961 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
962 "info os files" lists file descriptors
963 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
964 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
965 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
966 "info os msg" lists message queues
967 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
969 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
970 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
971 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
972 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
973 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
974 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
976 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
977 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
978 record/replay support.
980 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
984 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
987 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
989 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
990 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
992 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
994 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
995 the source at which the symbol was defined.
997 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
998 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
999 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
1002 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
1003 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
1005 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
1006 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
1007 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
1009 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
1010 object associated with a PC value.
1012 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
1013 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
1015 * Go language support.
1016 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
1019 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
1020 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
1022 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
1023 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
1025 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
1026 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
1027 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
1028 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
1029 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
1032 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
1033 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
1034 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
1035 build/libcpp/expr.c.
1037 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
1038 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
1040 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
1041 since December 2007.
1043 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
1044 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
1045 command does. For instance:
1047 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
1049 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
1050 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
1051 created, using the "condition" command.
1053 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
1054 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
1056 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
1058 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
1059 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
1060 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
1061 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
1062 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
1063 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
1064 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
1065 files with older .gdb_index sections.
1067 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
1068 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
1069 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
1070 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
1071 the .gdb_index section.
1073 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
1075 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
1080 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
1082 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
1086 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1087 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1088 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
1090 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
1091 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
1093 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
1096 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
1097 C++ and Java objects.
1099 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
1100 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
1101 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
1102 configured with '--with-python'.
1104 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
1105 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
1106 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
1107 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
1108 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
1109 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
1110 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
1112 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
1113 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
1114 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
1115 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
1117 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
1118 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
1119 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
1120 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
1122 ** "set print symbol"
1124 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
1125 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
1126 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
1128 * Deprecated commands
1130 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
1131 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
1135 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1136 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
1138 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
1139 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
1140 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
1141 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
1146 set mips compression
1147 show mips compression
1148 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
1149 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
1152 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
1154 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
1155 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
1156 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
1157 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
1159 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
1163 Disable auto-loading globally.
1166 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
1168 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
1169 show auto-load gdb-scripts
1170 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
1172 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
1173 show auto-load python-scripts
1174 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
1176 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
1177 show auto-load local-gdbinit
1178 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
1180 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
1181 show auto-load libthread-db
1182 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
1184 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
1185 show auto-load scripts-directory
1186 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
1187 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
1188 of the directories listed by this option.
1189 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1191 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
1192 show auto-load safe-path
1193 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
1194 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1196 set debug auto-load on|off
1197 show debug auto-load
1198 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
1200 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
1202 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
1203 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
1204 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
1205 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
1207 set dprintf-function <expr>
1208 show dprintf-function
1209 set dprintf-channel <expr>
1210 show dprintf-channel
1211 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
1212 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
1214 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
1215 show disconnected-dprintf
1216 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
1217 after GDB disconnects.
1219 * New configure options
1221 --with-auto-load-dir
1222 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
1223 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
1224 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
1225 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
1226 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
1228 --with-auto-load-safe-path
1229 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
1230 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
1232 --without-auto-load-safe-path
1233 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
1236 * New remote packets
1238 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
1240 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
1241 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
1242 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
1243 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
1247 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
1248 program without GDB involvement.
1250 * New command line options
1252 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
1253 before loading inferior.
1254 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
1255 execute it before loading inferior.
1257 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
1259 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
1260 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
1261 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
1262 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
1265 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
1266 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
1268 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
1269 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
1270 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
1271 target hardware watchpoint.
1273 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
1274 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
1275 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
1276 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
1280 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
1281 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
1284 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
1285 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
1286 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
1287 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
1288 now "message", which just prints the error message without
1291 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
1294 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
1295 modules library. This module provides functionality for
1296 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
1297 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
1298 corresponding value.
1300 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
1301 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
1302 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
1305 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
1306 static_block will return the global and static blocks
1307 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
1308 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
1310 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
1312 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
1315 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
1316 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
1317 available in the CLI.
1319 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
1320 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
1321 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
1322 "some_type.items()".
1324 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
1327 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
1328 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
1329 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
1330 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
1331 any anonymous fields.
1335 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
1338 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
1339 "=breakpoint-modified".
1341 ** New command -ada-task-info.
1343 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
1344 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
1345 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
1348 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
1349 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
1350 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
1351 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
1352 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
1354 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
1355 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
1357 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
1358 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
1359 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
1360 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
1361 use this option to specify where to find it.
1363 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1364 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
1365 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
1366 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
1367 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
1368 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1369 section in the user manual for more details.
1371 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
1372 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
1373 become available after that.
1375 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
1377 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
1378 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
1384 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
1385 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
1389 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
1390 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
1391 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
1393 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
1394 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
1395 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
1397 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
1398 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
1399 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
1400 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
1401 name starts with a hyphen.
1403 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
1404 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
1405 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
1406 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
1407 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
1408 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
1409 number of bytes that will be collected.
1412 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
1413 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
1414 setting the variable trace-notes.
1417 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
1418 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
1419 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
1422 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
1423 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
1424 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
1425 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
1426 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
1429 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
1430 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
1431 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
1435 set debug dwarf2-read
1436 show debug dwarf2-read
1437 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
1438 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
1440 set debug symtab-create
1441 show debug symtab-create
1442 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
1443 creation. The default is off.
1446 show extended-prompt
1447 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
1448 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
1449 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
1450 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
1451 prompt is displayed.
1453 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
1454 show print entry-values
1455 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
1456 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
1457 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
1459 set debug entry-values
1460 show debug entry-values
1461 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
1462 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
1464 set basenames-may-differ
1465 show basenames-may-differ
1466 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
1467 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
1468 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
1469 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
1470 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
1471 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
1472 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
1473 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
1479 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
1480 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
1481 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
1482 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
1484 set trace-stop-notes
1485 show trace-stop-notes
1486 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
1487 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
1488 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
1489 started by someone else.
1491 * New remote packets
1495 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1499 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1503 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
1507 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
1511 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
1514 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
1515 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
1519 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
1523 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1525 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
1527 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
1529 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
1531 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
1532 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
1533 matches the given regular expression.
1535 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1537 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1538 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1540 * New command line options
1542 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1543 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1545 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1546 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1548 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1549 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1550 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1552 * GDB now understands thread names.
1554 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1555 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1557 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1558 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1561 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1562 has been integrated into GDB.
1566 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1567 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1568 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1570 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1571 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1572 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1573 and allows for more dynamic content.
1575 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1576 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1577 have an is_valid method.
1579 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1580 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1581 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1583 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1585 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1586 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1587 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1588 that function like so:
1590 result = some_value (10,20)
1592 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1593 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1594 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1596 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1597 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1598 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1599 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1600 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1602 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1603 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1605 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1607 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1610 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1611 holds the thread's name.
1613 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1614 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
1615 occurring in the process being debugged.
1616 The following events are currently supported:
1617 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1618 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1619 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1623 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1624 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1626 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1628 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1629 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1630 was added to GCC 4.5.
1632 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1633 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1634 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1635 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1636 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1637 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1639 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1640 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1641 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1642 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1643 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1645 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1646 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1647 execution to a label.
1649 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1650 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1651 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1652 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1654 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
1655 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
1656 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1659 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1661 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1662 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1663 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1664 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1665 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1666 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1669 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1671 While now you see this:
1674 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1676 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1679 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1680 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1681 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1682 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1684 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1685 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1686 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1687 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1688 section in the user manual for more details.
1690 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1692 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1693 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
1695 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1697 * New native configurations
1699 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1703 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1705 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1706 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1707 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1708 in the GDB user manual.
1710 * Guile support was removed.
1712 * New features in the GNU simulator
1714 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1716 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1718 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
1720 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
1722 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1723 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1724 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1725 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1726 was always disabled for such configurations.
1730 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1732 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1733 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1743 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1744 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1745 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1747 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1749 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1750 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1751 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1752 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1754 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1755 mentioned flavors of operators.
1757 ** static const class members
1759 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1760 class definition has been fixed.
1762 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
1764 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1765 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1766 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1767 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1768 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1769 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1771 * Static tracepoints
1773 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1774 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1775 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1776 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1777 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1778 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1779 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1780 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1781 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1782 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1783 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1784 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1785 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1786 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1787 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1788 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1789 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1790 the "New remote packets" section below.
1792 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1794 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1795 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1796 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1797 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1801 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1802 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1803 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1804 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1805 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1806 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1807 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1809 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1812 * New remote packets
1816 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1820 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1821 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1822 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1823 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1824 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1825 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1829 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1833 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1836 qXfer:statictrace:read
1838 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1839 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1840 to gdb's qSupported query.
1844 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1848 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1849 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1851 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1852 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1855 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1857 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1858 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1859 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1860 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1862 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1863 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1864 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1865 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1866 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1867 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1868 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1870 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1871 for static tracepoints support.
1873 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1875 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1876 it understands register description.
1878 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1880 * X86 general purpose registers
1882 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1883 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1884 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1885 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1886 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1888 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
1889 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1890 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1891 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1892 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1893 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
1895 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1896 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1897 in the specified file.
1899 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1900 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1901 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1902 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1903 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1904 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1905 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1906 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1907 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1908 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1912 eval template, expressions...
1913 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1914 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1916 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1917 show target-file-system-kind
1918 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1921 save breakpoints <filename>
1922 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1923 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1924 definitions, use the `source' command.
1926 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1929 info static-tracepoint-markers
1930 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1932 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1933 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1934 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1938 Enable and disable observer mode.
1940 set may-write-registers on|off
1941 set may-write-memory on|off
1942 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1943 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1944 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1945 set may-interrupt on|off
1946 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1947 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1948 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1949 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1950 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1951 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1952 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1954 set record memory-query on|off
1955 show record memory-query
1956 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1957 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1962 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1966 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1967 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1968 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1969 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1970 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1972 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
1973 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1974 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1975 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
1977 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
1978 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1980 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
1982 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
1984 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1986 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1987 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1988 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1990 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1991 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1992 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1993 regular breakpoints.
1997 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1999 * D language support.
2000 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
2003 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
2004 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
2005 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
2006 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
2007 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
2009 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
2010 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
2011 conditions of the form:
2013 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
2015 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
2016 interface mentioned above.
2018 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
2022 ** Namespace Support
2024 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
2025 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
2026 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
2027 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
2028 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
2032 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
2033 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
2038 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
2039 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
2043 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
2048 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
2051 * Multi-program debugging.
2053 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
2054 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
2055 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
2056 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
2057 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
2058 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
2059 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
2060 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
2062 * New tracing features
2064 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
2066 ** Trace state variables
2068 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
2069 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
2070 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
2071 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
2072 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
2073 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
2074 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
2075 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
2076 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
2077 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
2081 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
2082 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
2083 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
2084 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
2085 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
2086 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
2087 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
2088 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
2089 the regular trace command.
2091 ** Disconnected tracing
2093 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
2094 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
2095 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
2096 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
2097 connection is lost unexpectedly.
2101 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
2102 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
2103 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
2104 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
2105 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
2106 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
2109 ** Circular trace buffer
2111 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
2112 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
2113 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
2114 not be available for all target agents.
2119 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
2120 the arguments to be comma-separated.
2123 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
2124 which only declare a variable are not shown.
2127 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
2128 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
2131 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
2132 "set script-extension" (see below).
2134 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2136 record save [<FILENAME>]
2137 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
2138 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
2140 record restore <FILENAME>
2141 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
2142 earlier time, for replay debugging.
2144 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
2147 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
2148 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
2149 inferior has loaded.
2154 maint info program-spaces
2155 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
2157 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
2158 show remote interrupt-sequence
2159 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
2160 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
2161 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
2162 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
2163 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
2165 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
2166 show remote interrupt-on-connect
2167 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
2168 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
2171 set remotebreak [on | off]
2173 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
2175 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
2176 Create or modify a trace state variable.
2179 List trace state variables and their values.
2181 delete tvariable $NAME ...
2182 Delete one or more trace state variables.
2185 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
2186 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
2188 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
2189 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
2191 * New expression syntax
2193 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
2194 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
2198 set follow-exec-mode new|same
2199 show follow-exec-mode
2200 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
2201 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
2202 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
2204 set default-collect EXPR, ...
2205 show default-collect
2206 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
2207 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
2208 such as registers or a critical global variable.
2210 set disconnected-tracing
2211 show disconnected-tracing
2212 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
2213 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
2216 set circular-trace-buffer
2217 show circular-trace-buffer
2218 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
2219 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
2220 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
2221 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
2223 set script-extension off|soft|strict
2224 show script-extension
2225 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
2226 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
2227 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
2228 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
2230 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
2232 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
2233 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
2234 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
2235 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
2236 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
2237 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
2238 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
2241 * Python API Improvements
2243 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
2244 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
2245 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
2247 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
2248 `is_base_class' attribute.
2250 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
2252 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
2253 evaluate an expression.
2255 * New remote packets
2258 Define a trace state variable.
2261 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
2264 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
2267 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
2270 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
2274 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
2276 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
2277 much more reliable. In particular:
2278 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
2279 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
2280 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
2281 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
2282 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
2283 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
2284 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
2285 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
2286 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
2287 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
2288 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
2289 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
2290 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
2291 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
2292 non-threaded programs.
2294 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
2295 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
2296 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
2299 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
2301 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
2302 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
2303 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
2304 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
2305 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
2307 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
2308 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
2309 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
2310 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
2311 for tracepoint actions.
2313 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
2314 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
2315 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
2317 * Process record and replay
2319 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
2320 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
2321 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
2324 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
2325 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
2326 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
2329 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
2330 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
2333 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
2334 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
2335 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
2336 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
2337 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
2338 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
2339 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
2340 the installation instructions for more information.
2342 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
2343 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
2344 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
2345 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
2347 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
2348 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
2350 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
2351 now complete on file names.
2353 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
2354 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
2355 For instance, consider:
2357 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
2358 # struct example variable;
2361 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
2362 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
2364 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
2365 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
2367 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
2368 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
2371 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
2372 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
2373 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
2375 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
2376 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
2377 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
2378 and simulator targets may also provide them.
2380 * New remote packets
2383 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2386 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
2387 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
2388 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
2391 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
2392 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
2395 Obtains additional operating system information
2399 Read or write additional signal information.
2401 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
2403 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
2404 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
2405 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
2407 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
2408 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
2410 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
2411 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
2412 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
2414 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
2415 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
2417 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
2419 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
2421 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
2422 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
2424 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
2425 list of section offsets.
2427 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
2428 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
2429 have also been fixed.
2431 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
2432 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
2433 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
2435 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
2438 template<typename T> class C { };
2441 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
2443 ptype C<char const *>
2444 ptype C<char const*>
2445 ptype C<const char *>
2446 ptype C<const char*>
2448 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
2450 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
2451 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2453 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
2454 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2455 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
2457 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
2458 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
2460 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
2463 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
2464 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2466 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
2467 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
2472 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
2473 available is determined at configure time.
2475 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
2477 * Ada tasking support
2479 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
2483 Print the list of Ada tasks.
2485 Print detailed information about task number N.
2487 Print the task number of the current task.
2489 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
2491 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
2492 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
2494 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
2496 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
2497 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
2498 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
2499 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
2500 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
2501 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
2504 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
2505 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
2508 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
2509 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
2510 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
2511 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
2514 * Multi-architecture debugging.
2516 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
2517 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
2518 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
2519 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
2520 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
2522 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
2523 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
2524 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
2525 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
2526 --enable-targets configure option.
2528 * Non-stop mode debugging.
2530 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
2531 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
2532 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
2533 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
2534 section in the user manual for more information.
2536 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2537 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2538 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2539 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2540 extensions on linux targets.
2542 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2544 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2545 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2546 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2547 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2548 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2549 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2550 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2551 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2552 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2554 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2556 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2558 maint set python print-stack
2559 maint show python print-stack
2560 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2563 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2568 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2572 Show operating system information about processes.
2575 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2578 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2581 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2584 Kill inferior number NUM.
2588 set spu stop-on-load
2589 show spu stop-on-load
2590 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2592 set spu auto-flush-cache
2593 show spu auto-flush-cache
2594 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2595 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2597 set sh calling-convention
2598 show sh calling-convention
2599 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2602 show debug timestamp
2603 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2605 set disassemble-next-line
2606 show disassemble-next-line
2607 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2610 set remote noack-packet
2611 show remote noack-packet
2612 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2613 under "New remote packets."
2615 set remote query-attached-packet
2616 show remote query-attached-packet
2617 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2619 set remote read-siginfo-object
2620 show remote read-siginfo-object
2621 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2624 set remote write-siginfo-object
2625 show remote write-siginfo-object
2626 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2629 set remote reverse-continue
2630 show remote reverse-continue
2631 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2633 set remote reverse-step
2634 show remote reverse-step
2635 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2637 set displaced-stepping
2638 show displaced-stepping
2639 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2640 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2641 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2644 show debug displaced
2645 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2647 maint set internal-error
2648 maint show internal-error
2649 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2651 maint set internal-warning
2652 maint show internal-warning
2653 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
2658 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2660 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2661 show multiple-symbols
2662 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2663 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2664 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2666 set breakpoint always-inserted
2667 show breakpoint always-inserted
2668 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2669 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2670 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2672 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2673 show arm fallback-mode
2674 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2676 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2677 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2678 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2679 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2681 set disable-randomization
2682 show disable-randomization
2683 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2684 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2685 multiple debugging sessions.
2689 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2694 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2695 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2696 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2697 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2699 set target-wide-charset
2700 show target-wide-charset
2701 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2702 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2704 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2706 set tcp connect-timeout
2707 show tcp connect-timeout
2708 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2709 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2710 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2712 set libthread-db-search-path
2713 show libthread-db-search-path
2714 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2717 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2718 show schedule-multiple
2719 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2720 the current process.
2724 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2725 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2726 affecting correctness.
2728 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2729 show interactive-mode
2730 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2731 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2732 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2733 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2734 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2739 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2740 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2741 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2745 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2746 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2747 alias for the `fork' command.
2750 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2751 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2752 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2755 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2756 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2757 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2761 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2762 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2763 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2766 * New native configurations
2768 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2770 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2774 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
2775 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
2776 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
2779 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2780 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2786 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2788 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
2790 * New native configurations
2792 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
2793 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
2797 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
2798 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
2800 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2802 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2803 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2804 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2805 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2807 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2808 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2810 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
2813 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
2814 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2815 and in inlined functions.
2817 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2818 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2819 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2821 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2823 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2824 registers on PowerPC targets.
2826 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2827 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2829 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2830 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2832 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2833 extended-remote mode.
2835 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
2836 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2837 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2838 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
2840 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2841 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2842 target architectures.
2844 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2845 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2846 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2847 stored in two consecutive float registers.
2849 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2852 * Improved support for debugging Ada
2853 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2855 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2856 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2857 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2858 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2860 - Improved command completion in Ada
2863 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2868 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2869 show print frame-arguments
2870 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2871 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2876 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2883 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2885 * New remote packets
2892 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
2895 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2899 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2901 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
2903 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2904 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2905 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2907 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2908 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2909 -Bsymbolic linker option.
2911 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2912 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2915 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2916 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2918 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
2919 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
2921 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2923 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2924 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2925 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2927 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2928 automatically displayed as character or string data.
2930 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2931 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2934 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2935 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
2936 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
2938 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2941 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2942 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2943 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2945 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2947 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2949 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2950 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2951 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2953 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2954 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2956 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2957 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2958 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2959 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2960 Windows and SymbianOS).
2962 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2963 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
2965 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2966 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
2972 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2973 when debugging using remote targets.
2975 set mem inaccessible-by-default
2976 show mem inaccessible-by-default
2977 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2978 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2979 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2980 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2981 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2983 set breakpoint auto-hw
2984 show breakpoint auto-hw
2985 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2986 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2987 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2988 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2989 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2990 including "next" and "finish".
2993 catch exception unhandled
2994 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2997 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
3001 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
3002 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
3003 an alias to "set sysroot".
3006 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
3007 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
3010 * New native configurations
3012 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
3015 unset tdesc filename
3017 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
3018 not query the target for its built-in description.
3022 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
3023 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
3024 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
3026 * New remote packets
3029 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
3030 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
3032 qXfer:features:read:
3033 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
3038 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
3039 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
3041 qXfer:libraries:read:
3042 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
3043 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
3044 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
3045 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
3049 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
3057 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
3058 i[34567]86-*-netware*
3059 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
3060 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
3062 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
3065 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
3066 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
3075 * Other removed features
3082 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
3089 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
3094 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
3095 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
3100 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
3101 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
3103 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
3105 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
3106 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
3107 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
3108 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
3110 MIPS ".pdr" sections
3112 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
3113 in debugging information.
3117 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
3118 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
3120 set mips stack-arg-size
3121 set mips saved-gpreg-size
3123 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
3125 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
3130 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
3132 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
3133 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
3134 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
3136 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
3137 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
3140 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
3141 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
3143 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
3144 stub provides the required support.
3146 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
3147 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
3152 unset substitute-path
3153 show substitute-path
3154 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
3155 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
3156 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
3157 between compilation and debugging.
3161 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
3162 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
3163 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
3167 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
3169 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
3170 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
3172 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
3174 * New remote packets
3177 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
3178 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
3179 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
3180 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
3184 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
3185 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
3187 qXfer:memory-map:read:
3188 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
3189 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
3194 Erase and program a flash memory device.
3196 * Removed remote packets
3199 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
3200 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
3202 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
3206 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
3208 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3212 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
3213 only if it doesn't already have a value.
3215 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
3217 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
3219 restart <n> Return the program state to a
3220 previously saved state.
3222 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
3224 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
3226 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
3227 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
3229 info forks List forks of the user program that
3230 are available to be debugged.
3232 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
3233 forks of the user program that are
3234 available to be debugged.
3236 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3237 that are available to be debugged (and
3238 kill the forked process).
3240 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3241 that are available to be debugged (and
3242 allow the process to continue).
3246 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
3248 * Improved Windows host support
3250 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
3251 native console support, and remote communications using either
3252 network sockets or serial ports.
3254 * Improved Modula-2 language support
3256 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
3257 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
3258 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
3259 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
3260 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
3261 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
3265 The ARM rdi-share module.
3267 The Netware NLM debug server.
3269 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
3271 * New native configurations
3273 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
3274 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
3278 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3280 * New command line options
3282 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
3283 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
3284 the child (debugged) program exited with.
3285 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
3286 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
3287 specified multiple times and in conjunction
3288 with the --command (-x) option.
3290 * Deprecated commands removed
3292 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
3296 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
3297 othernames set arm disassembler
3298 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
3299 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
3300 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
3303 * New BSD user-level threads support
3305 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
3306 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
3309 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3310 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
3311 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
3313 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
3314 are not yet supported.
3316 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
3317 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
3319 * REMOVED configurations and files
3321 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
3322 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3323 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
3325 * New "set print array-indexes" command
3327 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
3328 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
3331 * VAX floating point support
3333 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
3335 * User-defined command support
3337 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
3338 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
3339 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
3341 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
3343 * New command line option
3345 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
3348 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
3350 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
3351 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
3352 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
3353 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
3354 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
3356 * Internationalization
3358 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
3359 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
3360 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
3364 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
3365 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
3366 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
3368 * New native configurations
3370 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
3374 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
3375 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
3377 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
3379 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3380 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
3381 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
3384 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
3385 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
3386 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
3396 powerpc bdm protocol
3398 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3399 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
3401 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3403 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3404 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3405 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3406 permanently REMOVED.
3415 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
3417 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
3419 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
3420 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
3423 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
3425 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
3426 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
3427 IRIX long double values).
3431 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
3432 command. This problem has been fixed.
3434 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
3436 * Fix for ``many threads''
3438 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
3439 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
3442 ptrace: No such process.
3443 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
3445 This problem has been fixed.
3447 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
3449 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
3452 * New ``start'' command.
3454 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
3456 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
3458 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
3459 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
3460 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
3462 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3463 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
3464 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
3465 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
3466 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
3467 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3468 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
3469 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
3470 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3472 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
3474 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
3475 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
3476 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
3477 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
3478 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
3480 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
3481 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
3482 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3484 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
3486 * New native configurations
3488 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
3489 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
3490 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
3491 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
3492 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
3493 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
3494 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
3496 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
3498 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3499 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
3500 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
3501 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
3502 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
3503 work, was also included.
3505 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
3506 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
3516 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3517 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
3519 * REMOVED configurations and files
3521 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3522 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3523 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3524 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3525 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3526 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3527 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3528 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3529 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3530 sonymips mips-sony-*
3531 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3533 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3535 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3537 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3538 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3539 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3540 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3543 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3545 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3546 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3547 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3548 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3549 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3550 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3553 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3555 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
3557 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3558 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3559 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3561 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3563 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3564 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3566 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3568 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3569 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3570 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3572 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3574 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3575 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3577 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3579 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3580 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3581 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3583 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3585 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3586 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3587 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3589 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
3591 * Removed --with-mmalloc
3593 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3594 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3596 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
3598 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3599 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3600 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3601 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3603 * Revised SPARC target
3605 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3606 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
3607 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3608 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3609 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
3613 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3614 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3615 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3618 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3620 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3621 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3624 * C++ nested types and namespaces
3626 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3627 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3628 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3629 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3630 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3631 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3632 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3633 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3634 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3636 * New native configurations
3638 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
3639 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3640 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
3641 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3642 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
3644 * New debugging protocols
3646 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3648 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3650 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3651 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3652 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3654 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3656 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3657 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3658 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3659 permanently REMOVED.
3661 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3662 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3663 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3664 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3665 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3666 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3667 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3668 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3669 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3670 sonymips mips-sony-*
3671 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3673 * REMOVED configurations and files
3675 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3676 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3677 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3678 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3679 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3680 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3681 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3682 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3683 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3684 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
3685 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3686 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3687 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3688 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3689 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
3690 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3691 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3693 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3697 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3698 integrated into GDB.
3700 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3702 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3703 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3704 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3707 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3708 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3709 DWARF 2 CFI support.
3713 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3714 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3715 remote protocol documentation for details.
3717 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
3719 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3720 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3721 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3724 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3726 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3727 per-thread variables.
3729 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3731 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3732 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3734 * Separate debug info.
3736 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3737 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3738 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3739 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3740 and optional debug files.
3742 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3744 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3745 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3748 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3749 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3753 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3754 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3755 considered "useable".
3757 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3759 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3760 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3763 * GDB supports logging output to a file
3765 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3766 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
3768 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3770 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3771 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3774 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
3776 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3777 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3781 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3782 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3783 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3784 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3785 data, for more informative profiling results.
3787 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3789 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3790 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
3791 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
3793 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3796 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3797 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3798 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3799 in a subsequent -var-update.
3801 * New native configurations.
3803 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3805 * Multi-arched targets.
3807 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
3808 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3810 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3812 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3813 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3814 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3815 permanently REMOVED.
3817 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3818 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3819 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3820 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3821 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3822 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3823 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3824 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3825 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3826 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3827 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3828 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3830 * REMOVED configurations and files
3833 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3834 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3835 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3836 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3837 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3838 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3840 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3841 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3842 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3843 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3844 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3845 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3847 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
3849 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3850 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3851 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3852 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3853 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3855 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
3857 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3859 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3860 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3861 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3862 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3863 shared libs like mad''.
3865 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
3867 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3868 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3869 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3870 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
3872 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3874 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3875 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3878 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3879 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3881 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3882 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3884 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3885 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3886 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3887 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3889 * Multi-arched targets.
3891 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3892 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
3894 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
3895 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3896 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3900 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3903 * New native configurations
3905 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
3906 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
3907 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
3908 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
3910 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3912 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3913 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3914 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3915 permanently REMOVED.
3917 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3918 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3919 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3920 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3921 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3922 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3923 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3924 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3925 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3926 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3928 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3929 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3931 * OBSOLETE languages
3933 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3935 * REMOVED configurations and files
3937 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3938 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3939 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3940 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3941 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3943 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3945 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3947 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3948 commands. The default is 1024.
3950 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3952 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3954 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3956 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3957 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3958 from a file into memory (restore).
3960 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3962 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3963 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3964 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3966 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3974 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3975 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3976 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3978 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3979 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3980 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3982 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3983 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3984 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3986 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3987 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3988 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3990 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
3992 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3994 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3995 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3996 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3997 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3998 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3999 (notably embedded) targets.
4001 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
4003 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
4004 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
4005 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
4006 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
4008 * New command line option
4010 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
4012 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4014 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
4015 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
4016 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
4017 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
4018 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
4019 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
4020 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
4021 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
4022 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
4023 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
4025 * Changes in ARM configurations.
4027 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
4028 configuration is fully multi-arch.
4030 * New native configurations
4032 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
4033 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
4034 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
4035 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
4039 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
4041 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4043 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4044 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4045 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4046 permanently REMOVED.
4048 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
4049 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4050 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4051 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4052 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4054 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
4056 * REMOVED configurations and files
4058 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4060 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4061 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4062 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
4063 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
4064 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4065 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
4066 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
4067 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
4068 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4069 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
4070 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
4072 * Changes to command line processing
4074 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
4075 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
4077 * Changes to key bindings
4079 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
4081 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
4083 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
4085 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
4088 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
4090 Numerous documentation fixes.
4092 Numerous testsuite fixes.
4094 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
4096 * New native configurations
4098 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
4099 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
4100 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
4101 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4102 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
4103 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
4107 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
4109 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
4111 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4113 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
4114 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
4115 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4116 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
4117 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4119 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
4120 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4121 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4122 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
4123 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
4124 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4125 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
4126 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
4128 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
4129 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
4131 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4132 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4133 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4134 permanently REMOVED.
4136 * REMOVED configurations and files
4138 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4139 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4141 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4145 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
4147 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
4148 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
4153 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
4155 * The MI enabled by default.
4157 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
4158 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
4159 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
4160 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
4161 which is now deprecated.
4163 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
4165 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
4166 main features are supported:
4168 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
4170 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
4173 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
4175 - a Pascal expression parser.
4177 However, some important features are not yet supported.
4179 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
4181 - there are some problems with boolean types;
4183 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
4184 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
4186 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
4188 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
4190 * Changes in completion.
4192 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
4193 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
4194 users expect at the shell prompt.
4196 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
4197 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
4198 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
4199 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
4200 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
4201 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
4202 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
4204 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
4206 * New platform-independent commands:
4208 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
4209 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
4210 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
4212 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
4214 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
4215 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
4216 many threads as your system allows you to have.
4218 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
4220 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
4221 multi-threaded programs though.
4223 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
4225 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
4227 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
4228 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
4231 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
4233 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
4234 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
4235 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
4236 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
4237 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
4240 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
4241 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
4242 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
4244 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
4246 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
4247 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
4249 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
4250 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
4253 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
4254 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
4255 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
4256 a given linear address.
4258 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
4259 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
4260 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
4262 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
4264 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
4266 * Changes in documentation.
4268 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
4269 Documentation License.
4271 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4274 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
4276 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4279 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
4280 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
4281 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
4283 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
4285 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
4286 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
4287 contents of this file.
4291 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
4293 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
4295 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
4297 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
4298 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
4299 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
4300 greater level of detail.
4302 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
4304 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
4305 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
4306 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
4309 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
4311 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
4312 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
4313 machines ``out of the box''.
4315 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
4316 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
4317 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
4318 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
4319 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
4321 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
4322 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
4323 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
4324 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
4325 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
4327 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
4328 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
4331 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
4334 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
4335 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
4336 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
4337 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
4339 * New native configurations
4341 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
4342 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4346 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
4347 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
4348 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
4349 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4351 * OBSOLETE configurations
4353 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4354 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4356 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4359 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4360 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4361 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4362 be permanently REMOVED.
4364 * Gould support removed
4366 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
4368 * New features for SVR4
4370 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
4371 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
4372 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
4374 * Many C++ enhancements
4376 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
4377 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
4379 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
4381 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
4382 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
4383 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
4384 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
4386 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
4387 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
4389 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
4391 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
4392 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
4393 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
4395 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
4396 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
4398 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
4400 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
4401 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
4402 include ``set remote P-packet''.
4404 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
4406 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
4407 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
4408 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
4410 * ``apropos'' command added.
4412 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
4413 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
4414 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
4418 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
4419 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
4420 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
4421 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
4422 enabled by configuring with:
4424 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
4426 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
4428 * New native configurations
4430 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
4431 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
4432 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
4436 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4437 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
4438 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4440 * OBSOLETE configurations
4442 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
4444 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4445 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4446 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4447 be permanently REMOVED.
4451 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
4452 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
4453 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
4454 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
4455 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
4456 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
4457 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
4462 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
4464 * set extension-language
4466 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
4467 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
4468 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
4469 set extension-language .c c++
4470 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
4471 and their associated languages.
4473 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
4475 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
4476 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
4477 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
4481 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
4482 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
4484 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
4485 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
4487 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
4488 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
4489 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
4490 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
4491 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
4492 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
4493 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
4494 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
4496 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
4497 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
4498 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
4499 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
4503 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
4504 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
4505 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
4506 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
4507 for xdb and dbx commands.
4511 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
4512 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
4513 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
4515 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
4516 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
4517 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
4519 * Debugging across forks
4521 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
4526 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
4527 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
4528 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
4530 * GDB remote protocol additions
4532 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
4533 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
4534 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4535 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4537 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4538 full 64-bit address. The command
4540 set remoteaddresssize 32
4542 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4543 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4546 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4547 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4549 maint packet heythere
4551 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4552 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4555 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4556 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4557 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4559 * Tracing can collect general expressions
4561 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4562 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4563 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4565 * mask-address variable for Mips
4567 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4568 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4569 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4571 * Higher serial baud rates
4573 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4574 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4575 to achieve all of these rates.)
4579 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4580 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4583 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4585 * New native configurations
4587 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4588 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4589 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4590 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4591 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4592 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4593 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4597 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4598 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4599 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4600 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4601 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4602 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4603 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4604 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4605 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4606 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4607 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4609 * New debugging protocols
4611 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4612 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4613 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4614 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4615 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4616 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4620 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4621 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4626 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4627 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4629 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4631 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4632 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4633 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4635 * Live range splitting
4637 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4638 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4639 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4643 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4644 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4648 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4649 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4650 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4655 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4660 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4661 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4662 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4663 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4664 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4665 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4669 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4670 the symbol at the specified address.
4674 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4675 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4676 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4677 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4678 file tracepoint.c for more details.
4682 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4683 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4684 of most MIPS variants.
4688 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4689 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4690 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4694 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4695 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4696 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4697 the possible architectures.
4699 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4701 * New native configurations
4703 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4704 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4705 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4706 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4707 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4708 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4712 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4713 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4714 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4715 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4716 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4718 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4722 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4723 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4724 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4725 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4726 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4730 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4732 * Windows 95/NT native
4734 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4735 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4736 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4737 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4738 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4740 * dont-repeat command
4742 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4743 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4744 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4745 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4747 * Send break instead of ^C
4749 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4750 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4751 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4753 * Remote protocol timeout
4755 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4756 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4757 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4759 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4761 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4762 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4763 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4764 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4765 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4767 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4768 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4769 automatically on hpux10.
4771 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4773 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4775 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4777 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4778 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4779 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4780 every character. The default value is 1050.
4782 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4784 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4785 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4786 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4787 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4788 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4789 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4791 * Speedups for remote debugging
4793 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4794 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4795 and more efficient S-record downloading.
4797 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4799 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4800 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4802 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4804 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
4806 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4807 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4809 * Remote targets use caching
4811 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4812 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4813 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4814 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4815 off' turns the the data cache off.
4817 * Remote targets may have threads
4819 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4820 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4821 gdb/remote.c for details.
4825 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4826 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4827 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4828 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4829 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4830 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4831 sequence is something like
4833 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4835 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4839 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4840 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4841 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4842 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4843 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4844 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4845 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4846 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4850 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4851 but does simplify configuration and building.
4855 GDB now supports hpux10.
4857 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4859 * New native configurations
4861 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4862 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4863 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4864 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4868 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4869 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4870 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4871 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4874 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4876 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4877 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4878 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4879 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4880 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4882 * Arguments to user-defined commands
4884 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4885 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4888 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4890 To execute the command use:
4893 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4894 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4895 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4897 * New `if' and `while' commands
4899 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4900 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4901 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4902 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4903 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4904 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4905 if the expression is zero.
4907 * Fortran source language mode
4909 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4910 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4911 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4912 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4915 * Better HPUX support
4917 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4918 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4919 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4920 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4921 that behavior do the following before running the program:
4927 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4928 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4934 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4935 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4938 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4939 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4941 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4943 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4944 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4945 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4946 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4947 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4948 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4950 * New DOS host serial code
4952 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4953 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4956 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4958 * New "complete" command
4960 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4961 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4963 * Trailing space optional in prompt
4965 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4966 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4968 * Breakpoint hit counts
4970 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4971 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4972 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4973 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4974 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4977 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4979 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4980 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4981 arrays actually contain only short strings.
4983 * Shared library breakpoints
4985 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4986 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4988 * Hardware watchpoints
4990 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4991 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4993 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
4997 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4998 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
5000 * Improved Irix 5 support
5002 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
5004 * Improved HPPA support
5006 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
5008 * New native configurations
5010 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
5011 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5012 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
5013 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
5017 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5018 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
5021 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
5023 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
5024 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
5028 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
5029 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
5031 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
5033 * Irix 5 is now supported
5037 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
5038 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
5039 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
5040 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
5041 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
5044 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
5046 * User visible changes:
5050 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
5051 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
5052 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
5053 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
5054 debugging info for the mips target).
5056 * DEC Alpha native support
5058 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
5059 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
5060 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
5061 Alpha-specific notes.
5063 * Preliminary thread implementation
5065 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
5067 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
5069 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
5070 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
5073 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
5075 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
5076 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
5077 call methods, ...etc.
5079 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
5081 * User visible changes:
5083 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
5084 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
5085 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
5086 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
5088 Filename completion now works.
5090 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
5091 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
5092 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
5094 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
5095 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
5096 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
5097 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
5098 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
5102 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
5103 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
5106 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
5110 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
5111 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
5112 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
5116 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
5117 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
5118 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
5119 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
5120 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
5124 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
5125 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
5126 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
5128 * New targets supported
5130 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5131 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5132 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
5133 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5134 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
5136 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
5137 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
5138 GO32 memory extender.
5140 * New remote protocols
5142 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
5144 * New source languages supported
5146 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
5147 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
5148 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
5151 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
5153 * HP Precision Architecture supported
5155 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
5156 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
5157 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
5158 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
5159 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
5160 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
5162 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
5164 * Faster and better demangling
5166 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
5167 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
5168 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
5169 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
5170 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
5171 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
5174 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
5175 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
5176 compiler does not actually implement.
5178 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
5180 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
5181 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
5182 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
5183 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
5184 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
5185 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
5188 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
5189 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
5191 * Improved configure script
5193 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
5194 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
5195 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
5196 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
5198 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
5199 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
5200 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
5201 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
5202 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
5203 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
5205 * Documentation improvements
5207 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
5208 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
5209 before submitting changes.
5211 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
5212 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
5213 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
5214 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
5215 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
5217 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
5218 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
5219 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
5220 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
5221 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
5222 around this problem.
5226 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
5227 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
5228 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
5231 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
5232 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
5234 * New native hosts supported
5236 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
5237 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
5239 * New targets supported
5241 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
5243 * New file formats supported
5245 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
5246 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
5250 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
5252 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
5253 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
5255 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
5256 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
5257 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
5259 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
5260 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
5262 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
5263 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
5264 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
5267 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
5268 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
5269 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
5270 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
5271 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
5273 * Internal improvements
5275 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
5276 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
5278 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
5279 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
5280 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
5281 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
5282 shared code that handles any of them.
5284 * New command line options
5286 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
5290 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
5291 General Public License.
5293 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
5295 * Host/native/target split
5297 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
5298 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
5299 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
5300 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
5301 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
5303 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
5304 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
5305 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
5306 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
5307 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
5308 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
5309 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
5311 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
5312 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
5313 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
5315 * New hosts supported
5317 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
5318 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5319 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
5321 * New targets supported
5323 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5324 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
5326 * New native hosts supported
5328 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5329 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
5330 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
5332 * New file formats supported
5334 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
5335 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
5336 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
5340 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
5341 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
5342 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
5344 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
5346 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
5347 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
5348 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
5349 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
5353 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
5354 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
5355 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
5357 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
5361 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
5362 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
5365 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
5366 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
5368 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
5369 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
5370 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
5371 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
5372 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
5373 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
5375 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
5376 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
5377 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
5378 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
5382 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
5383 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
5384 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
5385 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
5386 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
5388 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
5389 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
5390 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
5391 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
5395 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
5396 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
5397 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
5398 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
5399 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
5400 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
5401 each instruction being stepped through.
5403 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
5404 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
5406 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
5407 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
5408 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
5409 processor with a serial port.
5413 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
5414 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
5415 supported, and what files each one uses.
5419 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
5420 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
5421 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
5422 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
5424 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
5425 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
5426 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
5427 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
5431 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
5432 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
5433 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
5434 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
5435 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
5436 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
5438 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
5441 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
5443 * Better support for C++ function names
5445 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
5446 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
5447 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
5448 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
5449 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
5451 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
5452 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
5453 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
5454 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
5455 for the list of formats.
5457 * G++ symbol mangling problem
5459 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
5460 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
5461 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
5462 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
5463 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
5464 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
5467 * New 'maintenance' command
5469 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
5470 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
5471 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
5473 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
5474 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
5475 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
5476 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
5477 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
5478 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
5480 The following commands are new:
5482 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
5483 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
5484 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
5486 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
5488 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
5489 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
5490 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
5491 read after argv processing.
5493 * New hosts supported
5495 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
5497 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
5499 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
5500 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
5501 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
5502 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
5503 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
5506 * New targets supported
5508 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5510 * More smarts about finding #include files
5512 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
5513 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
5514 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
5515 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
5516 the one that contains your sources.
5518 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
5519 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
5520 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
5522 * Interesting infernals change
5524 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
5525 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
5526 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
5527 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
5529 * Bug fixes (of course!)
5531 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
5532 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
5533 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5535 See the ChangeLog for details.
5537 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5539 * New machines supported (host and target)
5541 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5543 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5545 * New malloc package
5547 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5548 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5549 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5550 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5551 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5552 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5556 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5557 'help info proc' for details.
5559 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5561 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5562 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5565 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5567 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5568 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5569 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5570 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5571 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5572 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5574 * Cross byte order fixes
5576 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5577 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5579 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5581 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5582 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5583 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5584 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5585 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5586 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5587 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5588 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5589 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5590 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5592 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5593 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5594 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5595 slower, but makes future operations faster.
5597 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5598 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5599 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5602 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5604 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5605 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5606 shared across multiple host platforms.
5608 * longjmp() handling
5610 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5611 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5612 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5613 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5617 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5618 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5623 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5624 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5625 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5627 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5629 * New machines supported (host and target)
5631 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5633 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5634 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5636 * New machines supported (target)
5638 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5642 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5643 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5644 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5646 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5647 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5648 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5649 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5650 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5653 * New features for SVR4
5655 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5656 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5657 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5659 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5660 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5661 it prints the address mappings of the process.
5663 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5664 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5666 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5668 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5669 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5670 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5671 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5672 same code linked statically.
5676 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5677 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5678 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5679 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5680 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5681 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5685 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5686 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5687 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5690 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5692 * New machines supported (host and target)
5694 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5695 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5696 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5698 * Almost SCO Unix support
5700 We had hoped to support:
5701 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5702 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5703 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5704 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5706 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5708 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5709 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5710 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5711 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5716 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5717 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5718 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5722 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5723 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5724 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5726 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5728 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5729 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5730 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5732 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5733 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5734 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5735 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5738 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5739 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5740 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5741 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5744 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5745 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5748 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5749 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5750 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5753 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5755 * Improved configuration
5757 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5758 Porting BFD is simpler.
5762 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5763 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5764 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5765 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5769 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5771 * New host supported (not target)
5773 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5776 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5778 * Multiple source language support
5780 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5781 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5782 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5783 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5784 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5785 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5789 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5790 currently under development at the State University of New York at
5791 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5792 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5794 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5795 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5796 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5798 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5799 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5803 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5804 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5805 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5806 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5809 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5811 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5812 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5813 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5814 examining core files.
5818 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5821 * New machines supported (host and target)
5823 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5824 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5825 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5827 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5829 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5831 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5833 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5834 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5835 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5837 * New remote interfaces
5843 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5847 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5849 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5850 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5851 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5852 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5853 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5854 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5855 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5856 stub on the target system.
5858 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5860 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5861 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5862 object file types such as a.out and coff.
5864 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5865 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5868 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5870 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5871 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5873 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5874 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5875 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5877 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5878 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5879 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5880 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5882 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5883 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5884 it is already running. Default is ON.
5886 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5887 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5888 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5889 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5892 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5893 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5894 or the value of the environment variable
5897 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5898 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5901 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5902 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5903 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5905 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5906 history expansion will be performed on
5907 command line input. The default is OFF.
5909 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5910 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5911 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5913 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5914 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5915 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5918 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5919 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5920 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5923 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5924 ``set width'' instead.
5926 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5927 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5928 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5929 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5931 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5934 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5937 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5940 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5943 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5945 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5946 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5947 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5951 * Support for Shared Libraries
5953 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5954 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5955 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5956 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5957 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5958 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5959 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5960 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5962 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5963 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5964 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5966 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5971 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5972 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5973 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5974 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5975 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5976 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5978 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5980 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5982 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5983 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5984 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5987 * C++ multiple inheritance
5989 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5992 * C++ exception handling
5994 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5995 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5996 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5999 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
6000 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
6001 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
6003 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
6004 current stack frame.
6007 * Minor command changes
6009 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
6010 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
6011 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
6013 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
6014 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
6015 frames without printing.
6017 * New directory command
6019 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
6020 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
6021 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
6022 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
6023 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
6025 * Configuring GDB for compilation
6027 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
6030 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
6031 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
6032 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
6033 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / binutils-gdb.git / blob