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