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