1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.6
7 maint set|show per-command
8 maint set|show per-command space
9 maint set|show per-command time
10 maint set|show per-command symtab
11 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
15 set remote trace-status-packet
16 show remote trace-status-packet
17 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
19 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
20 buffer in Common Trace Format.
24 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
27 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
29 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
30 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
31 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
32 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
34 set|show record full insn-number-max
35 set|show record full stop-at-limit
36 set|show record full memory-query
38 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
39 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
40 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
41 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
42 This new recording method can be enabled using:
46 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
47 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
49 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
50 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
51 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
53 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
54 instruction granularity
56 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
59 * New native configurations
61 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
62 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
63 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
67 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
68 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
69 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
70 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
71 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
73 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
74 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
75 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
76 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
77 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
78 --data-directory command-line option.
80 * New command line options:
82 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
83 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
85 * Removed command line options
87 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
90 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
93 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
97 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
99 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
101 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
103 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
105 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
106 of architecture in the Python API.
108 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
109 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
111 * New Python-based convenience functions:
113 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
114 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
116 ** $_regex(str, regex)
118 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
121 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
122 default for GCC since November 2000.
124 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
126 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
127 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
129 * New configure options
131 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
132 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
133 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
134 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
135 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
136 options allow the user to override that default.
138 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
141 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
142 conditions to be attached.
145 List the BFDs known to GDB.
147 python-interactive [command]
149 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
150 and print the result of expressions.
153 "py" is a new alias for "python".
155 enable type-printer [name]...
156 disable type-printer [name]...
157 Enable or disable type printers.
161 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
162 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
167 set debug notification
168 show debug notification
169 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
171 set print type methods (on|off)
172 show print type methods
173 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
174 The default is to show them.
176 set print type typedefs (on|off)
177 show print type typedefs
178 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
179 The default is to show them.
181 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
182 show filename-display
183 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
184 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
186 set trace-buffer-size
187 show trace-buffer-size
188 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
190 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
191 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
192 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
196 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
197 "=cmd-param-changed".
198 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
199 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
200 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
201 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
202 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
203 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
204 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
205 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
207 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
208 containing the absolute file name when GDB can determine it and source
210 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
211 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
212 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
213 library load/unload events.
214 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
215 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
216 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
217 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
218 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
219 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
221 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
222 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
223 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
224 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
229 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
230 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
232 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
234 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
235 for more x32 ABI info.
237 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
239 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
241 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
242 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
243 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
244 "info os files" lists file descriptors
245 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
246 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
247 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
248 "info os msg" lists message queues
249 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
251 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
252 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
253 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
254 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
255 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
256 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
258 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
259 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
260 record/replay support.
262 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
266 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
269 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
271 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
272 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
274 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
276 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
277 the source at which the symbol was defined.
279 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
280 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
281 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
284 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
285 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
287 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
288 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
289 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
291 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
292 object associated with a PC value.
294 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
295 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
297 * Go language support.
298 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
301 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
302 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
304 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
305 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
307 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
308 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
309 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
310 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
311 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
314 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
315 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
316 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
319 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
320 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
322 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
325 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
326 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
327 command does. For instance:
329 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
331 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
332 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
333 created, using the "condition" command.
335 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
336 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
338 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
340 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
341 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
342 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
343 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
344 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
345 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
346 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
347 files with older .gdb_index sections.
349 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
350 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
351 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
352 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
353 the .gdb_index section.
355 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
357 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
362 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
364 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
368 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
369 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
370 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
372 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
373 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
375 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
378 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
379 C++ and Java objects.
381 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
382 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
383 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
384 configured with '--with-python'.
386 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
387 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
388 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
389 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
390 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
391 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
392 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
394 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
395 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
396 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
397 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
399 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
400 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
401 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
402 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
404 ** "set print symbol"
406 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
407 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
408 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
410 * Deprecated commands
412 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
413 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
417 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
418 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
420 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
421 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
422 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
423 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
429 show mips compression
430 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
431 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
434 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
436 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
437 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
438 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
439 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
441 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
445 Disable auto-loading globally.
448 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
450 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
451 show auto-load gdb-scripts
452 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
454 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
455 show auto-load python-scripts
456 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
458 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
459 show auto-load local-gdbinit
460 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
462 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
463 show auto-load libthread-db
464 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
466 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
467 show auto-load scripts-directory
468 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
469 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
470 of the directories listed by this option.
471 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
473 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
474 show auto-load safe-path
475 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
476 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
478 set debug auto-load on|off
480 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
482 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
484 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
485 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
486 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
487 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
489 set dprintf-function <expr>
490 show dprintf-function
491 set dprintf-channel <expr>
493 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
494 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
496 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
497 show disconnected-dprintf
498 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
499 after GDB disconnects.
501 * New configure options
504 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
505 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
506 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
507 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
508 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
510 --with-auto-load-safe-path
511 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
512 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
514 --without-auto-load-safe-path
515 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
520 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
522 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
523 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
524 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
525 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
529 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
530 program without GDB involvement.
532 * New command line options
534 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
535 before loading inferior.
536 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
537 execute it before loading inferior.
539 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
541 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
542 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
543 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
544 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
547 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
548 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
550 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
551 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
552 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
553 target hardware watchpoint.
555 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
556 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
557 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
558 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
562 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
563 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
566 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
567 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
568 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
569 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
570 now "message", which just prints the error message without
573 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
576 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
577 modules library. This module provides functionality for
578 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
579 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
582 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
583 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
584 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
587 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
588 static_block will return the global and static blocks
589 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
590 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
592 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
594 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
597 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
598 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
599 available in the CLI.
601 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
602 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
603 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
606 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
609 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
610 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
611 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
612 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
613 any anonymous fields.
617 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
620 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
621 "=breakpoint-modified".
623 ** New command -ada-task-info.
625 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
626 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
627 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
630 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
631 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
632 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
633 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
634 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
636 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
637 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
639 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
640 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
641 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
642 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
643 use this option to specify where to find it.
645 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
646 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
647 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
648 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
649 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
650 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
651 section in the user manual for more details.
653 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
654 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
655 become available after that.
657 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
659 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
660 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
666 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
667 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
671 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
672 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
673 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
675 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
676 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
677 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
679 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
680 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
681 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
682 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
683 name starts with a hyphen.
685 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
686 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
687 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
688 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
689 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
690 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
691 number of bytes that will be collected.
694 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
695 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
696 setting the variable trace-notes.
699 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
700 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
701 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
704 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
705 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
706 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
707 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
708 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
711 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
712 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
713 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
717 set debug dwarf2-read
718 show debug dwarf2-read
719 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
720 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
722 set debug symtab-create
723 show debug symtab-create
724 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
725 creation. The default is off.
729 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
730 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
731 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
732 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
735 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
736 show print entry-values
737 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
738 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
739 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
741 set debug entry-values
742 show debug entry-values
743 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
744 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
746 set basenames-may-differ
747 show basenames-may-differ
748 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
749 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
750 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
751 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
752 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
753 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
754 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
755 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
761 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
762 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
763 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
764 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
767 show trace-stop-notes
768 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
769 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
770 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
771 started by someone else.
777 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
781 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
785 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
789 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
793 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
796 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
797 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
801 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
805 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
807 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
809 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
811 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
813 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
814 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
815 matches the given regular expression.
817 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
819 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
820 dumping the instruction opcodes.
822 * New command line options
824 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
825 This is mostly for testing purposes.
827 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
828 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
830 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
831 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
832 source path list instead of augmenting it.
834 * GDB now understands thread names.
836 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
837 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
839 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
840 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
843 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
844 has been integrated into GDB.
848 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
849 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
850 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
852 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
853 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
854 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
855 and allows for more dynamic content.
857 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
858 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
859 have an is_valid method.
861 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
862 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
863 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
865 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
867 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
868 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
869 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
870 that function like so:
872 result = some_value (10,20)
874 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
875 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
876 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
878 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
879 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
880 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
881 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
882 New function: register_pretty_printer.
884 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
885 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
887 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
889 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
892 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
893 holds the thread's name.
895 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
896 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
897 occurring in the process being debugged.
898 The following events are currently supported:
899 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
900 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
901 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
905 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
906 instantiation. For example, if you have:
908 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
910 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
911 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
912 was added to GCC 4.5.
914 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
915 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
916 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
917 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
918 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
919 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
921 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
922 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
923 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
924 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
925 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
927 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
928 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
929 execution to a label.
931 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
932 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
933 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
934 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
936 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
937 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
938 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
941 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
943 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
944 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
945 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
946 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
947 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
948 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
951 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
953 While now you see this:
956 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
958 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
961 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
962 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
963 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
964 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
966 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
967 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
968 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
969 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
970 section in the user manual for more details.
972 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
974 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
975 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
977 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
979 * New native configurations
981 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
985 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
987 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
988 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
989 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
990 in the GDB user manual.
992 * Guile support was removed.
994 * New features in the GNU simulator
996 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
998 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1000 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
1002 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
1004 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1005 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1006 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1007 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1008 was always disabled for such configurations.
1012 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1014 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1015 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1025 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1026 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1027 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1029 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1031 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1032 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1033 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1034 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1036 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1037 mentioned flavors of operators.
1039 ** static const class members
1041 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1042 class definition has been fixed.
1044 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
1046 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1047 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1048 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1049 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1050 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1051 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1053 * Static tracepoints
1055 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1056 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1057 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1058 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1059 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1060 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1061 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1062 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1063 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1064 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1065 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1066 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1067 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1068 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1069 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1070 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1071 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1072 the "New remote packets" section below.
1074 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1076 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1077 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1078 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1079 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1083 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1084 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1085 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1086 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1087 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1088 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1089 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1091 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1094 * New remote packets
1098 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1102 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1103 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1104 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1105 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1106 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1107 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1111 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1115 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1118 qXfer:statictrace:read
1120 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1121 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1122 to gdb's qSupported query.
1126 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1130 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1131 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1133 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1134 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1137 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1139 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1140 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1141 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1142 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1144 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1145 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1146 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1147 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1148 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1149 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1150 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1152 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1153 for static tracepoints support.
1155 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1157 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1158 it understands register description.
1160 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1162 * X86 general purpose registers
1164 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1165 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1166 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1167 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1168 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1170 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
1171 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1172 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1173 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1174 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1175 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
1177 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1178 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1179 in the specified file.
1181 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1182 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1183 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1184 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1185 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1186 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1187 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1188 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1189 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1190 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1194 eval template, expressions...
1195 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1196 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1198 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1199 show target-file-system-kind
1200 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1203 save breakpoints <filename>
1204 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1205 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1206 definitions, use the `source' command.
1208 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1211 info static-tracepoint-markers
1212 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1214 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1215 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1216 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1220 Enable and disable observer mode.
1222 set may-write-registers on|off
1223 set may-write-memory on|off
1224 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1225 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1226 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1227 set may-interrupt on|off
1228 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1229 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1230 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1231 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1232 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1233 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1234 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1236 set record memory-query on|off
1237 show record memory-query
1238 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1239 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1244 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1248 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1249 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1250 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1251 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1252 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1254 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
1255 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1256 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1257 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
1259 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
1260 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1262 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
1264 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
1266 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1268 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1269 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1270 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1272 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1273 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1274 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1275 regular breakpoints.
1279 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1281 * D language support.
1282 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1285 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1286 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1287 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1288 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1289 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1291 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1292 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1293 conditions of the form:
1295 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1297 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1298 interface mentioned above.
1300 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
1304 ** Namespace Support
1306 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1307 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1308 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1309 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1310 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1314 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1315 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1320 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1321 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1325 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
1330 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
1333 * Multi-program debugging.
1335 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1336 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1337 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1338 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1339 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1340 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1341 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1342 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1344 * New tracing features
1346 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1348 ** Trace state variables
1350 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1351 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1352 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1353 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1354 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1355 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1356 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1357 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1358 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1359 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
1363 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1364 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1365 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1366 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1367 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1368 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1369 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1370 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1371 the regular trace command.
1373 ** Disconnected tracing
1375 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1376 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1377 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1378 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1379 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1383 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1384 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1385 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1386 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1387 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1388 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1391 ** Circular trace buffer
1393 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1394 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1395 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1396 not be available for all target agents.
1401 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1402 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1405 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1406 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1409 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1410 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1413 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1414 "set script-extension" (see below).
1416 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1418 record save [<FILENAME>]
1419 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1420 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1422 record restore <FILENAME>
1423 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1424 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1426 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1429 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1430 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1431 inferior has loaded.
1436 maint info program-spaces
1437 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1439 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1440 show remote interrupt-sequence
1441 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1442 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1443 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1444 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1445 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1447 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1448 show remote interrupt-on-connect
1449 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1450 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1453 set remotebreak [on | off]
1455 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1457 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1458 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1461 List trace state variables and their values.
1463 delete tvariable $NAME ...
1464 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1467 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1468 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1470 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1471 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1473 * New expression syntax
1475 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1476 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1480 set follow-exec-mode new|same
1481 show follow-exec-mode
1482 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1483 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1484 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1486 set default-collect EXPR, ...
1487 show default-collect
1488 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1489 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1490 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1492 set disconnected-tracing
1493 show disconnected-tracing
1494 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1495 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1498 set circular-trace-buffer
1499 show circular-trace-buffer
1500 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1501 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1502 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1503 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1505 set script-extension off|soft|strict
1506 show script-extension
1507 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1508 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1509 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1510 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1512 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1514 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1515 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1516 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1517 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1518 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1519 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1520 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1523 * Python API Improvements
1525 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1526 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1527 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1529 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1530 `is_base_class' attribute.
1532 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1534 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1535 evaluate an expression.
1537 * New remote packets
1540 Define a trace state variable.
1543 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1546 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1549 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1552 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1556 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1558 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1559 much more reliable. In particular:
1560 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1561 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1562 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1563 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1564 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1565 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1566 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1567 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1568 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1569 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1570 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1571 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1572 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1573 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1574 non-threaded programs.
1576 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1577 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1578 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1581 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1583 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1584 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1585 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1586 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1587 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1589 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1590 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1591 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1592 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1593 for tracepoint actions.
1595 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1596 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1597 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1599 * Process record and replay
1601 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1602 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1603 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1606 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1607 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1608 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1611 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1612 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1615 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1616 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1617 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1618 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1619 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1620 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1621 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1622 the installation instructions for more information.
1624 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1625 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1626 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1627 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1629 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1630 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1632 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1633 now complete on file names.
1635 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1636 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1637 For instance, consider:
1639 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1640 # struct example variable;
1643 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1644 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1646 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1647 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1649 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1650 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1653 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1654 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1655 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1657 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1658 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1659 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1660 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1662 * New remote packets
1665 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1668 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1669 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1670 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1673 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1674 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1677 Obtains additional operating system information
1681 Read or write additional signal information.
1683 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1685 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1686 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1687 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1689 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1690 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1692 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1693 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1694 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1696 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1697 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1699 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1701 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1703 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1704 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1706 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1707 list of section offsets.
1709 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1710 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1711 have also been fixed.
1713 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1714 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1715 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1717 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1720 template<typename T> class C { };
1723 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1725 ptype C<char const *>
1726 ptype C<char const*>
1727 ptype C<const char *>
1728 ptype C<const char*>
1730 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1732 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1733 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1735 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1736 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1737 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1739 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1740 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1742 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1745 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1746 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1748 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1749 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1754 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1755 available is determined at configure time.
1757 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1759 * Ada tasking support
1761 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1765 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1767 Print detailed information about task number N.
1769 Print the task number of the current task.
1771 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1773 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1774 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1776 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1778 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1779 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1780 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1781 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1782 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1783 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1786 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1787 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1790 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1791 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1792 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1793 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1796 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1798 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1799 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1800 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1801 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1802 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1804 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1805 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1806 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1807 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1808 --enable-targets configure option.
1810 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1812 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1813 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1814 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1815 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1816 section in the user manual for more information.
1818 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1819 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1820 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1821 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1822 extensions on linux targets.
1824 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1826 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1827 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1828 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1829 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1830 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1831 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1832 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1833 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1834 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1836 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1838 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1840 maint set python print-stack
1841 maint show python print-stack
1842 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1845 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1850 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1854 Show operating system information about processes.
1857 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1860 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1863 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1866 Kill inferior number NUM.
1870 set spu stop-on-load
1871 show spu stop-on-load
1872 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1874 set spu auto-flush-cache
1875 show spu auto-flush-cache
1876 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1877 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1879 set sh calling-convention
1880 show sh calling-convention
1881 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1884 show debug timestamp
1885 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1887 set disassemble-next-line
1888 show disassemble-next-line
1889 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1892 set remote noack-packet
1893 show remote noack-packet
1894 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1895 under "New remote packets."
1897 set remote query-attached-packet
1898 show remote query-attached-packet
1899 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1901 set remote read-siginfo-object
1902 show remote read-siginfo-object
1903 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1906 set remote write-siginfo-object
1907 show remote write-siginfo-object
1908 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1911 set remote reverse-continue
1912 show remote reverse-continue
1913 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1915 set remote reverse-step
1916 show remote reverse-step
1917 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1919 set displaced-stepping
1920 show displaced-stepping
1921 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1922 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1923 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1926 show debug displaced
1927 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1929 maint set internal-error
1930 maint show internal-error
1931 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1933 maint set internal-warning
1934 maint show internal-warning
1935 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1940 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1942 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1943 show multiple-symbols
1944 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1945 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1946 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1948 set breakpoint always-inserted
1949 show breakpoint always-inserted
1950 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1951 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1952 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1954 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1955 show arm fallback-mode
1956 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1958 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1959 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1960 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1961 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1963 set disable-randomization
1964 show disable-randomization
1965 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1966 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1967 multiple debugging sessions.
1971 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1976 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1977 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1978 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1979 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1981 set target-wide-charset
1982 show target-wide-charset
1983 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1984 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1986 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1988 set tcp connect-timeout
1989 show tcp connect-timeout
1990 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1991 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1992 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1994 set libthread-db-search-path
1995 show libthread-db-search-path
1996 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1999 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2000 show schedule-multiple
2001 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2002 the current process.
2006 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2007 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2008 affecting correctness.
2010 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2011 show interactive-mode
2012 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2013 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2014 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2015 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2016 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2021 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2022 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2023 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2027 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2028 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2029 alias for the `fork' command.
2032 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2033 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2034 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2037 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2038 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2039 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2043 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2044 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2045 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2048 * New native configurations
2050 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2052 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2056 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
2057 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
2058 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
2061 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2062 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2068 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2070 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
2072 * New native configurations
2074 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
2075 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
2079 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
2080 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
2082 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2084 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2085 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2086 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2087 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2089 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2090 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2092 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
2095 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
2096 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2097 and in inlined functions.
2099 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2100 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2101 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2103 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2105 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2106 registers on PowerPC targets.
2108 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2109 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2111 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2112 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2114 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2115 extended-remote mode.
2117 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
2118 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2119 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2120 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
2122 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2123 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2124 target architectures.
2126 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2127 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2128 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2129 stored in two consecutive float registers.
2131 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2134 * Improved support for debugging Ada
2135 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2137 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2138 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2139 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2140 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2142 - Improved command completion in Ada
2145 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2150 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2151 show print frame-arguments
2152 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2153 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2158 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2165 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2167 * New remote packets
2174 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
2177 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2181 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2183 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
2185 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2186 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2187 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2189 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2190 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2191 -Bsymbolic linker option.
2193 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2194 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2197 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2198 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2200 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
2201 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
2203 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2205 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2206 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2207 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2209 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2210 automatically displayed as character or string data.
2212 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2213 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2216 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2217 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
2218 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
2220 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2223 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2224 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2225 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2227 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2229 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2231 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2232 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2233 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2235 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2236 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2238 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2239 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2240 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2241 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2242 Windows and SymbianOS).
2244 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2245 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
2247 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2248 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
2254 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2255 when debugging using remote targets.
2257 set mem inaccessible-by-default
2258 show mem inaccessible-by-default
2259 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2260 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2261 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2262 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2263 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2265 set breakpoint auto-hw
2266 show breakpoint auto-hw
2267 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2268 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2269 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2270 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2271 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2272 including "next" and "finish".
2275 catch exception unhandled
2276 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2279 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2283 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2284 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2285 an alias to "set sysroot".
2288 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2289 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2292 * New native configurations
2294 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2297 unset tdesc filename
2299 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2300 not query the target for its built-in description.
2304 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
2305 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
2306 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
2308 * New remote packets
2311 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2312 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2314 qXfer:features:read:
2315 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2320 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2321 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2323 qXfer:libraries:read:
2324 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2325 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2326 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2327 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2331 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2339 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2340 i[34567]86-*-netware*
2341 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2342 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2344 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2347 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2348 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2357 * Other removed features
2364 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2371 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2376 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2377 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2382 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2383 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2385 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2387 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2388 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2389 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2390 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2392 MIPS ".pdr" sections
2394 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2395 in debugging information.
2399 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2400 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2402 set mips stack-arg-size
2403 set mips saved-gpreg-size
2405 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2407 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
2412 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
2414 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2415 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2416 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2418 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2419 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2422 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2423 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2425 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2426 stub provides the required support.
2428 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2429 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2434 unset substitute-path
2435 show substitute-path
2436 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2437 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2438 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2439 between compilation and debugging.
2443 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2444 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2445 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2449 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2451 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2452 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2454 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2456 * New remote packets
2459 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2460 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2461 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2462 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2466 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2467 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2469 qXfer:memory-map:read:
2470 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2471 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2476 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2478 * Removed remote packets
2481 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2482 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2484 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
2488 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2490 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2494 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2495 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2497 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2499 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2501 restart <n> Return the program state to a
2502 previously saved state.
2504 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2506 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2508 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2509 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2511 info forks List forks of the user program that
2512 are available to be debugged.
2514 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2515 forks of the user program that are
2516 available to be debugged.
2518 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2519 that are available to be debugged (and
2520 kill the forked process).
2522 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2523 that are available to be debugged (and
2524 allow the process to continue).
2528 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2530 * Improved Windows host support
2532 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2533 native console support, and remote communications using either
2534 network sockets or serial ports.
2536 * Improved Modula-2 language support
2538 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2539 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2540 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2541 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2542 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2543 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2547 The ARM rdi-share module.
2549 The Netware NLM debug server.
2551 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2553 * New native configurations
2555 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2556 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2560 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2562 * New command line options
2564 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2565 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2566 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2567 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2568 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2569 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2570 with the --command (-x) option.
2572 * Deprecated commands removed
2574 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2578 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2579 othernames set arm disassembler
2580 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2581 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2582 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2585 * New BSD user-level threads support
2587 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2588 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2591 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2592 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2593 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2595 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2596 are not yet supported.
2598 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2599 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2601 * REMOVED configurations and files
2603 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2604 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2605 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2607 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2609 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2610 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2613 * VAX floating point support
2615 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2617 * User-defined command support
2619 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2620 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2621 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2623 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2625 * New command line option
2627 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2630 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2632 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2633 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2634 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2635 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2636 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
2638 * Internationalization
2640 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2641 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2642 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2646 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2647 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2648 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2650 * New native configurations
2652 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2656 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2657 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2659 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2661 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2662 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2663 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2666 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2667 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2668 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2678 powerpc bdm protocol
2680 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2681 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2683 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2685 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2686 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2687 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2688 permanently REMOVED.
2697 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2699 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2701 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2702 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2705 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2707 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2708 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2709 IRIX long double values).
2713 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2714 command. This problem has been fixed.
2716 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2718 * Fix for ``many threads''
2720 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2721 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2724 ptrace: No such process.
2725 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2727 This problem has been fixed.
2729 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2731 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2734 * New ``start'' command.
2736 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2738 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2740 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2741 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2742 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2744 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2745 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2746 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2747 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2748 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2749 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2750 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2751 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2752 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2754 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2756 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2757 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2758 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2759 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2760 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2762 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2763 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2764 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2766 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2768 * New native configurations
2770 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2771 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2772 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2773 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2774 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2775 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2776 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2778 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2780 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2781 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2782 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2783 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2784 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2785 work, was also included.
2787 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2788 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2798 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2799 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2801 * REMOVED configurations and files
2803 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2804 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2805 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2806 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2807 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2808 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2809 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2810 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2811 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2812 sonymips mips-sony-*
2813 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2815 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2817 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2819 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2820 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2821 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2822 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2825 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2827 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2828 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2829 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2830 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2831 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2832 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2835 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2837 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2839 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2840 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2841 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2843 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2845 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2846 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2848 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2850 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2851 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2852 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2854 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2856 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2857 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2859 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2861 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2862 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2863 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2865 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2867 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2868 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2869 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2871 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2873 * Removed --with-mmalloc
2875 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2876 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2878 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
2880 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2881 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2882 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2883 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2885 * Revised SPARC target
2887 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2888 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2889 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2890 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2891 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2895 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2896 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2897 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2900 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2902 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2903 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2906 * C++ nested types and namespaces
2908 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2909 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2910 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2911 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2912 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2913 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2914 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2915 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2916 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2918 * New native configurations
2920 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2921 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2922 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2923 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2924 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2926 * New debugging protocols
2928 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2930 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2932 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2933 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2934 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2936 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2938 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2939 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2940 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2941 permanently REMOVED.
2943 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2944 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2945 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2946 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2947 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2948 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2949 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2950 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2951 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2952 sonymips mips-sony-*
2953 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2955 * REMOVED configurations and files
2957 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2958 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2959 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2960 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2961 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2962 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2963 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2964 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2965 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2966 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2967 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2968 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2969 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2970 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2971 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2972 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2973 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2975 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2979 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2980 integrated into GDB.
2982 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2984 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2985 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2986 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2989 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2990 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2991 DWARF 2 CFI support.
2995 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2996 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2997 remote protocol documentation for details.
2999 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
3001 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3002 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3003 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3006 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3008 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3009 per-thread variables.
3011 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3013 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3014 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3016 * Separate debug info.
3018 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3019 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3020 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3021 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3022 and optional debug files.
3024 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3026 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3027 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3030 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3031 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3035 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3036 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3037 considered "useable".
3039 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3041 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3042 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3045 * GDB supports logging output to a file
3047 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3048 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
3050 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3052 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3053 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3056 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
3058 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3059 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3063 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3064 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3065 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3066 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3067 data, for more informative profiling results.
3069 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3071 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3072 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
3073 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
3075 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3078 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3079 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3080 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3081 in a subsequent -var-update.
3083 * New native configurations.
3085 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3087 * Multi-arched targets.
3089 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
3090 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3092 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3094 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3095 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3096 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3097 permanently REMOVED.
3099 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3100 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3101 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3102 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3103 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3104 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3105 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3106 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3107 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3108 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3109 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3110 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3112 * REMOVED configurations and files
3115 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3116 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3117 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3118 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3119 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3120 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3122 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3123 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3124 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3125 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3126 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3127 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3129 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
3131 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3132 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3133 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3134 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3135 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3137 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
3139 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3141 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3142 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3143 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3144 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3145 shared libs like mad''.
3147 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
3149 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3150 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3151 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3152 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
3154 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3156 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3157 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3160 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3161 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3163 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3164 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3166 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3167 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3168 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3169 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3171 * Multi-arched targets.
3173 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3174 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
3176 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
3177 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3178 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3182 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3185 * New native configurations
3187 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
3188 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
3189 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
3190 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
3192 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3194 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3195 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3196 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3197 permanently REMOVED.
3199 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3200 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3201 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3202 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3203 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3204 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3205 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3206 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3207 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3208 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3210 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3211 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3213 * OBSOLETE languages
3215 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3217 * REMOVED configurations and files
3219 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3220 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3221 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3222 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3223 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3225 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3227 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3229 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3230 commands. The default is 1024.
3232 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3234 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3236 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3238 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3239 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3240 from a file into memory (restore).
3242 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3244 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3245 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3246 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3248 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3256 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3257 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3258 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3260 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3261 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3262 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3264 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3265 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3266 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3268 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3269 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3270 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3272 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
3274 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3276 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3277 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3278 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3279 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3280 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3281 (notably embedded) targets.
3283 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3285 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3286 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3287 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3288 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
3290 * New command line option
3292 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3294 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3296 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3297 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3298 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3299 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3300 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3301 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3302 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3303 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3304 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3305 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3307 * Changes in ARM configurations.
3309 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3310 configuration is fully multi-arch.
3312 * New native configurations
3314 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
3315 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
3316 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
3317 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
3321 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3323 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3325 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3326 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3327 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3328 permanently REMOVED.
3330 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3331 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3332 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3333 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3334 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3336 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3338 * REMOVED configurations and files
3340 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3342 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3343 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3344 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3345 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3346 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3347 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3348 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3349 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3350 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3351 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3352 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
3354 * Changes to command line processing
3356 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3357 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3359 * Changes to key bindings
3361 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3363 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3365 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3367 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3370 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3372 Numerous documentation fixes.
3374 Numerous testsuite fixes.
3376 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
3378 * New native configurations
3380 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3381 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
3382 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
3383 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3384 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
3385 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
3389 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
3391 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
3393 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3395 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
3396 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3397 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3398 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3399 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3401 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3402 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3403 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3404 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3405 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3406 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3407 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3408 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
3410 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3411 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3413 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3414 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3415 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3416 permanently REMOVED.
3418 * REMOVED configurations and files
3420 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3421 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3423 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3427 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
3429 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
3430 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3435 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3437 * The MI enabled by default.
3439 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3440 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3441 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3442 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3443 which is now deprecated.
3445 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3447 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3448 main features are supported:
3450 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3452 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3455 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3457 - a Pascal expression parser.
3459 However, some important features are not yet supported.
3461 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3463 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3465 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3466 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3468 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3470 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3472 * Changes in completion.
3474 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3475 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3476 users expect at the shell prompt.
3478 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3479 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3480 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3481 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3482 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3483 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3484 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3486 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3488 * New platform-independent commands:
3490 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3491 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3492 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3494 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3496 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3497 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3498 many threads as your system allows you to have.
3500 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3502 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3503 multi-threaded programs though.
3505 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
3507 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3509 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3510 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3513 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3515 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3516 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3517 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3518 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3519 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3522 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3523 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3524 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3526 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3528 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3529 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3531 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3532 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3535 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3536 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3537 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3538 a given linear address.
3540 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3541 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3542 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3544 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3546 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3548 * Changes in documentation.
3550 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3551 Documentation License.
3553 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3556 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3558 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3561 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3562 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3563 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3565 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3567 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3568 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3569 contents of this file.
3573 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3575 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3577 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3579 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3580 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3581 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3582 greater level of detail.
3584 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3586 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3587 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3588 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3591 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3593 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3594 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3595 machines ``out of the box''.
3597 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3598 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3599 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3600 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3601 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3603 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3604 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3605 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3606 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3607 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3609 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3610 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3613 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3616 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3617 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3618 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3619 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3621 * New native configurations
3623 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3624 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3628 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3629 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3630 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
3631 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3633 * OBSOLETE configurations
3635 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3636 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3638 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3641 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3642 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3643 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3644 be permanently REMOVED.
3646 * Gould support removed
3648 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3650 * New features for SVR4
3652 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3653 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3654 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3656 * Many C++ enhancements
3658 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3659 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3661 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3663 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3664 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3665 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3666 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3668 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3669 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3671 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3673 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3674 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3675 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3677 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3678 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3680 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3682 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3683 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3684 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3686 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3688 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3689 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3690 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3692 * ``apropos'' command added.
3694 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3695 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3696 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3700 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3701 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3702 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3703 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3704 enabled by configuring with:
3706 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3708 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3710 * New native configurations
3712 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3713 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3714 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3718 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3719 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3720 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3722 * OBSOLETE configurations
3724 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3726 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3727 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3728 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3729 be permanently REMOVED.
3733 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3734 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3735 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3736 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3737 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3738 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3739 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3744 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3746 * set extension-language
3748 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3749 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3750 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3751 set extension-language .c c++
3752 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3753 and their associated languages.
3755 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3757 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3758 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3759 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3763 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3764 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3766 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3767 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3769 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3770 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3771 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3772 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3773 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3774 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3775 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3776 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3778 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3779 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3780 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3781 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3785 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3786 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3787 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3788 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3789 for xdb and dbx commands.
3793 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3794 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3795 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3797 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3798 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3799 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3801 * Debugging across forks
3803 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3808 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3809 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3810 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3812 * GDB remote protocol additions
3814 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3815 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3816 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3817 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3819 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3820 full 64-bit address. The command
3822 set remoteaddresssize 32
3824 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3825 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3828 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3829 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3831 maint packet heythere
3833 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3834 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3837 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3838 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3839 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3841 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3843 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3844 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3845 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3847 * mask-address variable for Mips
3849 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3850 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3851 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3853 * Higher serial baud rates
3855 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3856 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3857 to achieve all of these rates.)
3861 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3862 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3865 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3867 * New native configurations
3869 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3870 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3871 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3872 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3873 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3874 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3875 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3879 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3880 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3881 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3882 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3883 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3884 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3885 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3886 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3887 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3888 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3889 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3891 * New debugging protocols
3893 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3894 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3895 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3896 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3897 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3898 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3902 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3903 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3908 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3909 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3911 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3913 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3914 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3915 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3917 * Live range splitting
3919 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3920 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3921 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3925 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3926 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3930 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3931 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3932 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3937 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3942 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3943 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3944 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3945 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3946 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3947 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3951 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3952 the symbol at the specified address.
3956 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3957 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3958 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3959 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3960 file tracepoint.c for more details.
3964 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3965 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3966 of most MIPS variants.
3970 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3971 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3972 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3976 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3977 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3978 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3979 the possible architectures.
3981 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3983 * New native configurations
3985 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3986 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3987 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3988 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3989 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3990 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3994 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3995 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3996 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3997 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3998 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4000 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4004 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4005 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4006 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4007 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4008 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4012 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4014 * Windows 95/NT native
4016 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4017 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4018 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4019 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4020 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4022 * dont-repeat command
4024 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4025 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4026 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4027 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4029 * Send break instead of ^C
4031 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4032 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4033 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4035 * Remote protocol timeout
4037 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4038 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4039 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4041 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4043 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4044 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4045 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4046 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4047 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4049 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4050 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4051 automatically on hpux10.
4053 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4055 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4057 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4059 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4060 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4061 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4062 every character. The default value is 1050.
4064 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4066 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4067 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4068 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4069 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4070 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4071 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4073 * Speedups for remote debugging
4075 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4076 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4077 and more efficient S-record downloading.
4079 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4081 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4082 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4084 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4086 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
4088 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4089 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4091 * Remote targets use caching
4093 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4094 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4095 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4096 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4097 off' turns the the data cache off.
4099 * Remote targets may have threads
4101 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4102 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4103 gdb/remote.c for details.
4107 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4108 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4109 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4110 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4111 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4112 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4113 sequence is something like
4115 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4117 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4121 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4122 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4123 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4124 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4125 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4126 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4127 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4128 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4132 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4133 but does simplify configuration and building.
4137 GDB now supports hpux10.
4139 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4141 * New native configurations
4143 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4144 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4145 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4146 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4150 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4151 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4152 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4153 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4156 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4158 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4159 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4160 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4161 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4162 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4164 * Arguments to user-defined commands
4166 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4167 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4170 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4172 To execute the command use:
4175 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4176 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4177 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4179 * New `if' and `while' commands
4181 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4182 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4183 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4184 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4185 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4186 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4187 if the expression is zero.
4189 * Fortran source language mode
4191 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4192 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4193 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4194 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4197 * Better HPUX support
4199 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4200 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4201 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4202 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4203 that behavior do the following before running the program:
4209 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4210 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4216 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4217 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4220 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4221 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4223 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4225 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4226 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4227 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4228 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4229 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4230 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4232 * New DOS host serial code
4234 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4235 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4238 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4240 * New "complete" command
4242 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4243 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4245 * Trailing space optional in prompt
4247 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4248 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4250 * Breakpoint hit counts
4252 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4253 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4254 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4255 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4256 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4259 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4261 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4262 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4263 arrays actually contain only short strings.
4265 * Shared library breakpoints
4267 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4268 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4270 * Hardware watchpoints
4272 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4273 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4275 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
4279 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4280 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4282 * Improved Irix 5 support
4284 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4286 * Improved HPPA support
4288 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4290 * New native configurations
4292 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4293 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4294 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4295 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4299 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4300 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4303 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4305 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4306 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4310 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4311 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4313 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4315 * Irix 5 is now supported
4319 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4320 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4321 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4322 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4323 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4326 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4328 * User visible changes:
4332 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4333 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4334 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4335 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4336 debugging info for the mips target).
4338 * DEC Alpha native support
4340 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4341 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4342 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4343 Alpha-specific notes.
4345 * Preliminary thread implementation
4347 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4349 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
4351 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4352 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4355 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4357 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4358 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4359 call methods, ...etc.
4361 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4363 * User visible changes:
4365 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4366 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4367 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4368 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4370 Filename completion now works.
4372 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4373 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4374 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4376 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4377 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4378 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4379 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4380 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4384 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4385 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4388 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4392 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4393 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4394 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4398 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4399 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4400 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4401 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4402 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4406 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4407 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4408 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4410 * New targets supported
4412 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4413 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4414 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4415 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4416 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4418 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4419 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4420 GO32 memory extender.
4422 * New remote protocols
4424 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4426 * New source languages supported
4428 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4429 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4430 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4433 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4435 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4437 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4438 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4439 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4440 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4441 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4442 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4444 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4446 * Faster and better demangling
4448 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4449 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4450 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4451 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4452 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4453 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4456 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4457 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4458 compiler does not actually implement.
4460 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4462 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4463 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4464 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4465 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4466 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4467 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4470 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4471 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4473 * Improved configure script
4475 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4476 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4477 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4478 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4480 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4481 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4482 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4483 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4484 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4485 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4487 * Documentation improvements
4489 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4490 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4491 before submitting changes.
4493 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4494 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4495 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4496 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4497 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4499 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4500 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4501 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4502 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4503 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4504 around this problem.
4508 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4509 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4510 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4513 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4514 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4516 * New native hosts supported
4518 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4519 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4521 * New targets supported
4523 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4525 * New file formats supported
4527 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4528 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4532 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4534 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4535 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4537 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4538 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4539 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4541 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4542 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4544 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4545 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4546 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4549 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4550 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4551 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4552 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4553 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4555 * Internal improvements
4557 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4558 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4560 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4561 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4562 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4563 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4564 shared code that handles any of them.
4566 * New command line options
4568 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4572 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4573 General Public License.
4575 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4577 * Host/native/target split
4579 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4580 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4581 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4582 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4583 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4585 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4586 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4587 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4588 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4589 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4590 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4591 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4593 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4594 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4595 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4597 * New hosts supported
4599 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4600 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4601 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4603 * New targets supported
4605 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4606 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4608 * New native hosts supported
4610 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4611 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4612 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4614 * New file formats supported
4616 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4617 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4618 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4622 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4623 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4624 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4626 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4628 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4629 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4630 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4631 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4635 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4636 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4637 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4639 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4643 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4644 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4647 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4648 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4650 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4651 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4652 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4653 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4654 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4655 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4657 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4658 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4659 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4660 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4664 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4665 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4666 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4667 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4668 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4670 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4671 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4672 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4673 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4677 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4678 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4679 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4680 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4681 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4682 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4683 each instruction being stepped through.
4685 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4686 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4688 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4689 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4690 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4691 processor with a serial port.
4695 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4696 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4697 supported, and what files each one uses.
4701 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4702 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4703 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4704 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4706 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4707 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4708 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4709 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4713 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4714 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4715 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4716 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4717 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4718 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4720 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4723 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4725 * Better support for C++ function names
4727 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4728 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4729 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4730 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4731 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4733 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4734 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4735 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4736 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4737 for the list of formats.
4739 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4741 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4742 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4743 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4744 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4745 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4746 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4749 * New 'maintenance' command
4751 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4752 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4753 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4755 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4756 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4757 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4758 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4759 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4760 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4762 The following commands are new:
4764 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4765 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4766 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4768 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4770 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4771 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4772 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4773 read after argv processing.
4775 * New hosts supported
4777 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4779 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4781 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4782 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4783 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4784 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4785 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4788 * New targets supported
4790 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4792 * More smarts about finding #include files
4794 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4795 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4796 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4797 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4798 the one that contains your sources.
4800 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4801 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4802 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4804 * Interesting infernals change
4806 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4807 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4808 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4809 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4811 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4813 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4814 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4815 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4817 See the ChangeLog for details.
4819 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4821 * New machines supported (host and target)
4823 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4825 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4827 * New malloc package
4829 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4830 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4831 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4832 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4833 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4834 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4838 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4839 'help info proc' for details.
4841 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4843 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4844 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4847 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4849 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4850 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4851 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4852 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4853 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4854 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4856 * Cross byte order fixes
4858 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4859 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4861 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4863 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4864 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4865 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4866 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4867 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4868 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4869 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4870 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4871 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4872 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4874 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4875 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4876 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4877 slower, but makes future operations faster.
4879 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4880 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4881 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4884 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4886 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4887 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4888 shared across multiple host platforms.
4890 * longjmp() handling
4892 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4893 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4894 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4895 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4899 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4900 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4905 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4906 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4907 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4909 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4911 * New machines supported (host and target)
4913 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4915 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4916 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4918 * New machines supported (target)
4920 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4924 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4925 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4926 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4928 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4929 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4930 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4931 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4932 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4935 * New features for SVR4
4937 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4938 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4939 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4941 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4942 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4943 it prints the address mappings of the process.
4945 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4946 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4948 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4950 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4951 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4952 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4953 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4954 same code linked statically.
4958 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4959 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4960 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4961 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4962 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4963 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4967 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4968 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4969 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4972 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4974 * New machines supported (host and target)
4976 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4977 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4978 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4980 * Almost SCO Unix support
4982 We had hoped to support:
4983 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4984 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4985 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4986 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4988 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4990 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4991 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4992 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4993 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4998 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4999 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5000 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5004 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5005 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5006 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5008 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5010 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5011 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5012 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5014 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5015 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5016 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5017 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5020 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5021 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5022 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5023 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5026 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5027 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5030 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5031 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5032 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5035 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5037 * Improved configuration
5039 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5040 Porting BFD is simpler.
5044 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5045 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5046 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5047 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5051 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5053 * New host supported (not target)
5055 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5058 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5060 * Multiple source language support
5062 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5063 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5064 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5065 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5066 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5067 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5071 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5072 currently under development at the State University of New York at
5073 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5074 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5076 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5077 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5078 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5080 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5081 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5085 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5086 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5087 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5088 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5091 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5093 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5094 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5095 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5096 examining core files.
5100 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5103 * New machines supported (host and target)
5105 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5106 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5107 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5109 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5111 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5113 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5115 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5116 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5117 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5119 * New remote interfaces
5125 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5129 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5131 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5132 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5133 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5134 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5135 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5136 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5137 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5138 stub on the target system.
5140 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5142 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5143 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5144 object file types such as a.out and coff.
5146 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5147 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5150 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5152 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5153 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5155 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5156 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5157 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5159 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5160 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5161 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5162 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5164 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5165 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5166 it is already running. Default is ON.
5168 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5169 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5170 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5171 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5174 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5175 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5176 or the value of the environment variable
5179 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5180 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5183 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5184 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5185 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5187 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5188 history expansion will be performed on
5189 command line input. The default is OFF.
5191 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5192 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5193 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5195 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5196 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5197 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5200 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5201 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5202 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5205 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5206 ``set width'' instead.
5208 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5209 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5210 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5211 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5213 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5216 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5219 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5222 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5225 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5227 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5228 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5229 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5233 * Support for Shared Libraries
5235 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5236 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5237 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5238 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5239 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5240 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5241 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5242 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5244 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5245 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5246 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5248 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5253 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5254 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5255 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5256 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5257 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5258 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5260 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5262 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5264 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5265 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5266 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5269 * C++ multiple inheritance
5271 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5274 * C++ exception handling
5276 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5277 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5278 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5281 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5282 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5283 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5285 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5286 current stack frame.
5289 * Minor command changes
5291 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5292 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5293 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5295 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5296 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5297 frames without printing.
5299 * New directory command
5301 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5302 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5303 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5304 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5305 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5307 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5309 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5312 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5313 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5314 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5315 where the program that you are debugging will run.