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