Implement target async for Windows
[binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 12
5
6 * GDB now supports dumping memory tag data for AArch64 MTE. It also supports
7 reading memory tag data for AArch64 MTE from core files generated by
8 the gcore command or the Linux kernel.
9
10 When a process uses memory-mapped pages protected by memory tags (for
11 example, AArch64 MTE), this additional information will be recorded in
12 the core file in the event of a crash or if GDB generates a core file
13 from the current process state. GDB will show this additional information
14 automatically, or through one of the memory-tag subcommands.
15
16 * "info breakpoints" now displays enabled breakpoint locations of
17 disabled breakpoints as in the "y-" state. For example:
18
19 (gdb) info breakpoints
20 Num Type Disp Enb Address What
21 1 breakpoint keep n <MULTIPLE>
22 1.1 y- 0x00000000000011b6 in ...
23 1.2 y- 0x00000000000011c2 in ...
24 1.3 n 0x00000000000011ce in ...
25
26 * Support for Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on FreeBSD arm and
27 aarch64 architectures.
28
29 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on FreeBSD/Aarch64.
30
31 * Remove support for building against Python 2, it is now only possible to
32 build GDB against Python 3.
33
34 * DBX mode has been removed.
35
36 * GDB now honours the DWARF prologue_end line-table entry flag the compiler can
37 emit to indicate where a breakpoint should be placed to break in a function
38 past its prologue.
39
40 * Completion now also offers "NUMBER" for "set" commands that accept
41 a numeric argument and the "unlimited" keyword. For example:
42
43 (gdb) set width <TAB>
44 NUMBER unlimited
45
46 and consequently:
47
48 (gdb) complete set width
49 set width NUMBER
50 set width unlimited
51
52 * Disassembler styling using libopcodes. GDB now supports
53 disassembler styling using libopcodes. This is only available for
54 some targets (currently x86 and RISC-V). For unsupported targets
55 Python Pygments is still used. For supported targets, libopcodes
56 styling is used by default.
57
58 * The Windows native target now supports target async.
59
60 * New commands
61
62 maintenance set ignore-prologue-end-flag on|off
63 maintenance show ignore-prologue-end-flag
64 This setting, which is off by default, controls whether GDB ignores the
65 PROLOGUE-END flag from the line-table when skipping prologue. This can be
66 used to force GDB to use prologue analyzers if the line-table is constructed
67 from erroneous debug information.
68
69 set print nibbles [on|off]
70 show print nibbles
71 This controls whether the 'print/t' command will display binary values
72 in groups of four bits, known as "nibbles". The default is 'off'.
73
74 maintenance set libopcodes-styling on|off
75 maintenance show libopcodes-styling
76 These can be used to force off libopcodes based styling, the Python
77 Pygments styling will then be used instead.
78
79 set style disassembler comment
80 show style disassembler comment
81 set style disassembler immediate
82 show style disassembler immediate
83 set style disassembler mnemonic
84 show style disassembler mnemonic
85 set style disassembler register
86 show style disassembler register
87 set style disassembler address
88 show style disassembler address
89 set style disassembler symbol
90 show style disassembler symbol
91 For targets that support libopcodes based styling, these settings
92 control how various aspects of the disassembler output are styled.
93 The 'disassembler address' and 'disassembler symbol' styles are
94 aliases for the 'address' and 'function' styles respectively.
95
96 * Changed commands
97
98 maintenance info line-table
99 Add a PROLOGUE-END column to the output which indicates that an
100 entry corresponds to an address where a breakpoint should be placed
101 to be at the first instruction past a function's prologue.
102
103 * New targets
104
105 GNU/Linux/LoongArch (gdbserver) loongarch*-*-linux*
106
107 * Python API
108
109 ** GDB will now reformat the doc string for gdb.Command and
110 gdb.Parameter sub-classes to remove unnecessary leading
111 whitespace from each line before using the string as the help
112 output.
113
114 ** New function gdb.format_address(ADDRESS, PROGSPACE, ARCHITECTURE),
115 that formats ADDRESS as 'address <symbol+offset>', where symbol is
116 looked up in PROGSPACE, and ARCHITECTURE is used to format address.
117 This is the same format that GDB uses when printing address, symbol,
118 and offset information from the disassembler.
119
120 ** New function gdb.current_language that returns the name of the
121 current language. Unlike gdb.parameter('language'), this will
122 never return 'auto'.
123
124 ** New method gdb.Frame.language that returns the name of the
125 frame's language.
126
127 ** New Python API for wrapping GDB's disassembler:
128
129 - gdb.disassembler.register_disassembler(DISASSEMBLER, ARCH).
130 DISASSEMBLER is a sub-class of gdb.disassembler.Disassembler.
131 ARCH is either None or a string containing a bfd architecture
132 name. DISASSEMBLER is registered as a disassembler for
133 architecture ARCH, or for all architectures if ARCH is None.
134 The previous disassembler registered for ARCH is returned, this
135 can be None if no previous disassembler was registered.
136
137 - gdb.disassembler.Disassembler is the class from which all
138 disassemblers should inherit. Its constructor takes a string,
139 a name for the disassembler, which is currently only used in
140 some debug output. Sub-classes should override the __call__
141 method to perform disassembly, invoking __call__ on this base
142 class will raise an exception.
143
144 - gdb.disassembler.DisassembleInfo is the class used to describe
145 a single disassembly request from GDB. An instance of this
146 class is passed to the __call__ method of
147 gdb.disassembler.Disassembler and has the following read-only
148 attributes: 'address', and 'architecture', as well as the
149 following method: 'read_memory'.
150
151 - gdb.disassembler.builtin_disassemble(INFO, MEMORY_SOURCE),
152 calls GDB's builtin disassembler on INFO, which is a
153 gdb.disassembler.DisassembleInfo object. MEMORY_SOURCE is
154 optional, its default value is None. If MEMORY_SOURCE is not
155 None then it must be an object that has a 'read_memory' method.
156
157 - gdb.disassembler.DisassemblerResult is a class that can be used
158 to wrap the result of a call to a Disassembler. It has
159 read-only attributes 'length' and 'string'.
160
161 ** gdb.Objfile now has an attribute named "is_file". This is True
162 if the objfile comes from a file, and False otherwise.
163
164 ** New function gdb.print_options that returns a dictionary of the
165 prevailing print options, in the form accepted by
166 gdb.Value.format_string.
167
168 ** gdb.Value.format_string now uses the format provided by 'print',
169 if it is called during a 'print' or other similar operation.
170
171 ** gdb.Value.format_string now accepts the 'summary' keyword. This
172 can be used to request a shorter representation of a value, the
173 way that 'set print frame-arguments scalars' does.
174
175 ** New Python type gdb.BreakpointLocation.
176 The new attribute 'locations' of gdb.Breakpoint returns a list of
177 gdb.BreakpointLocation objects specifying the locations where the
178 breakpoint is inserted into the debuggee.
179
180 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
181
182 ** GDBserver is now supported on LoongArch GNU/Linux.
183
184 * LoongArch floating-point support
185
186 GDB now supports floating-point on LoongArch GNU/Linux.
187
188 *** Changes in GDB 12
189
190 * DBX mode is deprecated, and will be removed in GDB 13
191
192 * GDB 12 is the last release of GDB that will support building against
193 Python 2. From GDB 13, it will only be possible to build GDB itself
194 with Python 3 support.
195
196 * The disable-randomization setting now works on Windows.
197
198 * Improved C++ template support
199
200 GDB now treats functions/types involving C++ templates like it does function
201 overloads. Users may omit parameter lists to set breakpoints on families of
202 template functions, including types/functions composed of multiple template types:
203
204 (gdb) break template_func(template_1, int)
205
206 The above will set breakpoints at every function `template_func' where
207 the first function parameter is any template type named `template_1' and
208 the second function parameter is `int'.
209
210 TAB completion also gains similar improvements.
211
212 * The FreeBSD native target now supports async mode.
213
214 * Configure changes
215
216 --enable-threading
217
218 Enable or disable multithreaded symbol loading. This is enabled
219 by default, but passing --disable-threading or --enable-threading=no
220 to configure will disable it.
221
222 Disabling this can cause a performance penalty when there are a lot of
223 symbols to load, but is useful for debugging purposes.
224
225 * New commands
226
227 maint set backtrace-on-fatal-signal on|off
228 maint show backtrace-on-fatal-signal
229 This setting is 'on' by default. When 'on' GDB will print a limited
230 backtrace to stderr in the situation where GDB terminates with a
231 fatal signal. This only supported on some platforms where the
232 backtrace and backtrace_symbols_fd functions are available.
233
234 set source open on|off
235 show source open
236 This setting, which is on by default, controls whether GDB will try
237 to open source code files. Switching this off will stop GDB trying
238 to open and read source code files, which can be useful if the files
239 are located over a slow network connection.
240
241 set varsize-limit
242 show varsize-limit
243 These are now deprecated aliases for "set max-value-size" and
244 "show max-value-size".
245
246 task apply [all | TASK-IDS...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
247 Like "thread apply", but applies COMMAND to Ada tasks.
248
249 watch [...] task ID
250 Watchpoints can now be restricted to a specific Ada task.
251
252 maint set internal-error backtrace on|off
253 maint show internal-error backtrace
254 maint set internal-warning backtrace on|off
255 maint show internal-warning backtrace
256 GDB can now print a backtrace of itself when it encounters either an
257 internal-error, or an internal-warning. This is on by default for
258 internal-error and off by default for internal-warning.
259
260 set logging on|off
261 Deprecated and replaced by "set logging enabled on|off".
262
263 set logging enabled on|off
264 show logging enabled
265 These commands set or show whether logging is enabled or disabled.
266
267 exit
268 You can now exit GDB by using the new command "exit", in addition to
269 the existing "quit" command.
270
271 set debug threads on|off
272 show debug threads
273 Print additional debug messages about thread creation and deletion.
274
275 set debug linux-nat on|off
276 show debug linux-nat
277 These new commands replaced the old 'set debug lin-lwp' and 'show
278 debug lin-lwp' respectively. Turning this setting on prints debug
279 messages relating to GDB's handling of native Linux inferiors.
280
281 maint flush source-cache
282 Flush the contents of the source code cache.
283
284 maint set gnu-source-highlight enabled on|off
285 maint show gnu-source-highlight enabled
286 Whether GDB should use the GNU Source Highlight library for adding
287 styling to source code. When off, the library will not be used, even
288 when available. When GNU Source Highlight isn't used, or can't add
289 styling to a particular source file, then the Python Pygments
290 library will be used instead.
291
292 set suppress-cli-notifications (on|off)
293 show suppress-cli-notifications
294 This controls whether printing the notifications is suppressed for CLI.
295 CLI notifications occur when you change the selected context
296 (i.e., the current inferior, thread and/or the frame), or when
297 the program being debugged stops (e.g., because of hitting a
298 breakpoint, completing source-stepping, an interrupt, etc.).
299
300 set style disassembler enabled on|off
301 show style disassembler enabled
302 If GDB is compiled with Python support, and the Python Pygments
303 package is available, then, when this setting is on, disassembler
304 output will have styling applied.
305
306 set ada source-charset
307 show ada source-charset
308 Set the character set encoding that is assumed for Ada symbols. Valid
309 values for this follow the values that can be passed to the GNAT
310 compiler via the '-gnati' option. The default is ISO-8859-1.
311
312 tui layout
313 tui focus
314 tui refresh
315 tui window height
316 These are the new names for the old 'layout', 'focus', 'refresh',
317 and 'winheight' tui commands respectively. The old names still
318 exist as aliases to these new commands.
319
320 tui window width
321 winwidth
322 The new command 'tui window width', and the alias 'winwidth' allow
323 the width of a tui window to be adjusted when windows are laid out
324 in horizontal mode.
325
326 set debug tui on|off
327 show debug tui
328 Control the display of debug output about GDB's tui.
329
330 * Changed commands
331
332 print
333 Printing of floating-point values with base-modifying formats like
334 /x has been changed to display the underlying bytes of the value in
335 the desired base. This was GDB's documented behavior, but was never
336 implemented correctly.
337
338 maint packet
339 This command can now print a reply, if the reply includes
340 non-printable characters. Any non-printable characters are printed
341 as escaped hex, e.g. \x?? where '??' is replaces with the value of
342 the non-printable character.
343
344 clone-inferior
345 The clone-inferior command now ensures that the TTY, CMD and ARGS
346 settings are copied from the original inferior to the new one.
347 All modifications to the environment variables done using the 'set
348 environment' or 'unset environment' commands are also copied to the new
349 inferior.
350
351 set debug lin-lwp on|off
352 show debug lin-lwp
353 These commands have been removed from GDB. The new command 'set
354 debug linux-nat' and 'show debug linux-nat' should be used
355 instead.
356
357 info win
358 This command now includes information about the width of the tui
359 windows in its output.
360
361 layout
362 focus
363 refresh
364 winheight
365 These commands are now aliases for the 'tui layout', 'tui focus',
366 'tui refresh', and 'tui window height' commands respectively.
367
368 * GDB's Ada parser now supports an extension for specifying the exact
369 byte contents of a floating-point literal. This can be useful for
370 setting floating-point registers to a precise value without loss of
371 precision. The syntax is an extension of the based literal syntax.
372 Use, e.g., "16lf#0123abcd#" -- the number of "l"s controls the width
373 of the floating-point type, and the "f" is the marker for floating
374 point.
375
376 * MI changes
377
378 ** The '-add-inferior' with no option flags now inherits the
379 connection of the current inferior, this restores the behaviour of
380 GDB as it was prior to GDB 10.
381
382 ** The '-add-inferior' command now accepts a '--no-connection'
383 option, which causes the new inferior to start without a
384 connection.
385
386 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 4 (-i=mi4).
387
388 ** The "script" field in breakpoint output (which is syntactically
389 incorrect in MI 3 and below) has changed in MI 4 to become a list.
390 This affects the following commands and events:
391
392 - -break-insert
393 - -break-info
394 - =breakpoint-created
395 - =breakpoint-modified
396
397 The -fix-breakpoint-script-output command can be used to enable
398 this behavior with previous MI versions.
399
400 * New targets
401
402 GNU/Linux/LoongArch loongarch*-*-linux*
403
404 * Removed targets
405
406 S+core score-*-*
407
408 * Python API
409
410 ** New function gdb.add_history(), which takes a gdb.Value object
411 and adds the value it represents to GDB's history list. An
412 integer, the index of the new item in the history list, is
413 returned.
414
415 ** New function gdb.history_count(), which returns the number of
416 values in GDB's value history.
417
418 ** New gdb.events.gdb_exiting event. This event is called with a
419 gdb.GdbExitingEvent object which has the read-only attribute
420 'exit_code', which contains the value of the GDB exit code. This
421 event is triggered once GDB decides it is going to exit, but
422 before GDB starts to clean up its internal state.
423
424 ** New function gdb.architecture_names(), which returns a list
425 containing all of the possible Architecture.name() values. Each
426 entry is a string.
427
428 ** New function gdb.Architecture.integer_type(), which returns an
429 integer type given a size and a signed-ness.
430
431 ** New gdb.TargetConnection object type that represents a connection
432 (as displayed by the 'info connections' command). A sub-class,
433 gdb.RemoteTargetConnection, is used to represent 'remote' and
434 'extended-remote' connections.
435
436 ** The gdb.Inferior type now has a 'connection' property which is an
437 instance of gdb.TargetConnection, the connection used by this
438 inferior. This can be None if the inferior has no connection.
439
440 ** New 'gdb.events.connection_removed' event registry, which emits a
441 'gdb.ConnectionEvent' when a connection is removed from GDB.
442 This event has a 'connection' property, a gdb.TargetConnection
443 object for the connection being removed.
444
445 ** New gdb.connections() function that returns a list of all
446 currently active connections.
447
448 ** New gdb.RemoteTargetConnection.send_packet(PACKET) method. This
449 is equivalent to the existing 'maint packet' CLI command; it
450 allows a user specified packet to be sent to the remote target.
451
452 ** New function gdb.host_charset(), returns a string, which is the
453 name of the current host charset.
454
455 ** New gdb.set_parameter(NAME, VALUE). This sets the gdb parameter
456 NAME to VALUE.
457
458 ** New gdb.with_parameter(NAME, VALUE). This returns a context
459 manager that temporarily sets the gdb parameter NAME to VALUE,
460 then resets it when the context is exited.
461
462 ** The gdb.Value.format_string method now takes a 'styling'
463 argument, which is a boolean. When true, the returned string can
464 include escape sequences to apply styling. The styling will only
465 be present if styling is otherwise turned on in GDB (see 'help
466 set styling'). When false, which is the default if the argument
467 is not given, then no styling is applied to the returned string.
468
469 ** New read-only attribute gdb.InferiorThread.details, which is
470 either a string, containing additional, target specific thread
471 state information, or None, if there is no such additional
472 information.
473
474 ** New read-only attribute gdb.Type.is_scalar, which is True for
475 scalar types, and False for all other types.
476
477 ** New read-only attribute gdb.Type.is_signed. This attribute
478 should only be read when Type.is_scalar is True, and will be True
479 for signed types, and False for all other types. Attempting to
480 read this attribute for non-scalar types will raise a ValueError.
481
482 ** It is now possible to add GDB/MI commands implemented in Python.
483
484 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
485
486 ** GDBserver is now supported on OpenRISC GNU/Linux.
487
488 * New native configurations
489
490 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
491
492 *** Changes in GDB 11
493
494 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
495 for the ARC target.
496
497 * GDB now supports general memory tagging functionality if the underlying
498 architecture supports the proper primitives and hooks. Currently this is
499 enabled only for AArch64 MTE.
500
501 This includes:
502
503 - Additional information when the inferior crashes with a SIGSEGV caused by
504 a memory tag violation.
505
506 - A new modifier 'm' for the "x" command, which displays allocation tags for a
507 particular memory range.
508
509 - Display of memory tag mismatches by "print", for addresses and
510 pointers, if memory tagging is supported by the architecture.
511
512 * Building GDB now requires GMP (The GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic
513 Library).
514
515 * MI changes
516
517 ** '-break-insert --qualified' and '-dprintf-insert --qualified'
518
519 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
520 new "--qualified" option that makes GDB interpret a specified
521 function name as a complete fully-qualified name. This is the
522 equivalent of the CLI's "break -qualified" and "dprintf
523 -qualified".
524
525 ** '-break-insert --force-condition' and '-dprintf-insert --force-condition'
526
527 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
528 '--force-condition' flag to forcibly define a condition even when
529 the condition is invalid at all locations of the breakpoint. This
530 is equivalent to the '-force-condition' flag of the CLI's "break"
531 command.
532
533 ** '-break-condition --force'
534
535 The MI -break-condition command now supports a '--force' flag to
536 forcibly define a condition even when the condition is invalid at
537 all locations of the selected breakpoint. This is equivalent to
538 the '-force' flag of the CLI's "cond" command.
539
540 ** '-file-list-exec-source-files [--group-by-objfile]
541 [--basename | --dirname]
542 [--] [REGEXP]'
543
544 The existing -file-list-exec-source-files command now takes an
545 optional REGEXP which is used to filter the source files that are
546 included in the results.
547
548 By default REGEXP is matched against the full filename of the
549 source file. When one of --basename or --dirname is given then
550 REGEXP is only matched against the specified part of the full
551 source filename.
552
553 When the optional --group-by-objfile flag is used the output
554 format is changed, the results are now a list of object files
555 (executable and libraries) with the source files that are
556 associated with each object file.
557
558 The results from -file-list-exec-source-files now include a
559 'debug-fully-read' field which takes the value 'true' or 'false'.
560 A 'true' value indicates the source file is from a compilation
561 unit that has had its debug information fully read in by GDB, a
562 value of 'false' indicates GDB has only performed a partial scan
563 of the debug information so far.
564
565 * GDB now supports core file debugging for x86_64 Cygwin programs.
566
567 * GDB will now look for the .gdbinit file in a config directory before
568 looking for ~/.gdbinit. The file is searched for in the following
569 locations: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.config/gdb/gdbinit,
570 $HOME/.gdbinit. On Apple hosts the search order is instead:
571 $HOME/Library/Preferences/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.gdbinit.
572
573 * GDB now supports fixed point types which are described in DWARF
574 as base types with a fixed-point encoding. Additionally, support
575 for the DW_AT_GNU_numerator and DW_AT_GNU_denominator has also
576 been added.
577
578 For Ada, this allows support for fixed point types without requiring
579 the use of the GNAT encoding (based on information added to the type's
580 name following a GNAT-specific format).
581
582 * GDB will now load and process commands from ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit
583 or ~/.gdbearlyinit if these files are present. These files are
584 processed earlier than any of the other initialization files and
585 can affect parts of GDB's startup that previously had already been
586 completed before the initialization files were read, for example
587 styling of the initial GDB greeting.
588
589 * GDB now has two new options "--early-init-command" and
590 "--early-init-eval-command" with corresponding short options "-eix"
591 and "-eiex" that allow options (that would normally appear in a
592 gdbearlyinit file) to be passed on the command line.
593
594 * For RISC-V targets, the target feature "org.gnu.gdb.riscv.vector" is
595 now understood by GDB, and can be used to describe the vector
596 registers of a target. The precise requirements of this register
597 feature are documented in the GDB manual.
598
599 * For ARM targets, the "org.gnu.gdb.arm.m-profile-mve" feature is now
600 supported by GDB and describes a new VPR register from the ARM MVE
601 (Helium) extension. See the GDB manual for more information.
602
603 * TUI improvements
604
605 ** TUI windows now support mouse actions. The mouse wheel scrolls
606 the appropriate window.
607
608 ** Key combinations that do not have a specific action on the
609 focused window are passed to GDB. For example, you now can use
610 Ctrl-Left/Ctrl-Right to move between words in the command window
611 regardless of which window is in focus. Previously you would
612 need to focus on the command window for such key combinations to
613 work.
614
615 * New commands
616
617 set debug event-loop
618 show debug event-loop
619 Control the display of debug output about GDB's event loop.
620
621 set print memory-tag-violations
622 show print memory-tag-violations
623 Control whether to display additional information about memory tag violations
624 when printing pointers and addresses. Architecture support for memory
625 tagging is required for this option to have an effect.
626
627 maintenance flush symbol-cache
628 maintenance flush register-cache
629 These new commands are equivalent to the already existing commands
630 'maintenance flush-symbol-cache' and 'flushregs' respectively.
631
632 maintenance flush dcache
633 A new command to flush the dcache.
634
635 maintenance info target-sections
636 Print GDB's internal target sections table.
637
638 maintenance info jit
639 Print the JIT code objects in the inferior known to GDB.
640
641 memory-tag show-logical-tag POINTER
642 Print the logical tag for POINTER.
643 memory-tag with-logical-tag POINTER TAG
644 Print POINTER with logical tag TAG.
645 memory-tag show-allocation-tag ADDRESS
646 Print the allocation tag for ADDRESS.
647 memory-tag set-allocation-tag ADDRESS LENGTH TAGS
648 Set the allocation tag for [ADDRESS, ADDRESS + LENGTH) to TAGS.
649 memory-tag check POINTER
650 Validate that POINTER's logical tag matches the allocation tag.
651
652 set startup-quietly on|off
653 show startup-quietly
654 When 'on', this causes GDB to act as if "-silent" were passed on the
655 command line. This command needs to be added to an early
656 initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to
657 affect GDB.
658
659 set print type hex on|off
660 show print type hex
661 When 'on', the 'ptype' command uses hexadecimal notation to print sizes
662 and offsets of struct members. When 'off', decimal notation is used.
663
664 set python ignore-environment on|off
665 show python ignore-environment
666 When 'on', this causes GDB's builtin Python to ignore any
667 environment variables that would otherwise affect how Python
668 behaves. This command needs to be added to an early initialization
669 file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to affect GDB.
670
671 set python dont-write-bytecode auto|on|off
672 show python dont-write-bytecode
673 When 'on', this causes GDB's builtin Python to not write any
674 byte-code (.pyc files) to disk. This command needs to be added to
675 an early initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in
676 order to affect GDB. When 'off' byte-code will always be written.
677 When set to 'auto' (the default) Python will check the
678 PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE environment variable.
679
680 * Changed commands
681
682 break [PROBE_MODIFIER] [LOCATION] [thread THREADNUM]
683 [-force-condition] [if CONDITION]
684 This command would previously refuse setting a breakpoint if the
685 CONDITION expression is invalid at a location. It now accepts and
686 defines the breakpoint if there is at least one location at which
687 the CONDITION is valid. The locations for which the CONDITION is
688 invalid, are automatically disabled. If CONDITION is invalid at all
689 of the locations, setting the breakpoint is still rejected. However,
690 the '-force-condition' flag can be used in this case for forcing GDB to
691 define the breakpoint, making all the current locations automatically
692 disabled. This may be useful if the user knows the condition will
693 become meaningful at a future location, e.g. due to a shared library
694 load.
695
696 condition [-force] N COND
697 The behavior of this command is changed the same way for the 'break'
698 command as explained above. The '-force' flag can be used to force
699 GDB into defining the condition even when COND is invalid for all the
700 current locations of breakpoint N.
701
702 flushregs
703 maintenance flush-symbol-cache
704 These commands are deprecated in favor of the new commands
705 'maintenance flush register-cache' and 'maintenance flush
706 symbol-cache' respectively.
707
708 set style version foreground COLOR
709 set style version background COLOR
710 set style version intensity VALUE
711 Control the styling of GDB's version number text.
712
713 inferior [ID]
714 When the ID parameter is omitted, then this command prints information
715 about the current inferior. When the ID parameter is present, the
716 behavior of the command is unchanged and have the inferior ID become
717 the current inferior.
718
719 maintenance info sections
720 The ALLOBJ keyword has been replaced with an -all-objects command
721 line flag. It is now possible to filter which sections are printed
722 even when -all-objects is passed.
723
724 ptype[/FLAGS] TYPE | EXPRESSION
725 The 'ptype' command has two new flags. When '/x' is set, hexadecimal
726 notation is used when printing sizes and offsets of struct members.
727 When '/d' is set, decimal notation is used when printing sizes and
728 offsets of struct members. Default behavior is given by 'show print
729 type hex'.
730
731 info sources
732 The info sources command output has been restructured. The results
733 are now based around a list of objfiles (executable and libraries),
734 and for each objfile the source files that are part of that objfile
735 are listed.
736
737 * Removed targets and native configurations
738
739 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
740
741 * New remote packets
742
743 qMemTags
744 Request the remote to send allocation tags for a particular memory range.
745 QMemTags
746 Request the remote to store the specified allocation tags to the requested
747 memory range.
748
749 * Guile API
750
751 ** Improved support for rvalue reference values:
752 TYPE_CODE_RVALUE_REF is now exported as part of the API and the
753 value-referenced-value procedure now handles rvalue reference
754 values.
755
756 ** New procedures for obtaining value variants:
757 value-reference-value, value-rvalue-reference-value and
758 value-const-value.
759
760 ** Temporary breakpoints can now be created with make-breakpoint and
761 tested for using breakpoint-temporary?.
762
763 * Python API
764
765 ** Inferior objects now contain a read-only 'connection_num' attribute that
766 gives the connection number as seen in 'info connections' and
767 'info inferiors'.
768
769 ** New method gdb.Frame.level() which returns the stack level of the
770 frame object.
771
772 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.level() which returns the stack level
773 of the frame object.
774
775 ** When hitting a catchpoint, the Python API will now emit a
776 gdb.BreakpointEvent rather than a gdb.StopEvent. The
777 gdb.Breakpoint attached to the event will have type BP_CATCHPOINT.
778
779 ** Python TUI windows can now receive mouse click events. If the
780 Window object implements the click method, it is called for each
781 mouse click event in this window.
782
783 *** Changes in GDB 10
784
785 * There are new feature names for ARC targets: "org.gnu.gdb.arc.core"
786 and "org.gnu.gdb.arc.aux". The old names are still supported but
787 must be considered obsolete. They will be deprecated after some
788 grace period.
789
790 * Help and apropos commands will now show the documentation of a
791 command only once, even if that command has one or more aliases.
792 These commands now show the command name, then all of its aliases,
793 and finally the description of the command.
794
795 * 'help aliases' now shows only the user defined aliases. GDB predefined
796 aliases are shown together with their aliased command.
797
798 * GDB now supports debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF
799 debugging information as well as source code.
800
801 When built with debuginfod, GDB can automatically query debuginfod
802 servers for the separate debug files and source code of the executable
803 being debugged.
804
805 To build GDB with debuginfod, pass --with-debuginfod to configure (this
806 requires libdebuginfod, the debuginfod client library).
807
808 debuginfod is distributed with elfutils, starting with version 0.178.
809
810 You can get the latest version from https://sourceware.org/elfutils.
811
812 * Multi-target debugging support
813
814 GDB now supports debugging multiple target connections
815 simultaneously. For example, you can now have each inferior
816 connected to different remote servers running in different machines,
817 or have one inferior debugging a local native process, an inferior
818 debugging a core dump, etc.
819
820 This support is experimental and comes with some limitations -- you
821 can only resume multiple targets simultaneously if all targets
822 support non-stop mode, and all remote stubs or servers must support
823 the same set of remote protocol features exactly. See also "info
824 connections" and "add-inferior -no-connection" below, and "maint set
825 target-non-stop" in the user manual.
826
827 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
828
829 ** GDBserver is now supported on ARC GNU/Linux.
830
831 ** GDBserver is now supported on RISC-V GNU/Linux.
832
833 ** GDBserver no longer supports these host triplets:
834
835 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
836 powerpc-*-lynxos*
837 i[34567]86-*-nto*
838 bfin-*-*linux*
839 crisv32-*-linux*
840 cris-*-linux*
841 m32r*-*-linux*
842 tilegx-*-linux*
843 arm*-*-mingw32ce*
844 i[34567]86-*-mingw32ce*
845
846 * Debugging MS-Windows processes now sets $_exitsignal when the
847 inferior is terminated by a signal, instead of setting $_exitcode.
848
849 * Multithreaded symbol loading has now been enabled by default on systems
850 that support it (see entry for GDB 9, below), providing faster
851 performance for programs with many symbols.
852
853 * The $_siginfo convenience variable now also works on Windows targets,
854 and will display the EXCEPTION_RECORD of the last handled exception.
855
856 * TUI windows can now be arranged horizontally.
857
858 * The command history filename can now be set to the empty string
859 either using 'set history filename' or by setting 'GDBHISTFILE=' in
860 the environment. The effect of setting this filename to the empty
861 string is that GDB will not try to load any previous command
862 history.
863
864 * On Windows targets, it is now possible to debug 32-bit programs with a
865 64-bit GDB.
866
867 * New commands
868
869 set exec-file-mismatch -- Set exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
870 show exec-file-mismatch -- Show exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
871 Set or show the option 'exec-file-mismatch'. When GDB attaches to a
872 running process, this new option indicates whether to detect
873 a mismatch between the current executable file loaded by GDB and the
874 executable file used to start the process. If 'ask', the default,
875 display a warning and ask the user whether to load the process
876 executable file; if 'warn', just display a warning; if 'off', don't
877 attempt to detect a mismatch.
878
879 tui new-layout NAME WINDOW WEIGHT [WINDOW WEIGHT]...
880 Define a new TUI layout, specifying its name and the windows that
881 will be displayed.
882
883 maintenance print xml-tdesc [FILE]
884 Prints the current target description as an XML document. If the
885 optional FILE is provided (which is an XML target description) then
886 the target description is read from FILE into GDB, and then
887 reprinted.
888
889 maintenance print core-file-backed-mappings
890 Prints file-backed mappings loaded from a core file's note section.
891 Output is expected to be similar to that of "info proc mappings".
892
893 set debug fortran-array-slicing on|off
894 show debug fortran-array-slicing
895 Print debugging when taking slices of Fortran arrays.
896
897 set fortran repack-array-slices on|off
898 show fortran repack-array-slices
899 When taking slices from Fortran arrays and strings, if the slice is
900 non-contiguous within the original value then, when this option is
901 on, the new value will be repacked into a single contiguous value.
902 When this option is off, then the value returned will consist of a
903 descriptor that describes the slice within the memory of the
904 original parent value.
905
906 * Changed commands
907
908 alias [-a] [--] ALIAS = COMMAND [DEFAULT-ARGS...]
909 The alias command can now specify default args for an alias.
910 GDB automatically prepends the alias default args to the argument list
911 provided explicitly by the user.
912 For example, to have a backtrace with full details, you can define
913 an alias 'bt_ALL' as
914 'alias bt_ALL = backtrace -entry-values both -frame-arg all
915 -past-main -past-entry -full'.
916 Alias default arguments can also use a set of nested 'with' commands,
917 e.g. 'alias pp10 = with print pretty -- with print elem 10 -- print'
918 defines the alias pp10 that will pretty print a maximum of 10 elements
919 of the given expression (if the expression is an array).
920
921 * New targets
922
923 GNU/Linux/RISC-V (gdbserver) riscv*-*-linux*
924 BPF bpf-unknown-none
925 Z80 z80-unknown-*
926
927 * Python API
928
929 ** gdb.register_window_type can be used to implement new TUI windows
930 in Python.
931
932 ** Dynamic types can now be queried. gdb.Type has a new attribute,
933 "dynamic", and gdb.Type.sizeof can be None for a dynamic type. A
934 field of a dynamic type may have None for its "bitpos" attribute
935 as well.
936
937 ** Commands written in Python can be in the "TUI" help class by
938 registering with the new constant gdb.COMMAND_TUI.
939
940 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.architecture () to retrieve the
941 architecture of the pending frame.
942
943 ** New gdb.Architecture.registers method that returns a
944 gdb.RegisterDescriptorIterator object, an iterator that returns
945 gdb.RegisterDescriptor objects. The new RegisterDescriptor is a
946 way to query the registers available for an architecture.
947
948 ** New gdb.Architecture.register_groups method that returns a
949 gdb.RegisterGroupIterator object, an iterator that returns
950 gdb.RegisterGroup objects. The new RegisterGroup is a way to
951 discover the available register groups.
952
953 * Guile API
954
955 ** GDB can now be built with GNU Guile 3.0 and 2.2 in addition to 2.0.
956
957 ** Procedures 'memory-port-read-buffer-size',
958 'set-memory-port-read-buffer-size!', 'memory-port-write-buffer-size',
959 and 'set-memory-port-write-buffer-size!' are deprecated. When
960 using Guile 2.2 and later, users who need to control the size of
961 a memory port's internal buffer can use the 'setvbuf' procedure.
962
963 *** Changes in GDB 9
964
965 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
966
967 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
968 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
969 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
970 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
971 such as in system-wide init files.
972
973 * New built-in convenience functions $_gdb_setting, $_gdb_setting_str,
974 $_gdb_maint_setting and $_gdb_maint_setting_str provide access to values
975 of the GDB settings and the GDB maintenance settings. They are handy
976 for changing the logic of user defined commands depending on the
977 current GDB settings.
978
979 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
980 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
981 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
982 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
983
984 * Support for Pointer Authentication (PAC) on AArch64 Linux. Return
985 addresses that required unmasking are shown in the backtrace with the
986 postfix [PAC].
987
988 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
989 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
990
991 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
992 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
993 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
994
995 * The command define-prefix can now define user defined prefix commands.
996 User defined commands can now be defined using these user defined prefix
997 commands.
998
999 * Command names can now use the . character.
1000
1001 * The RX port now supports XML target descriptions.
1002
1003 * GDB now shows the Ada task names at more places, e.g. in task switching
1004 messages.
1005
1006 * GDB can now be compiled with Python 3 on Windows.
1007
1008 * New convenience variable $_ada_exception holds the address of the
1009 Ada exception being thrown. This is set by Ada-related catchpoints.
1010
1011 * GDB can now place breakpoints on nested functions and subroutines in
1012 Fortran code. The '::' operator can be used between parent and
1013 child scopes when placing breakpoints, for example:
1014
1015 (gdb) break outer_function::inner_function
1016
1017 The 'outer_function::' prefix is only needed if 'inner_function' is
1018 not visible in the current scope.
1019
1020 * In addition to the system-wide gdbinit file, if configured with
1021 --with-system-gdbinit-dir, GDB will now also load files in that directory
1022 as system gdbinit files, unless the -nx or -n flag is provided. Files
1023 with extensions .gdb, .py and .scm are supported as long as GDB was
1024 compiled with support for that language.
1025
1026 * GDB now supports multithreaded symbol loading for higher performance.
1027 This feature is still in testing, so it is disabled by default. You
1028 can turn it on using 'maint set worker-threads unlimited'.
1029
1030 * Python API
1031
1032 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
1033 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
1034 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
1035 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
1036 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
1037
1038 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
1039 type was defined in.
1040
1041 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
1042 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
1043 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
1044 is given.
1045
1046 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
1047 symbols with static linkage.
1048
1049 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbols can be used to look up
1050 all static symbols with static linkage.
1051
1052 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
1053 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
1054
1055 ** gdb.Block now supports the dictionary syntax for accessing symbols in
1056 this block (e.g. block['local_variable']).
1057
1058 * New commands
1059
1060 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
1061 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
1062 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
1063 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
1064 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
1065 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
1066 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
1067
1068 define-prefix COMMAND
1069 Define or mark a command as a user-defined prefix command.
1070
1071 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
1072 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
1073 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
1074 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
1075 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
1076 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
1077 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
1078 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
1079 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
1080 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
1081 of array elements to print.
1082
1083 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
1084 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
1085
1086 set may-call-functions [on|off]
1087 show may-call-functions
1088 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
1089 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
1090 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
1091 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
1092 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
1093 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
1094 in the program.
1095
1096 set print finish [on|off]
1097 show print finish
1098 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
1099 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
1100 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
1101 default is `on'.
1102
1103 set print max-depth
1104 show print max-depth
1105 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
1106 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
1107 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
1108 the old behavior back.
1109
1110 set print raw-values [on|off]
1111 show print raw-values
1112 By default, GDB applies the enabled pretty printers when printing a
1113 value. This allows to ignore the enabled pretty printers for a series
1114 of commands. The default is 'off'.
1115
1116 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
1117 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
1118 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
1119
1120 set style title foreground COLOR
1121 set style title background COLOR
1122 set style title intensity VALUE
1123 Control the styling of titles.
1124
1125 set style highlight foreground COLOR
1126 set style highlight background COLOR
1127 set style highlight intensity VALUE
1128 Control the styling of highlightings.
1129
1130 maint set worker-threads
1131 maint show worker-threads
1132 Control the number of worker threads that can be used by GDB. The
1133 default is 0. "unlimited" lets GDB choose a number that is
1134 reasonable. Currently worker threads are only used when demangling
1135 the names of linker symbols.
1136
1137 set style tui-border foreground COLOR
1138 set style tui-border background COLOR
1139 Control the styling of TUI borders.
1140
1141 set style tui-active-border foreground COLOR
1142 set style tui-active-border background COLOR
1143 Control the styling of the active TUI border.
1144
1145 maint set test-settings KIND
1146 maint show test-settings KIND
1147 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
1148 infrastructure.
1149
1150 maint set tui-resize-message [on|off]
1151 maint show tui-resize-message
1152 Control whether GDB prints a message each time the terminal is
1153 resized when in TUI mode. This is primarily useful for testing the
1154 TUI.
1155
1156 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
1157 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
1158 show print frame-info
1159 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
1160 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
1161 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
1162 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
1163
1164 set tui compact-source
1165 show tui compact-source
1166
1167 Enable the "compact" display mode for the TUI source window. The
1168 compact display uses only as much space as is needed for the line
1169 numbers in the current file, and only a single space to separate the
1170 line numbers from the source.
1171
1172 info modules [-q] [REGEXP]
1173 Return a list of Fortran modules matching REGEXP, or all modules if
1174 no REGEXP is given.
1175
1176 info module functions [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
1177 Return a list of functions within all modules, grouped by module.
1178 The list of functions can be restricted with the optional regular
1179 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
1180 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the function type signature, and REGEXP
1181 matches against the function name.
1182
1183 info module variables [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
1184 Return a list of variables within all modules, grouped by module.
1185 The list of variables can be restricted with the optional regular
1186 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
1187 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the variable type, and REGEXP matches
1188 against the variable name.
1189
1190 set debug remote-packet-max-chars
1191 show debug remote-packet-max-chars
1192 Controls the number of characters to output in a remote packet when using
1193 "set debug remote".
1194 The default is 512 bytes.
1195
1196 info connections
1197 Lists the target connections currently in use.
1198
1199 * Changed commands
1200
1201 help
1202 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
1203 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
1204 command names.
1205
1206 apropos [-v] REGEXP
1207 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
1208 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
1209 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
1210 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
1211 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
1212
1213 printf
1214 eval
1215 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
1216 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
1217 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
1218 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
1219
1220 info sources [-dirname | -basename] [--] [REGEXP]
1221 This command has now optional arguments to only print the files
1222 whose names match REGEXP. The arguments -dirname and -basename
1223 allow to restrict matching respectively to the dirname and basename
1224 parts of the files.
1225
1226 show style
1227 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
1228 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
1229 the user visualize the different styles.
1230
1231 set print frame-arguments
1232 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
1233 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
1234
1235 set print raw-frame-arguments
1236 show print raw-frame-arguments
1237
1238 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
1239 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
1240 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
1241 release.
1242
1243 add-inferior [-no-connection]
1244 The add-inferior command now supports a "-no-connection" flag that
1245 makes the new inferior start with no target connection associated.
1246 By default, the new inferior inherits the target connection of the
1247 current inferior. See also "info connections".
1248
1249 info inferior
1250 This command's output now includes a new "Connection" column
1251 indicating which target connection an inferior is bound to. See
1252 "info connections" above.
1253
1254 maint test-options require-delimiter
1255 maint test-options unknown-is-error
1256 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
1257 maint show test-options-completion-result
1258 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
1259 framework.
1260
1261 focus, winheight, +, -, >, <
1262 These commands are now case-sensitive.
1263
1264 * New command options, command completion
1265
1266 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
1267 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
1268 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
1269 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
1270 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
1271 number of commands got support for new command options in this
1272 release:
1273
1274 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
1275 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
1276 set by "set print" subcommands:
1277
1278 -address [on|off]
1279 -array [on|off]
1280 -array-indexes [on|off]
1281 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
1282 -null-stop [on|off]
1283 -object [on|off]
1284 -pretty [on|off]
1285 -raw-values [on|off]
1286 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
1287 -static-members [on|off]
1288 -symbol [on|off]
1289 -union [on|off]
1290 -vtbl [on|off]
1291
1292 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
1293 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
1294 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
1295 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
1296
1297 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
1298 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
1299 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
1300
1301 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
1302 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
1303 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
1304 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
1305 |location-and-address|short-location
1306 -past-main [on|off]
1307 -past-entry [on|off]
1308
1309 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
1310 exposed as command options too:
1311
1312 -full
1313 -no-filters
1314 -hide
1315
1316 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
1317 support the following options:
1318
1319 -past-main [on|off]
1320 -past-entry [on|off]
1321
1322 ** The new "info sources" options -dirname and -basename options
1323 are using the standard '-OPT' infrastructure.
1324
1325 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
1326 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
1327 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
1328 like for example:
1329
1330 (gdb) p -ra -p -o 0 -- *myptr
1331
1332 The above is equivalent to:
1333
1334 (gdb) print -raw-values -pretty -object off -- *myptr
1335
1336 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
1337 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
1338 variables" and "info functions".
1339
1340 ** The "info variables", "info functions", and "whereis" commands
1341 now take a '-n' flag that excludes non-debug symbols (symbols
1342 from the symbol table, not from the debug info such as DWARF)
1343 from the results.
1344
1345 * Completion improvements
1346
1347 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
1348 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
1349 abbreviated.
1350
1351 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
1352 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
1353 commands.
1354
1355 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
1356 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
1357 completes on filenames.
1358
1359 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
1360 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
1361
1362 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
1363
1364 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
1365 elements unlimited".
1366
1367 * New MI commands
1368
1369 -complete
1370 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1371 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
1372 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
1373
1374 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
1375 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
1376 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
1377
1378 -symbol-info-functions, -symbol-info-types, and -symbol-info-variables
1379 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
1380 functions', 'info types', and 'info variables' respectively.
1381
1382 -symbol-info-modules, this is the MI equivalent of the CLI 'info
1383 modules' command.
1384
1385 -symbol-info-module-functions and -symbol-info-module-variables.
1386 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
1387 module functions' and 'info module variables'.
1388
1389 * Other MI changes
1390
1391 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
1392
1393 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
1394 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
1395 the following commands and events:
1396
1397 - -break-insert
1398 - -break-info
1399 - =breakpoint-created
1400 - =breakpoint-modified
1401
1402 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
1403 this behavior with previous MI versions.
1404
1405 ** Backtraces and frames include a new optional field addr_flags which is
1406 given after the addr field. On AArch64 this contains PAC if the address
1407 has been masked in the frame. On all other targets the field is not
1408 present.
1409
1410 * Testsuite
1411
1412 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
1413 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
1414 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
1415 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
1416
1417 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.82.
1418
1419 Using another implementation of the make program or an earlier version of
1420 GNU make to build GDB or GDBserver is not supported.
1421
1422 * Building GDB now requires GNU readline >= 7.0.
1423
1424 GDB now bundles GNU readline 8.0, but if you choose to use
1425 --with-system-readline, only readline >= 7.0 can be used.
1426
1427 * The TUI SingleKey keymap is now named "SingleKey". This can be used
1428 from .inputrc to bind keys in this keymap. This feature is only
1429 available when gdb is built against GNU readline 8.0 or later.
1430
1431 * Removed targets and native configurations
1432
1433 GDB no longer supports debugging the Cell Broadband Engine. This includes
1434 both debugging standalone Cell/B.E. SPU applications and integrated debugging
1435 of Cell/B.E. applications that use both the PPU and SPU architectures.
1436
1437 * New Simulators
1438
1439 TI PRU pru-*-elf
1440
1441 * Removed targets and native configurations
1442
1443 Solaris 10 i?86-*-solaris2.10, x86_64-*-solaris2.10,
1444 sparc*-*-solaris2.10
1445
1446 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
1447
1448 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
1449 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
1450 HTM registers.
1451
1452 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
1453 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
1454 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
1455 and operators.
1456
1457 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
1458 (the C++ plug-in).
1459
1460 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
1461 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
1462 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
1463
1464 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
1465 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
1466
1467 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
1468 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1469 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1470 in the GDB user manual.
1471
1472 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
1473 executed failed.
1474
1475 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
1476
1477 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
1478 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
1479 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
1480 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
1481 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
1482 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
1483 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
1484 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
1485 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
1486 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
1487 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
1488 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
1489
1490 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
1491 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
1492 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
1493 information.
1494
1495 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
1496 lucid.
1497
1498 * New commands
1499
1500 set debug compile-cplus-types
1501 show debug compile-cplus-types
1502 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
1503 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiling
1504 for other languages.
1505
1506 set debug skip
1507 show debug skip
1508 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
1509 displayed.
1510
1511 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
1512 Apply a command to some frames.
1513 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
1514 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
1515
1516 taas COMMAND
1517 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
1518 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
1519
1520 faas COMMAND
1521 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
1522 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
1523
1524 tfaas COMMAND
1525 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
1526 output).
1527 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
1528
1529 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
1530 maint show dwarf unwinders
1531 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
1532
1533 info proc files
1534 Display a list of open files for a process.
1535
1536 * Changed commands
1537
1538 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
1539 These commands all now take a frame specification which
1540 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
1541 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
1542 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
1543 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
1544 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
1545
1546 target remote FILENAME
1547 target extended-remote FILENAME
1548 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
1549 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
1550
1551 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
1552 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
1553 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
1554 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
1555 These commands can now print only the searched entities
1556 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
1557 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
1558 printing headers or informations messages.
1559
1560 info functions
1561 info types
1562 info variables
1563 rbreak
1564 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
1565 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
1566 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
1567 the shown entities.
1568
1569 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
1570 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
1571 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
1572 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
1573
1574 set tui tab-width NCHARS
1575 show tui tab-width NCHARS
1576 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
1577
1578 set style enabled [on|off]
1579 show style enabled
1580 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
1581 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
1582
1583 set style sources [on|off]
1584 show style sources
1585 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
1586 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
1587 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
1588
1589 set style filename foreground COLOR
1590 set style filename background COLOR
1591 set style filename intensity VALUE
1592 Control the styling of file names.
1593
1594 set style function foreground COLOR
1595 set style function background COLOR
1596 set style function intensity VALUE
1597 Control the styling of function names.
1598
1599 set style variable foreground COLOR
1600 set style variable background COLOR
1601 set style variable intensity VALUE
1602 Control the styling of variable names.
1603
1604 set style address foreground COLOR
1605 set style address background COLOR
1606 set style address intensity VALUE
1607 Control the styling of addresses.
1608
1609 * MI changes
1610
1611 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
1612 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
1613 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
1614 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
1615 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
1616
1617 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
1618 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
1619
1620 * New native configurations
1621
1622 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
1623 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
1624
1625 * New targets
1626
1627 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
1628 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
1629 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
1630 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
1631 NXP S12Z s12z-*-elf
1632 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
1633
1634 * Removed targets
1635
1636 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
1637 before Windows XP.
1638
1639 * Python API
1640
1641 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
1642
1643 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
1644 space associated to that inferior.
1645
1646 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
1647 of objfiles associated to that program space.
1648
1649 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
1650 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
1651 the gdb core.
1652
1653 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
1654 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
1655 correct and did not work properly.
1656
1657 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
1658 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
1659
1660 * Configure changes
1661
1662 --enable-ubsan
1663
1664 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
1665 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
1666 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
1667 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
1668 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
1669
1670 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
1671
1672 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
1673 for the MIPS target.
1674
1675 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
1676 offset to all sections.
1677
1678 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
1679 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
1680 address of individual sections using '-s'.
1681
1682 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
1683 (address of the text section).
1684
1685 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
1686 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
1687 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
1688 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
1689 default.
1690
1691 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
1692 for the rest of the current command.
1693
1694 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
1695 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
1696
1697 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
1698 files created on FreeBSD systems.
1699
1700 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
1701 alignof.
1702
1703 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
1704 the vector length while the process is running.
1705
1706 * New commands
1707
1708 set debug fbsd-nat
1709 show debug fbsd-nat
1710 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
1711
1712 set|show varsize-limit
1713 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
1714 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
1715 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
1716
1717 set|show record btrace cpu
1718 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
1719 branch trace decode.
1720
1721 maint check libthread-db
1722 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
1723 library
1724
1725 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
1726 maint show check-libthread-db
1727 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
1728 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
1729 perform such checks.
1730
1731 * Python API
1732
1733 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
1734
1735 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
1736 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
1737
1738 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
1739
1740 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
1741 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
1742 of convenience variables.
1743
1744 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
1745 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
1746 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
1747
1748 * New targets
1749
1750 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
1751
1752 * Removed targets and native configurations
1753
1754 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
1755 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
1756 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
1757 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
1758
1759 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
1760
1761 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
1762 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
1763 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
1764 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
1765 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
1766 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
1767 reported.
1768
1769 * Configure changes
1770
1771 --enable-codesign=CERT
1772 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
1773 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
1774 gdb to work properly.
1775
1776 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
1777 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
1778
1779 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
1780
1781 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
1782 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
1783 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
1784
1785 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
1786 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
1787
1788 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
1789 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
1790 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
1791 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
1792 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
1793
1794 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
1795 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
1796 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
1797 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
1798
1799 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
1800 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
1801
1802 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
1803 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
1804 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
1805
1806 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
1807 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
1808 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
1809
1810 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
1811 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
1812 environment" command.
1813
1814 * Completion improvements
1815
1816 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
1817 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
1818 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
1819 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
1820 correctly:
1821
1822 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
1823 (gdb) b function(int)
1824
1825 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
1826 C++ anonymous namespaces:
1827
1828 (gdb) b (anon[TAB]
1829 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
1830 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
1831 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
1832
1833 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
1834 completion support, that better understands what you're
1835 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
1836 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
1837 setting a breakpoint.
1838
1839 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
1840
1841 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
1842
1843 * New command line options (gcore)
1844
1845 -a
1846 Dump all memory mappings.
1847
1848 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
1849
1850 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
1851 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
1852 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
1853
1854 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
1855
1856 A::B::func()
1857 B::func()
1858
1859 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
1860 on both symbols.
1861
1862 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
1863 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
1864 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
1865 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
1866 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
1867 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
1868 a breakpoint from Python.
1869
1870 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1871
1872 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1873 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
1874 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
1875
1876 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
1877
1878 function[abi:cxx11](int)
1879 ^^^^^^^^^^^
1880
1881 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
1882 no tag, like:
1883
1884 (gdb) b function(int)
1885
1886 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
1887
1888 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
1889
1890 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
1891
1892 * Python Scripting
1893
1894 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
1895 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
1896 description of these.
1897
1898 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
1899 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
1900 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
1901
1902 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
1903 manual for a further description of this feature.
1904
1905
1906 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1907
1908 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
1909 specified initial working directory.
1910
1911 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
1912 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
1913
1914 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
1915 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
1916
1917 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
1918 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
1919
1920 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
1921 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
1922 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
1923 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
1924 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
1925
1926 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
1927 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
1928 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
1929
1930 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
1931 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
1932 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
1933 in the *stopped notification.
1934
1935 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
1936 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
1937
1938 * New remote packets
1939
1940 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
1941 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
1942 the inferior when starting it.
1943
1944 QEnvironmentUnset
1945 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
1946 before starting the remote inferior.
1947
1948 QEnvironmentReset
1949 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
1950 user-set environment variables should be unset).
1951
1952 QStartupWithShell
1953 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
1954
1955 QSetWorkingDir
1956 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
1957 working directory.
1958
1959 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
1960 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
1961
1962 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
1963 filter the tests to be run.
1964
1965 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
1966 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
1967
1968 * New commands
1969
1970 set|show cwd
1971 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
1972
1973 set|show compile-gcc
1974 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
1975 with the 'compile' commands.
1976
1977 set debug separate-debug-file
1978 show debug separate-debug-file
1979 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
1980
1981 set dump-excluded-mappings
1982 show dump-excluded-mappings
1983 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
1984 dumped when generating a core file.
1985
1986 maint info selftests
1987 List the registered selftests.
1988
1989 starti
1990 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
1991
1992 set|show debug or1k
1993 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
1994
1995 set|show print type nested-type-limit
1996 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
1997 type printer will show.
1998
1999 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
2000 `o' for nexti.
2001
2002 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
2003
2004 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
2005 'int'.
2006
2007 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
2008 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
2009 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
2010 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
2011
2012 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
2013 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
2014 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
2015 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
2016 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
2017 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
2018
2019 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
2020 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
2021 unless you tell it the variable's type:
2022
2023 (gdb) p var
2024 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
2025 (gdb) p (float) var
2026 $3 = 3.14
2027
2028 * New native configurations
2029
2030 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
2031 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
2032
2033 * New targets
2034
2035 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
2036 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
2037 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
2038
2039 * Removed targets and native configurations
2040
2041 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
2042
2043 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
2044
2045 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
2046 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
2047 available in future Intel CPUs.
2048
2049 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
2050
2051 * Python Scripting
2052
2053 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
2054 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
2055
2056 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
2057 instructions.
2058
2059 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
2060
2061 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
2062
2063 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
2064 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
2065 removed.
2066
2067 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
2068
2069 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
2070 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
2071
2072 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
2073
2074 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
2075 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
2076 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
2077 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
2078 features.
2079
2080 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
2081
2082 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
2083 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
2084 debugger.
2085
2086 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
2087
2088 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
2089 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
2090
2091 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
2092
2093 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
2094
2095 define mycommand
2096 set $i = 0
2097 while $i < $argc
2098 eval "print $arg%d", $i
2099 set $i = $i + 1
2100 end
2101 end
2102
2103 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
2104
2105 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
2106 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
2107
2108 * New native configurations
2109
2110 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
2111
2112 * New targets
2113
2114 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
2115 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
2116
2117 * Removed targets and native configurations
2118
2119 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2120 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
2121
2122 * New commands
2123
2124 flash-erase
2125 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
2126
2127 maint print arc arc-instruction address
2128 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
2129
2130 * New options
2131
2132 set disassembler-options
2133 show disassembler-options
2134 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
2135 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
2136 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
2137 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
2138 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
2139
2140 * New MI commands
2141
2142 -target-flash-erase
2143 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
2144 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
2145
2146 -file-list-shared-libraries
2147 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
2148 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
2149
2150 -catch-handlers
2151 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
2152 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
2153
2154 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
2155
2156 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
2157
2158 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
2159 default. One must now explicitly configure with
2160 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
2161 option will be removed in a future release.
2162
2163 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
2164 GDB connection.
2165
2166 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
2167 memory backward from the given address. For example:
2168
2169 (gdb) bt
2170 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
2171 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
2172 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
2173 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
2174 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
2175 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
2176 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
2177 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
2178 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
2179
2180 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
2181 arrays of dynamic types.
2182
2183 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
2184 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
2185 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
2186 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
2187 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
2188 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
2189
2190 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
2191 descriptions.
2192
2193 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
2194 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
2195 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
2196
2197 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
2198
2199 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
2200 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
2201 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
2202 signal received and code location.
2203
2204 For example:
2205
2206 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
2207 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
2208 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
2209 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
2210
2211 * Rust language support.
2212 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
2213 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
2214 Rust.
2215
2216 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
2217
2218 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
2219 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
2220 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
2221 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
2222 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
2223 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
2224 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
2225 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
2226 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
2227 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
2228 line.
2229
2230 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
2231
2232 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
2233 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
2234
2235 * New commands
2236
2237 skip -file file
2238 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
2239 skip -function function
2240 skip -rfunction regular-expression
2241 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
2242 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
2243 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
2244
2245 maint info line-table REGEXP
2246 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data structure.
2247
2248 maint selftest
2249 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
2250
2251 new-ui INTERP TTY
2252 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
2253 using the TTY file for input/output.
2254
2255 * Python Scripting
2256
2257 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
2258 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
2259 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
2260 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
2261 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
2262
2263 signal-event EVENTID
2264 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
2265 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
2266 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
2267 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
2268 signalling an event.
2269
2270 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
2271 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
2272 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
2273
2274 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
2275 been removed:
2276
2277 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
2278 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
2279 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
2280 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
2281 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
2282 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
2283
2284 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
2285 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
2286 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
2287 bytecode into native code.
2288
2289 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
2290 recording. For example:
2291
2292 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
2293
2294 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
2295
2296 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
2297
2298 * New targets
2299
2300 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
2301
2302 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
2303
2304 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
2305
2306 * Per-inferior thread numbers
2307
2308 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
2309 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
2310 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
2311
2312 (gdb) info threads
2313 Id Target Id Frame
2314 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
2315 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
2316 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
2317 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
2318
2319 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
2320 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
2321 are no longer unique between inferiors.
2322
2323 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
2324 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
2325 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
2326
2327 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
2328 IDs.
2329
2330 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
2331 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
2332
2333 (gdb) thread 2.1
2334 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
2335 (gdb)
2336
2337 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
2338 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
2339 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
2340 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
2341 threads 2.*".
2342
2343 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
2344 all threads.
2345
2346 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
2347 the current thread.
2348
2349 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
2350 current inferior.
2351
2352 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
2353 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
2354 example:
2355
2356 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
2357 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
2358
2359 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
2360
2361 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
2362
2363 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
2364 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
2365
2366 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
2367 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
2368 clients.
2369
2370 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2371 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
2372 at the same time.
2373
2374 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
2375 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
2376 into native code.
2377
2378 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2379
2380 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
2381 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
2382 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
2383
2384 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
2385 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
2386
2387 * New commands
2388
2389 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
2390 maint show target-non-stop
2391 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
2392 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
2393 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
2394
2395 maint set bfd-sharing
2396 maint show bfd-sharing
2397 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
2398
2399 set debug bfd-cache
2400 show debug bfd-cache
2401 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
2402
2403 set debug fbsd-lwp
2404 show debug fbsd-lwp
2405 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
2406
2407 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
2408 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
2409 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
2410
2411 set remote thread-events
2412 show remote thread-events
2413 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
2414
2415 set ada print-signatures on|off
2416 show ada print-signatures"
2417 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
2418 selection menus. It is activated (@code{on}) by default.
2419
2420 set max-value-size
2421 show max-value-size
2422 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
2423 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
2424 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
2425
2426 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
2427 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
2428 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
2429 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
2430 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
2431 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
2432
2433 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
2434 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
2435
2436 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
2437 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
2438
2439 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
2440
2441 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
2442 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
2443 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
2444 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
2445 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
2446 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
2447
2448 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
2449 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
2450
2451 catch handlers
2452 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
2453
2454 * New remote packets
2455
2456 exec stop reason
2457 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
2458
2459 exec-events feature in qSupported
2460 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
2461 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
2462 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
2463 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
2464
2465 vCtrlC
2466 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
2467 non-stop mode.
2468
2469 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
2470 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
2471
2472 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
2473 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
2474
2475 QThreadEvents
2476 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
2477 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
2478 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
2479 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
2480 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
2481 stop for that same thread.
2482
2483 N stop reply
2484 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
2485 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
2486 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
2487
2488 QCatchSyscalls
2489 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
2490 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
2491
2492 syscall_entry stop reason
2493 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
2494
2495 syscall_return stop reason
2496 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
2497
2498 * Extended-remote exec events
2499
2500 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
2501 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
2502 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
2503
2504 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
2505 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
2506 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
2507
2508 * Thread names in remote protocol
2509
2510 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
2511 thread.
2512
2513 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
2514
2515 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
2516 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
2517 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
2518 fork and exec catchpoints.
2519
2520 * Remote syscall events
2521
2522 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
2523 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
2524
2525 set remote catch-syscall-packet
2526 show remote catch-syscall-packet
2527 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
2528
2529 * MI changes
2530
2531 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
2532 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
2533 left.
2534
2535 * Python Scripting
2536
2537 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
2538 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
2539 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
2540 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
2541 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
2542 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
2543
2544 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
2545
2546 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
2547 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
2548 including advance SIMD instructions.
2549
2550 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
2551
2552 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
2553 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
2554 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
2555 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
2556 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
2557 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
2558 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
2559
2560 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2561 cpu information :
2562 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
2563
2564 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
2565 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
2566 remote serial I/O.
2567
2568 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
2569 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
2570 and may include things like its command line arguments.
2571
2572 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
2573 is now available on all platforms.
2574
2575 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
2576 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
2577 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
2578 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
2579 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
2580 backward compatibility.
2581
2582 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
2583 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
2584 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
2585 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
2586
2587 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
2588 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
2589 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
2590 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
2591 packets" below.
2592
2593 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
2594
2595 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
2596
2597 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
2598 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
2599 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
2600 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
2601 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
2602 See "New remote packets" below.
2603
2604 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
2605 available register groups, including target specific groups.
2606
2607 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
2608 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
2609 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
2610 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
2611 are ignored.
2612
2613 * Guile Scripting
2614
2615 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
2616
2617 * Python Scripting
2618
2619 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
2620 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
2621 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
2622 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
2623 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
2624 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
2625 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
2626 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
2627 "const" version of the value respectively.
2628
2629 * New commands
2630
2631 maint print symbol-cache
2632 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
2633
2634 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
2635 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
2636
2637 maint flush-symbol-cache
2638 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
2639
2640 record btrace bts
2641 record bts
2642 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
2643
2644 compile print
2645 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
2646
2647 tui enable
2648 tui disable
2649 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
2650
2651 show mpx bound
2652 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
2653 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
2654
2655 record btrace pt
2656 record pt
2657 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
2658
2659 maint info btrace
2660 Print information about branch tracing internals.
2661
2662 maint btrace packet-history
2663 Print the raw branch tracing data.
2664
2665 maint btrace clear-packet-history
2666 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
2667
2668 maint btrace clear
2669 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
2670 anew by the next "record" command.
2671
2672 * New options
2673
2674 set debug dwarf-die
2675 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
2676 show debug dwarf-die
2677 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
2678
2679 set debug dwarf-read
2680 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
2681 show debug dwarf-read
2682 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
2683
2684 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
2685 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
2686 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
2687 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
2688
2689 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
2690 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
2691 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
2692 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
2693
2694 set debug dwarf-line
2695 show debug dwarf-line
2696 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
2697
2698 set max-completions
2699 show max-completions
2700 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
2701 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
2702 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
2703 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
2704
2705 set history remove-duplicates
2706 show history remove-duplicates
2707 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
2708
2709 maint set symbol-cache-size
2710 maint show symbol-cache-size
2711 Control the size of the symbol cache.
2712
2713 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
2714 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
2715 BTS format.
2716 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
2717 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
2718
2719 set debug linux-namespaces
2720 show debug linux-namespaces
2721 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
2722
2723 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
2724 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
2725 Intel Processor Trace format.
2726 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
2727 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
2728
2729 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
2730 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
2731 packet history.
2732
2733 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
2734 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
2735
2736 * Python/Guile scripting
2737
2738 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
2739 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
2740
2741 * New remote packets
2742
2743 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
2744 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
2745
2746 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
2747 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
2748
2749 Qbtrace:pt
2750 Enable Intel Processor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
2751 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
2752 qSupported query.
2753
2754 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
2755 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
2756 Trace format.
2757
2758 swbreak stop reason
2759 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
2760 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
2761 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
2762 mode operation.
2763
2764 hwbreak stop reason
2765 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
2766 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
2767
2768 vFile:fstat:
2769 Return information about files on the remote system.
2770
2771 qXfer:exec-file:read
2772 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
2773 create a process running on the remote system.
2774
2775 vFile:setfs:
2776 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
2777 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
2778 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
2779 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
2780
2781 fork stop reason
2782 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
2783
2784 vfork stop reason
2785 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
2786
2787 vforkdone stop reason
2788 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
2789 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
2790
2791 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
2792 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
2793 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
2794 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
2795 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
2796 whether these features are enabled.
2797
2798 * Extended-remote fork events
2799
2800 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
2801 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
2802 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
2803 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
2804
2805 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
2806 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
2807 the btrace record target.
2808 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
2809
2810 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
2811 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
2812
2813 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
2814 targets.
2815
2816 * Removed command line options
2817
2818 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
2819
2820 * Removed targets and native configurations
2821
2822 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
2823 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
2824
2825 * New configure options
2826
2827 --with-intel-pt
2828 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
2829 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
2830
2831 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
2832 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
2833 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
2834 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
2835
2836 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
2837
2838 * Python Scripting
2839
2840 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
2841
2842 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
2843
2844 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
2845
2846 * Python Scripting
2847
2848 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
2849 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
2850 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
2851 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
2852 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
2853 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
2854 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
2855 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
2856 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
2857 selecting a new file to debug.
2858 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
2859 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
2860
2861 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
2862 inferior.
2863
2864 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
2865 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
2866 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
2867 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
2868
2869 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2870
2871 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2872 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2873 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2874 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2875
2876 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
2877 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
2878 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
2879 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
2880 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
2881 interface with this new feature are:
2882
2883 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
2884 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
2885
2886 * New commands
2887
2888 demangle [-l language] [--] name
2889 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
2890 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
2891 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
2892 as "maint demangler-warning".
2893
2894 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
2895 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
2896
2897 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
2898 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
2899 scripts.
2900
2901 maint print user-registers
2902 List all currently available "user" registers.
2903
2904 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
2905 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
2906 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
2907
2908 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
2909 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
2910 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
2911 provided.
2912
2913 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
2914 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
2915 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
2916 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
2917 at resume time.
2918
2919 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
2920 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
2921 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
2922 switched threads meanwhile.
2923
2924 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
2925
2926 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
2927 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
2928 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
2929 is now the default mode.
2930
2931 * New options
2932
2933 set debug symbol-lookup
2934 show debug symbol-lookup
2935 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
2936
2937 * MI changes
2938
2939 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
2940 inferiors that have exited.
2941
2942 * New targets
2943
2944 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
2945
2946 * Removed targets
2947
2948 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2949
2950 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
2951 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
2952 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
2953 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
2954 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
2955
2956 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2957 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2958 its alias "share", instead.
2959
2960 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
2961
2962 * New command line options
2963
2964 -D data-directory
2965 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
2966
2967 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
2968 as specified in ISO C99.
2969
2970 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
2971 with or without disassembly.
2972
2973 * Guile scripting
2974
2975 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
2976 available is determined at configure time.
2977 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
2978 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
2979
2980 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2981
2982 guile [code]
2983 gu [code]
2984 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
2985
2986 guile-repl
2987 gr
2988 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
2989
2990 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
2991 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
2992
2993 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
2994 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
2995
2996 * New options
2997
2998 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
2999 show print symbol-loading
3000 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
3001 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
3002 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
3003 becomes less useful.
3004
3005 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
3006 show guile print-stack
3007 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
3008
3009 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
3010 show auto-load guile-scripts
3011 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
3012
3013 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
3014 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
3015 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
3016 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
3017 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
3018 usage of this option.
3019
3020 set auto-connect-native-target
3021
3022 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
3023 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
3024 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
3025
3026 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
3027 show record btrace replay-memory-access
3028 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
3029
3030 maint set target-async (on|off)
3031 maint show target-async
3032 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
3033 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
3034 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
3035 occurring only in synchronous mode.
3036
3037 set mi-async (on|off)
3038 show mi-async
3039 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
3040 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
3041
3042 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
3043 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
3044
3045 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
3046 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
3047 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
3048 "set target-async on" command.
3049
3050 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3051
3052 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
3053 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
3054 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
3055 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
3056 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
3057
3058 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
3059 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
3060 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
3061
3062 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
3063 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
3064 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
3065 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
3066 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
3067 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
3068 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
3069
3070 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
3071 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
3072
3073 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
3074 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
3075 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
3076
3077 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
3078 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
3079 memory or registers.
3080
3081 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
3082
3083 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
3084 remote. It now works with all targets.
3085
3086 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
3087 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
3088 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
3089 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
3090 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
3091 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
3092 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
3093 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
3094 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
3095 target-stack".
3096
3097 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
3098 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
3099 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
3100
3101 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
3102
3103 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
3104 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
3105 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
3106
3107 * New remote packets
3108
3109 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
3110 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
3111 branch trace incrementally.
3112
3113 * Python Scripting
3114
3115 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
3116 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
3117 available.
3118 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
3119 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
3120 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
3121 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
3122 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
3123
3124 * New targets
3125 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
3126
3127 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
3128 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
3129 its alias "share", instead.
3130
3131 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
3132 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
3133 instead.
3134
3135 * MI changes
3136
3137 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
3138 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
3139 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
3140 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
3141 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
3142 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
3143 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
3144 commands and CLI execution commands.
3145
3146 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
3147
3148 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
3149 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
3150 recording has been added.
3151
3152 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
3153
3154 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
3155 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
3156
3157 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
3158 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
3159 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
3160 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
3161 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
3162 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
3163 "void".
3164
3165 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
3166
3167 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
3168
3169 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
3170 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
3171 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
3172 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
3173
3174 (gdb) p $rax
3175 $1 = <not saved>
3176
3177 (gdb) info registers rax
3178 rax <not saved>
3179
3180 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
3181 "*value not available*".
3182
3183 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
3184 to binaries.
3185
3186 * Python scripting
3187
3188 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
3189 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
3190 ** Line tables representation has been added.
3191 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
3192 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
3193 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
3194
3195 * New targets
3196
3197 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
3198 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
3199 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
3200
3201 * Removed native configurations
3202
3203 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
3204 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
3205
3206 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3207 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3208 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
3209 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
3210 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3211 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3212 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3213
3214 * New commands:
3215 catch rethrow
3216 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
3217 maint check-psymtabs
3218 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
3219 maint check-symtabs
3220 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
3221 maint expand-symtabs
3222 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
3223
3224 show configuration
3225 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
3226
3227 maint set|show per-command
3228 maint set|show per-command space
3229 maint set|show per-command time
3230 maint set|show per-command symtab
3231 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
3232
3233 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
3234 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
3235 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
3236 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
3237 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
3238
3239 info exceptions
3240 info exceptions REGEXP
3241 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
3242 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
3243 are listed.
3244
3245 * New options
3246
3247 set debug symfile off|on
3248 show debug symfile
3249 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
3250 symbol tables within those files
3251
3252 set print raw frame-arguments
3253 show print raw frame-arguments
3254 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
3255 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
3256
3257 set remote trace-status-packet
3258 show remote trace-status-packet
3259 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
3260
3261 set debug nios2
3262 show debug nios2
3263 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
3264
3265 set range-stepping
3266 show range-stepping
3267 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
3268
3269 set startup-with-shell
3270 show startup-with-shell
3271 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
3272 directly.
3273
3274 set code-cache
3275 show code-cache
3276 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
3277 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
3278
3279 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
3280 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
3281 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
3282 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
3283 "set height 0".
3284
3285 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
3286 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
3287 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
3288
3289 * New command-line options
3290 --configuration
3291 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
3292
3293 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
3294 buffer in Common Trace Format.
3295
3296 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
3297 GDB command gcore.
3298
3299 * GDB now implements the C++ 'typeid' operator.
3300
3301 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
3302 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
3303
3304 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
3305 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
3306
3307 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
3308 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
3309 due to an uncaught signal.
3310
3311 * MI changes
3312
3313 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
3314 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
3315 command, which should contain "language-option".
3316
3317 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
3318 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
3319
3320 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
3321 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
3322 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
3323 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
3324 "undefined-command-error-code".
3325
3326 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
3327 Trace Format now.
3328
3329 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
3330
3331 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
3332 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
3333 are displayed.
3334
3335 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
3336 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
3337
3338 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
3339 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
3340 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
3341
3342 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
3343 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
3344 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
3345 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
3346 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
3347 "exec-run-start-option".
3348
3349 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
3350 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
3351
3352 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
3353 the new "info exceptions" command.
3354
3355 * New system-wide configuration scripts
3356 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
3357 configuration scripts for the following systems:
3358 ** ElinOS
3359 ** Wind River Linux
3360
3361 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
3362 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
3363 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
3364 below.
3365
3366 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
3367 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
3368
3369 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
3370 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
3371 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
3372
3373 * New remote packets
3374
3375 vCont;r
3376
3377 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
3378 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
3379 involvemement at each single-step.
3380
3381 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
3382 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
3383 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
3384 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
3385 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
3386 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
3387 speedup.
3388
3389 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3390
3391 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
3392 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
3393
3394 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
3395 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
3396 trace state variables.
3397
3398 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
3399 target.
3400
3401 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
3402 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
3403
3404 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
3405
3406 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
3407 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
3408 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
3409 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3410
3411 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
3412
3413 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
3414 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
3415 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
3416 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
3417
3418 set|show record full insn-number-max
3419 set|show record full stop-at-limit
3420 set|show record full memory-query
3421
3422 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
3423 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
3424 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
3425 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
3426 This new recording method can be enabled using:
3427
3428 record btrace
3429
3430 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
3431 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
3432
3433 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
3434 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
3435 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
3436
3437 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
3438 instruction granularity
3439
3440 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
3441 function granularity
3442
3443 * New native configurations
3444
3445 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
3446 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
3447 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
3448 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
3449
3450 * New targets
3451
3452 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
3453 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
3454 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
3455 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
3456 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
3457
3458 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
3459 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
3460 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
3461 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
3462 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
3463 --data-directory command-line option.
3464
3465 * New command line options:
3466
3467 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
3468 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
3469
3470 * Removed command line options
3471
3472 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
3473 Emacs.
3474
3475 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
3476 type formatting.
3477
3478 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
3479
3480 * Python scripting
3481
3482 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
3483
3484 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
3485
3486 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
3487
3488 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
3489
3490 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
3491 of architecture in the Python API.
3492
3493 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
3494 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
3495
3496 * New Python-based convenience functions:
3497
3498 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
3499 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
3500 ** $_strlen(str)
3501 ** $_regex(str, regex)
3502
3503 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
3504 given an argument.
3505
3506 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
3507 default for GCC since November 2000.
3508
3509 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
3510
3511 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
3512 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
3513
3514 * New configure options
3515
3516 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
3517 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
3518 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
3519 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
3520 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
3521 options allow the user to override that default.
3522 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
3523 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
3524 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
3525
3526 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3527
3528 catch signal
3529 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
3530 conditions to be attached.
3531
3532 maint info bfds
3533 List the BFDs known to GDB.
3534
3535 python-interactive [command]
3536 pi [command]
3537 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
3538 and print the result of expressions.
3539
3540 py [command]
3541 "py" is a new alias for "python".
3542
3543 enable type-printer [name]...
3544 disable type-printer [name]...
3545 Enable or disable type printers.
3546
3547 * Removed commands
3548
3549 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
3550 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
3551 instead.
3552
3553 * New options
3554
3555 set print type methods (on|off)
3556 show print type methods
3557 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
3558 The default is to show them.
3559
3560 set print type typedefs (on|off)
3561 show print type typedefs
3562 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
3563 The default is to show them.
3564
3565 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
3566 show filename-display
3567 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
3568 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
3569
3570 set trace-buffer-size
3571 show trace-buffer-size
3572 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
3573
3574 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
3575 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
3576 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
3577
3578 set debug aarch64
3579 show debug aarch64
3580 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
3581 The default is off.
3582
3583 set debug coff-pe-read
3584 show debug coff-pe-read
3585 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
3586 exported symbols.
3587
3588 set debug mach-o
3589 show debug mach-o
3590 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
3591 processing.
3592
3593 set debug notification
3594 show debug notification
3595 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
3596
3597 * MI changes
3598
3599 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
3600 "=cmd-param-changed".
3601 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
3602 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
3603 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
3604 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
3605 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
3606 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
3607 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
3608 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
3609 "=memory-changed".
3610 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
3611 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
3612 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
3613 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
3614 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
3615 library load/unload events.
3616 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
3617 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
3618 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
3619 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
3620 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
3621 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
3622 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
3623 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
3624
3625 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
3626 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
3627 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
3628 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
3629
3630 * New remote packets
3631
3632 QTBuffer:size
3633 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
3634 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
3635
3636 Qbtrace:bts
3637 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
3638 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
3639 qSupported query.
3640
3641 Qbtrace:off
3642 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
3643 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
3644
3645 qXfer:btrace:read
3646 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
3647 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
3648
3649 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
3650
3651 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
3652 for more x32 ABI info.
3653
3654 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
3655
3656 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
3657
3658 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
3659 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
3660 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
3661 "info os files" lists file descriptors
3662 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
3663 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
3664 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
3665 "info os msg" lists message queues
3666 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
3667
3668 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
3669 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
3670 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
3671 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
3672 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
3673 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
3674
3675 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
3676 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
3677 record/replay support.
3678
3679 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
3680
3681 * Python scripting
3682
3683 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
3684 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
3685
3686 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
3687
3688 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
3689 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
3690
3691 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
3692
3693 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
3694 the source at which the symbol was defined.
3695
3696 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
3697 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
3698 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
3699 symbol's value.
3700
3701 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
3702 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
3703
3704 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
3705 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
3706 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
3707
3708 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
3709 object associated with a PC value.
3710
3711 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
3712 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
3713
3714 * Go language support.
3715 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
3716 language.
3717
3718 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
3719 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
3720
3721 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
3722 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
3723
3724 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
3725 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
3726 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
3727 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
3728 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
3729 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
3730
3731 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
3732 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
3733 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
3734 build/libcpp/expr.c.
3735
3736 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
3737 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
3738
3739 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
3740 since December 2007.
3741
3742 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
3743 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
3744 command does. For instance:
3745
3746 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
3747
3748 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
3749 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
3750 created, using the "condition" command.
3751
3752 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
3753 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
3754
3755 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
3756
3757 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
3758 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
3759 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
3760 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
3761 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
3762 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
3763 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
3764 files with older .gdb_index sections.
3765
3766 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
3767 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
3768 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
3769 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
3770 the .gdb_index section.
3771
3772 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
3773
3774 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
3775 target.
3776
3777 * MI changes
3778
3779 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
3780
3781 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
3782
3783 * New commands
3784
3785 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
3786 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
3787 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
3788
3789 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
3790 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
3791
3792 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
3793 several hits.
3794
3795 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
3796 C++ and Java objects.
3797
3798 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
3799 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
3800 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
3801 configured with '--with-python'.
3802
3803 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
3804 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
3805 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
3806 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
3807 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
3808 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
3809 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
3810
3811 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
3812 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
3813 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
3814 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
3815
3816 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
3817 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
3818 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
3819 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
3820
3821 ** "set print symbol"
3822 "show print symbol"
3823 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
3824 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
3825 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
3826
3827 * Deprecated commands
3828
3829 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
3830 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
3831
3832 * New targets
3833
3834 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3835 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
3836
3837 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
3838 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
3839 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
3840 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
3841 evaluates to true.
3842
3843 * New options
3844
3845 set mips compression
3846 show mips compression
3847 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
3848 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
3849 mips16
3850 micromips
3851 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
3852
3853 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
3854 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
3855 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
3856 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
3857 available mode.
3858 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
3859 target.
3860
3861 set auto-load off
3862 Disable auto-loading globally.
3863
3864 show auto-load
3865 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
3866
3867 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
3868 show auto-load gdb-scripts
3869 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
3870
3871 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
3872 show auto-load python-scripts
3873 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
3874
3875 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
3876 show auto-load local-gdbinit
3877 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
3878
3879 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
3880 show auto-load libthread-db
3881 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
3882
3883 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3884 show auto-load scripts-directory
3885 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
3886 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
3887 of the directories listed by this option.
3888 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3889
3890 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3891 show auto-load safe-path
3892 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
3893 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3894
3895 set debug auto-load on|off
3896 show debug auto-load
3897 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
3898
3899 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
3900 show dprintf-style
3901 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
3902 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
3903 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
3904 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
3905
3906 set dprintf-function <expr>
3907 show dprintf-function
3908 set dprintf-channel <expr>
3909 show dprintf-channel
3910 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
3911 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
3912
3913 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
3914 show disconnected-dprintf
3915 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
3916 after GDB disconnects.
3917
3918 * New configure options
3919
3920 --with-auto-load-dir
3921 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
3922 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
3923 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
3924 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
3925 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
3926
3927 --with-auto-load-safe-path
3928 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
3929 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
3930
3931 --without-auto-load-safe-path
3932 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
3933 security feature.
3934
3935 * New remote packets
3936
3937 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
3938
3939 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
3940 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
3941 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
3942 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
3943
3944 QProgramSignals:
3945
3946 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
3947 program without GDB involvement.
3948
3949 * New command line options
3950
3951 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
3952 before loading inferior.
3953 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
3954 execute it before loading inferior.
3955
3956 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
3957
3958 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
3959 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
3960 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
3961 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
3962 inferior changes.
3963
3964 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
3965 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
3966
3967 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
3968 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
3969 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
3970 target hardware watchpoint.
3971
3972 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
3973 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
3974 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
3975 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
3976
3977 * Python scripting
3978
3979 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
3980 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
3981 existing one.
3982
3983 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
3984 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
3985 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
3986 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
3987 now "message", which just prints the error message without
3988 the stack trace.
3989
3990 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3991 Python API.
3992
3993 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
3994 modules library. This module provides functionality for
3995 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
3996 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
3997 corresponding value.
3998
3999 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
4000 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
4001 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
4002 on GDB start-up.
4003
4004 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
4005 static_block will return the global and static blocks
4006 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
4007 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
4008
4009 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
4010
4011 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
4012 "gdb.breakpoints".
4013
4014 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
4015 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
4016 available in the CLI.
4017
4018 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
4019 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
4020 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
4021 "some_type.items()".
4022
4023 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
4024 new object file.
4025
4026 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
4027 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
4028 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
4029 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
4030 any anonymous fields.
4031
4032 * MI changes
4033
4034 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
4035 "solib-event".
4036
4037 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
4038 "=breakpoint-modified".
4039
4040 ** New command -ada-task-info.
4041
4042 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
4043 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
4044 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
4045 lives.
4046
4047 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
4048 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
4049 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
4050 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
4051 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
4052
4053 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
4054 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
4055
4056 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
4057 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
4058 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
4059 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
4060 use this option to specify where to find it.
4061
4062 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
4063 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
4064 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
4065 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
4066 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
4067 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
4068 section in the user manual for more details.
4069
4070 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
4071 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
4072 become available after that.
4073
4074 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
4075
4076 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
4077 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
4078 gcc version 4.7.
4079
4080 * New commands
4081
4082 !SHELL COMMAND
4083 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
4084 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
4085
4086 * Changed commands
4087
4088 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
4089 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
4090 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
4091
4092 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
4093 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
4094 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
4095
4096 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
4097 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
4098 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
4099 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
4100 name starts with a hyphen.
4101
4102 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
4103 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
4104 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
4105 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
4106 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
4107 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
4108 number of bytes that will be collected.
4109
4110 tstart [NOTES]
4111 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
4112 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
4113 setting the variable trace-notes.
4114
4115 tstop [NOTES]
4116 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
4117 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
4118 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
4119 trace-stop-notes.
4120
4121 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
4122 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
4123 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
4124 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
4125 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
4126 is running.
4127
4128 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
4129 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
4130 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
4131
4132 * New options
4133
4134 set debug dwarf2-read
4135 show debug dwarf2-read
4136 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
4137 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
4138
4139 set debug symtab-create
4140 show debug symtab-create
4141 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
4142 creation. The default is off.
4143
4144 set extended-prompt
4145 show extended-prompt
4146 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
4147 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
4148 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
4149 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
4150 prompt is displayed.
4151
4152 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
4153 show print entry-values
4154 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
4155 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
4156 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
4157
4158 set debug entry-values
4159 show debug entry-values
4160 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
4161 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
4162
4163 set basenames-may-differ
4164 show basenames-may-differ
4165 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
4166 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
4167 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
4168 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
4169 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
4170 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
4171 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
4172 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
4173
4174 set trace-user
4175 show trace-user
4176 set trace-notes
4177 show trace-notes
4178 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
4179 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
4180 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
4181 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
4182
4183 set trace-stop-notes
4184 show trace-stop-notes
4185 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
4186 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
4187 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
4188 started by someone else.
4189
4190 * New remote packets
4191
4192 QTEnable
4193
4194 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
4195
4196 QTDisable
4197
4198 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
4199
4200 QTNotes
4201
4202 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
4203
4204 qTP
4205
4206 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
4207
4208 qTMinFTPILen
4209
4210 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
4211 be placed.
4212
4213 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
4214 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
4215
4216 * New targets
4217
4218 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
4219
4220 * New Simulators
4221
4222 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
4223
4224 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
4225
4226 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
4227
4228 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
4229
4230 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
4231 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
4232 matches the given regular expression.
4233
4234 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
4235
4236 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
4237 dumping the instruction opcodes.
4238
4239 * New command line options
4240
4241 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
4242 This is mostly for testing purposes.
4243
4244 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
4245 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
4246
4247 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
4248 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
4249 source path list instead of augmenting it.
4250
4251 * GDB now understands thread names.
4252
4253 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
4254 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
4255
4256 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
4257 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
4258
4259 * OpenCL C
4260 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
4261 has been integrated into GDB.
4262
4263 * Python scripting
4264
4265 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
4266 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
4267 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
4268
4269 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
4270 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
4271 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
4272 and allows for more dynamic content.
4273
4274 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
4275 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
4276 have an is_valid method.
4277
4278 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
4279 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
4280 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
4281
4282 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
4283
4284 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
4285 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
4286 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
4287 that function like so:
4288
4289 result = some_value (10,20)
4290
4291 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
4292 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
4293 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
4294
4295 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
4296 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
4297 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
4298 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
4299 New function: register_pretty_printer.
4300
4301 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
4302 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
4303
4304 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
4305
4306 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
4307 selected thread.
4308
4309 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
4310 holds the thread's name.
4311
4312 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
4313 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
4314 occurring in the process being debugged.
4315 The following events are currently supported:
4316 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
4317 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
4318 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
4319
4320 * C++ Improvements:
4321
4322 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
4323 instantiation. For example, if you have:
4324
4325 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
4326
4327 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
4328 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
4329 was added to GCC 4.5.
4330
4331 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
4332 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
4333 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
4334 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
4335 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
4336 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
4337
4338 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
4339 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
4340 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
4341 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
4342 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
4343
4344 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
4345 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
4346 execution to a label.
4347
4348 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
4349 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
4350 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
4351 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
4352
4353 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
4354 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
4355 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
4356 of scope.
4357
4358 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
4359
4360 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
4361 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
4362 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
4363 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
4364 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
4365 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
4366
4367 (gdb) info threads
4368 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
4369
4370 While now you see this:
4371
4372 (gdb) info threads
4373 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
4374
4375 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
4376 dumps.
4377
4378 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
4379 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
4380 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
4381 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
4382
4383 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
4384 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
4385 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
4386 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
4387 section in the user manual for more details.
4388
4389 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
4390
4391 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
4392 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
4393
4394 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
4395
4396 * New native configurations
4397
4398 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
4399
4400 * New targets:
4401
4402 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
4403
4404 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
4405 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
4406 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
4407 in the GDB user manual.
4408
4409 * Guile support was removed.
4410
4411 * New features in the GNU simulator
4412
4413 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
4414
4415 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
4416
4417 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
4418
4419 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
4420
4421 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
4422 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
4423 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
4424 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
4425 was always disabled for such configurations.
4426
4427 * C++ Improvements:
4428
4429 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
4430
4431 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
4432 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
4433 For example:
4434 namespace A
4435 {
4436 class B { };
4437 void foo (B) { }
4438 }
4439 ...
4440 A::B b
4441 foo(b)
4442 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
4443 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
4444 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
4445
4446 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
4447
4448 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
4449 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
4450 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
4451 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
4452 entry.
4453 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
4454 mentioned flavors of operators.
4455
4456 ** static const class members
4457
4458 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
4459 class definition has been fixed.
4460
4461 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
4462
4463 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
4464 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
4465 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
4466 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
4467 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
4468 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
4469
4470 * Static tracepoints
4471
4472 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
4473 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
4474 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
4475 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
4476 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
4477 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
4478 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
4479 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
4480 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
4481 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
4482 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
4483 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
4484 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
4485 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
4486 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
4487 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
4488 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
4489 the "New remote packets" section below.
4490
4491 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
4492
4493 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
4494 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
4495 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
4496 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
4497
4498 * Observer mode
4499
4500 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
4501 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
4502 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
4503 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
4504 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
4505 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
4506 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
4507
4508 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
4509 current thread.
4510
4511 * New remote packets
4512
4513 qGetTIBAddr
4514
4515 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
4516
4517 qRelocInsn
4518
4519 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
4520 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
4521 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
4522 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
4523 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
4524 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
4525
4526 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
4527
4528 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
4529
4530 qTSTMat
4531
4532 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
4533 program.
4534
4535 qXfer:statictrace:read
4536
4537 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
4538 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
4539 to gdb's qSupported query.
4540
4541 QAllow
4542
4543 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
4544
4545 QTDPsrc
4546
4547 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
4548 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
4549
4550 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
4551 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
4552 a directory.
4553
4554 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
4555
4556 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
4557 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
4558 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
4559 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
4560
4561 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
4562 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
4563 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
4564 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
4565 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
4566 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
4567 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
4568
4569 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
4570 for static tracepoints support.
4571
4572 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
4573
4574 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
4575 it understands register description.
4576
4577 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
4578
4579 * X86 general purpose registers
4580
4581 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
4582 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
4583 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
4584 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
4585 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
4586
4587 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
4588 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
4589 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
4590 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
4591 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
4592 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
4593
4594 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
4595 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
4596 in the specified file.
4597
4598 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
4599 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
4600 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
4601 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
4602 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
4603 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
4604 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
4605 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
4606 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
4607 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
4608
4609 * New commands
4610
4611 eval template, expressions...
4612 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
4613 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
4614
4615 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
4616 show target-file-system-kind
4617 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
4618 names.
4619
4620 save breakpoints <filename>
4621 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
4622 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
4623 definitions, use the `source' command.
4624
4625 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
4626 is now deprecated.
4627
4628 info static-tracepoint-markers
4629 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
4630
4631 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
4632 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
4633 function, line, address, or marker ID.
4634
4635 set observer on|off
4636 show observer
4637 Enable and disable observer mode.
4638
4639 set may-write-registers on|off
4640 set may-write-memory on|off
4641 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
4642 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
4643 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
4644 set may-interrupt on|off
4645 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
4646 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
4647 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
4648 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
4649 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
4650 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
4651 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
4652
4653 set record memory-query on|off
4654 show record memory-query
4655 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
4656 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
4657
4658 * Changed commands
4659
4660 disassemble
4661 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
4662
4663 * Python scripting
4664
4665 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
4666 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
4667 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
4668 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
4669 GDB using Python' in the manual.
4670
4671 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
4672 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
4673 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
4674 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
4675
4676 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
4677 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
4678
4679 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
4680
4681 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
4682
4683 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
4684
4685 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
4686 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
4687 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
4688
4689 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
4690 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
4691 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
4692 regular breakpoints.
4693
4694 * New targets
4695
4696 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
4697
4698 * D language support.
4699 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
4700 language.
4701
4702 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
4703 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
4704 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
4705 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
4706 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
4707
4708 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
4709 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
4710 conditions of the form:
4711
4712 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
4713
4714 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
4715 interface mentioned above.
4716
4717 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
4718
4719 * C++ Improvements
4720
4721 ** Namespace Support
4722
4723 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
4724 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
4725 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
4726 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
4727 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
4728
4729 ** Bug Fixes
4730
4731 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
4732 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
4733 qualified name.
4734
4735 ** Cast Operators
4736
4737 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
4738 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
4739
4740 * New targets
4741
4742 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
4743 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
4744
4745 * New Simulators
4746
4747 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
4748 Renesas RX rx
4749
4750 * Multi-program debugging.
4751
4752 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
4753 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
4754 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
4755 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
4756 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
4757 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
4758 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
4759 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
4760
4761 * New tracing features
4762
4763 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
4764
4765 ** Trace state variables
4766
4767 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
4768 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
4769 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
4770 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
4771 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
4772 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
4773 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
4774 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
4775 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
4776 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
4777
4778 ** Fast tracepoints
4779
4780 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
4781 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
4782 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
4783 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
4784 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
4785 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
4786 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
4787 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
4788 the regular trace command.
4789
4790 ** Disconnected tracing
4791
4792 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
4793 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
4794 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
4795 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
4796 connection is lost unexpectedly.
4797
4798 ** Trace files
4799
4800 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
4801 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
4802 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
4803 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
4804 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
4805 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
4806 <name>".
4807
4808 ** Circular trace buffer
4809
4810 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
4811 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
4812 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
4813 not be available for all target agents.
4814
4815 * Changed commands
4816
4817 disassemble
4818 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
4819 the arguments to be comma-separated.
4820
4821 info variables
4822 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
4823 which only declare a variable are not shown.
4824
4825 source
4826 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
4827 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
4828 support.
4829
4830 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
4831 "set script-extension" (see below).
4832
4833 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4834
4835 record save [<FILENAME>]
4836 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
4837 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
4838
4839 record restore <FILENAME>
4840 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
4841 earlier time, for replay debugging.
4842
4843 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
4844 Add a new inferior.
4845
4846 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
4847 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
4848 inferior has loaded.
4849
4850 remove-inferior ID
4851 Remove an inferior.
4852
4853 maint info program-spaces
4854 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
4855
4856 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
4857 show remote interrupt-sequence
4858 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
4859 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
4860 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
4861 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
4862 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
4863
4864 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
4865 show remote interrupt-on-connect
4866 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
4867 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
4868 Linux kernel.
4869
4870 set remotebreak [on | off]
4871 show remotebreak
4872 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
4873
4874 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
4875 Create or modify a trace state variable.
4876
4877 info tvariables
4878 List trace state variables and their values.
4879
4880 delete tvariable $NAME ...
4881 Delete one or more trace state variables.
4882
4883 teval EXPR, ...
4884 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
4885 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
4886
4887 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
4888 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
4889
4890 * New expression syntax
4891
4892 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
4893 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
4894
4895 * New options
4896
4897 set follow-exec-mode new|same
4898 show follow-exec-mode
4899 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
4900 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
4901 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
4902
4903 set default-collect EXPR, ...
4904 show default-collect
4905 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
4906 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
4907 such as registers or a critical global variable.
4908
4909 set disconnected-tracing
4910 show disconnected-tracing
4911 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
4912 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
4913 upon disconnection.
4914
4915 set circular-trace-buffer
4916 show circular-trace-buffer
4917 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
4918 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
4919 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
4920 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
4921
4922 set script-extension off|soft|strict
4923 show script-extension
4924 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
4925 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
4926 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
4927 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
4928 evaluation failed.
4929 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
4930
4931 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
4932 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
4933 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
4934 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
4935 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
4936 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
4937 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
4938 is on.
4939
4940 * Python API Improvements
4941
4942 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
4943 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
4944 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
4945
4946 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
4947 `is_base_class' attribute.
4948
4949 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
4950
4951 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
4952 evaluate an expression.
4953
4954 * New remote packets
4955
4956 QTDV
4957 Define a trace state variable.
4958
4959 qTV
4960 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
4961
4962 QTDisconnected
4963 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
4964
4965 QTBuffer:circular
4966 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
4967
4968 qTfP, qTsP
4969 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
4970
4971 * Bug fixes
4972
4973 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
4974
4975 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
4976 much more reliable. In particular:
4977 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
4978 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
4979 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
4980 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
4981 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
4982 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
4983 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
4984 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
4985 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
4986 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
4987 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
4988 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
4989 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
4990 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
4991 non-threaded programs.
4992
4993 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
4994 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
4995 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
4996 executable program.
4997
4998 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
4999
5000 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
5001 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
5002 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
5003 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
5004 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
5005
5006 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
5007 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
5008 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
5009 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
5010 for tracepoint actions.
5011
5012 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
5013 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
5014 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
5015
5016 * Process record and replay
5017
5018 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
5019 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
5020 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
5021 execute commands.
5022
5023 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
5024 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
5025 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
5026 reverse execution.
5027
5028 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
5029 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
5030 2.6.28 or later.
5031
5032 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
5033 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
5034 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
5035 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
5036 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
5037 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
5038 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
5039 the installation instructions for more information.
5040
5041 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
5042 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
5043 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
5044 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
5045
5046 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
5047 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
5048
5049 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
5050 now complete on file names.
5051
5052 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
5053 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
5054 For instance, consider:
5055
5056 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
5057 # struct example variable;
5058 (gdb) p variable.
5059
5060 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
5061 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
5062
5063 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
5064 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
5065
5066 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
5067 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
5068 macros.
5069
5070 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
5071 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
5072 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
5073
5074 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
5075 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
5076 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
5077 and simulator targets may also provide them.
5078
5079 * New remote packets
5080
5081 qSearch:memory:
5082 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
5083
5084 QStartNoAckMode
5085 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
5086 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
5087 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
5088
5089 vKill
5090 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
5091 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
5092
5093 qXfer:osdata:read
5094 Obtains additional operating system information
5095
5096 qXfer:siginfo:read
5097 qXfer:siginfo:write
5098 Read or write additional signal information.
5099
5100 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
5101
5102 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
5103 packet that permitted the stub to pass a process id was removed.
5104 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
5105
5106 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
5107 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
5108
5109 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
5110 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
5111 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
5112
5113 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
5114 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
5115
5116 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
5117
5118 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
5119
5120 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
5121 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
5122
5123 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote protocol packet now allows passing a
5124 list of section offsets.
5125
5126 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
5127 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
5128 have also been fixed.
5129
5130 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
5131 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
5132 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
5133
5134 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
5135 example, given:
5136
5137 template<typename T> class C { };
5138 C<char const *> c;
5139
5140 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
5141
5142 ptype C<char const *>
5143 ptype C<char const*>
5144 ptype C<const char *>
5145 ptype C<const char*>
5146
5147 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
5148
5149 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
5150 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
5151
5152 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
5153 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
5154 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
5155
5156 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
5157 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
5158
5159 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
5160 gdbserver.
5161
5162 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
5163 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
5164
5165 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
5166 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
5167 as appropriate.
5168
5169 * Python scripting
5170
5171 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
5172 available is determined at configure time.
5173
5174 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
5175
5176 * Ada tasking support
5177
5178 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
5179 been introduced:
5180
5181 info tasks
5182 Print the list of Ada tasks.
5183 info task N
5184 Print detailed information about task number N.
5185 task
5186 Print the task number of the current task.
5187 task N
5188 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
5189
5190 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
5191 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
5192
5193 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
5194
5195 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
5196 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
5197 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
5198 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
5199 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
5200 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
5201 below.
5202
5203 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
5204 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
5205 information.
5206
5207 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
5208 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
5209 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
5210 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
5211 more information.
5212
5213 * Multi-architecture debugging.
5214
5215 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
5216 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
5217 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
5218 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
5219 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
5220
5221 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
5222 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
5223 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
5224 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
5225 --enable-targets configure option.
5226
5227 * Non-stop mode debugging.
5228
5229 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
5230 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
5231 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
5232 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
5233 section in the user manual for more information.
5234
5235 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
5236 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
5237 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
5238 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
5239 extensions on linux targets.
5240
5241 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
5242
5243 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
5244 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
5245 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
5246 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
5247 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
5248 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
5249 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
5250 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
5251 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
5252
5253 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
5254 val1 [, val2, ...]
5255 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
5256
5257 maint set python print-stack
5258 maint show python print-stack
5259 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
5260
5261 python [CODE]
5262 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
5263
5264 macro define
5265 macro list
5266 macro undef
5267 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
5268 interactively.
5269
5270 info os processes
5271 Show operating system information about processes.
5272
5273 info inferiors
5274 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
5275
5276 inferior NUM
5277 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
5278
5279 detach inferior NUM
5280 Detach from inferior number NUM.
5281
5282 kill inferior NUM
5283 Kill inferior number NUM.
5284
5285 * New options
5286
5287 set spu stop-on-load
5288 show spu stop-on-load
5289 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
5290
5291 set spu auto-flush-cache
5292 show spu auto-flush-cache
5293 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
5294 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
5295
5296 set sh calling-convention
5297 show sh calling-convention
5298 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
5299
5300 set debug timestamp
5301 show debug timestamp
5302 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
5303
5304 set disassemble-next-line
5305 show disassemble-next-line
5306 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
5307 the debuggee stops.
5308
5309 set remote noack-packet
5310 show remote noack-packet
5311 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
5312 under "New remote packets."
5313
5314 set remote query-attached-packet
5315 show remote query-attached-packet
5316 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
5317
5318 set remote read-siginfo-object
5319 show remote read-siginfo-object
5320 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
5321 packet.
5322
5323 set remote write-siginfo-object
5324 show remote write-siginfo-object
5325 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
5326 packet.
5327
5328 set remote reverse-continue
5329 show remote reverse-continue
5330 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
5331
5332 set remote reverse-step
5333 show remote reverse-step
5334 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
5335
5336 set displaced-stepping
5337 show displaced-stepping
5338 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
5339 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
5340 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
5341
5342 set debug displaced
5343 show debug displaced
5344 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
5345
5346 maint set internal-error
5347 maint show internal-error
5348 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
5349
5350 maint set internal-warning
5351 maint show internal-warning
5352 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
5353
5354 set exec-wrapper
5355 show exec-wrapper
5356 unset exec-wrapper
5357 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
5358
5359 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
5360 show multiple-symbols
5361 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
5362 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
5363 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
5364
5365 set breakpoint always-inserted
5366 show breakpoint always-inserted
5367 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
5368 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
5369 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
5370
5371 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
5372 show arm fallback-mode
5373 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
5374 show arm force-mode
5375 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
5376 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
5377 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
5378 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
5379
5380 set arm unwind-secure-frames
5381 Enable unwinding from Non-secure to Secure mode on Cortex-M with
5382 Security extension.
5383 This can trigger security exceptions when unwinding exception stacks.
5384
5385 set disable-randomization
5386 show disable-randomization
5387 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
5388 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
5389 multiple debugging sessions.
5390
5391 set non-stop
5392 show non-stop
5393 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
5394 a breakpoint.
5395
5396 set target-async
5397 show target-async
5398 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
5399 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
5400 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
5401 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
5402
5403 set target-wide-charset
5404 show target-wide-charset
5405 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
5406 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
5407
5408 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
5409 show tcp auto-retry
5410 set tcp connect-timeout
5411 show tcp connect-timeout
5412 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
5413 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
5414 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
5415
5416 set libthread-db-search-path
5417 show libthread-db-search-path
5418 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
5419 libthread_db.
5420
5421 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
5422 show schedule-multiple
5423 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
5424 the current process.
5425
5426 set stack-cache
5427 show stack-cache
5428 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
5429 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
5430 affecting correctness.
5431
5432 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
5433 show interactive-mode
5434 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
5435 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
5436 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
5437 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
5438 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
5439
5440 * Removed commands
5441
5442 info forks
5443 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
5444 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
5445 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
5446 command.
5447
5448 fork NUM
5449 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
5450 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
5451 alias for the `fork' command.
5452
5453 process PID
5454 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
5455 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
5456 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
5457
5458 delete fork NUM
5459 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
5460 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
5461 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
5462 fork' command.
5463
5464 detach fork NUM
5465 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
5466 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
5467 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
5468 fork' command.
5469
5470 * New native configurations
5471
5472 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
5473
5474 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
5475
5476 * New targets
5477
5478 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
5479 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
5480 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5481 S+core 3 score-*-*
5482
5483 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
5484 (mingw32ce) debugging.
5485
5486 * Removed commands
5487
5488 catch load
5489 catch unload
5490 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
5491
5492 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
5493
5494 * New native configurations
5495
5496 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
5497 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
5498
5499 * New targets
5500
5501 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
5502 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
5503
5504 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5505
5506 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
5507 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
5508 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
5509 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
5510
5511 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
5512 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
5513
5514 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
5515 is resolved.
5516
5517 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
5518 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
5519 and in inlined functions.
5520
5521 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
5522 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
5523 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
5524
5525 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
5526
5527 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
5528 registers on PowerPC targets.
5529
5530 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
5531 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
5532
5533 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
5534 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
5535
5536 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
5537 extended-remote mode.
5538
5539 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
5540 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
5541 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
5542 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
5543
5544 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
5545 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
5546 target architectures.
5547
5548 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
5549 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
5550 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
5551 stored in two consecutive float registers.
5552
5553 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
5554 breakpoints now.
5555
5556 * Improved support for debugging Ada
5557 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
5558 include:
5559 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
5560 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
5561 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
5562 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
5563 of an assignment
5564 - Improved command completion in Ada
5565 - Several bug fixes
5566
5567 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
5568 process.
5569
5570 * New commands
5571
5572 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
5573 show print frame-arguments
5574 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
5575 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
5576
5577 remote put
5578 remote get
5579 remote delete
5580 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
5581
5582 * New MI commands
5583
5584 -target-file-put
5585 -target-file-get
5586 -target-file-delete
5587 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
5588
5589 * New remote packets
5590
5591 vFile:open:
5592 vFile:close:
5593 vFile:pread:
5594 vFile:pwrite:
5595 vFile:unlink:
5596 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
5597
5598 vAttach
5599 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
5600 mode.
5601
5602 vRun
5603 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
5604
5605 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
5606
5607 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
5608 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
5609 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
5610
5611 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
5612 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
5613 -Bsymbolic linker option.
5614
5615 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
5616 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
5617 is not supported.
5618
5619 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
5620 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
5621
5622 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
5623 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
5624
5625 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
5626
5627 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
5628 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
5629 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
5630
5631 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
5632 automatically displayed as character or string data.
5633
5634 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
5635 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
5636 as strings.
5637
5638 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
5639 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
5640 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
5641
5642 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
5643 iWMMXt coprocessor.
5644
5645 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
5646 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
5647 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
5648
5649 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
5650
5651 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
5652
5653 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
5654 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
5655 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
5656
5657 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
5658 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
5659
5660 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
5661 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
5662 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
5663 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
5664 Windows and SymbianOS).
5665
5666 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
5667 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
5668
5669 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
5670 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
5671
5672 * New commands
5673
5674 set remoteflow
5675 show remoteflow
5676 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
5677 when debugging using remote targets.
5678
5679 set mem inaccessible-by-default
5680 show mem inaccessible-by-default
5681 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
5682 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
5683 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
5684 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
5685 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
5686
5687 set breakpoint auto-hw
5688 show breakpoint auto-hw
5689 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
5690 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
5691 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
5692 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
5693 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
5694 including "next" and "finish".
5695
5696 catch exception
5697 catch exception unhandled
5698 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
5699
5700 catch assert
5701 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
5702
5703 set sysroot
5704 show sysroot
5705 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
5706 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
5707 an alias to "set sysroot".
5708
5709 info spu
5710 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
5711 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
5712 architecture.
5713
5714 * New native configurations
5715
5716 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
5717
5718 set tdesc filename
5719 unset tdesc filename
5720 show tdesc filename
5721 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
5722 not query the target for its built-in description.
5723
5724 * New targets
5725
5726 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
5727 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
5728 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
5729
5730 * New remote packets
5731
5732 QPassSignals:
5733 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
5734 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
5735
5736 qXfer:features:read:
5737 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
5738 features.
5739
5740 qXfer:spu:read:
5741 qXfer:spu:write:
5742 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
5743 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
5744
5745 qXfer:libraries:read:
5746 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
5747 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
5748 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
5749 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
5750
5751 * Removed targets
5752
5753 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
5754
5755 alpha*-*-osf1*
5756 alpha*-*-osf2*
5757 d10v-*-*
5758 hppa*-*-hiux*
5759 i[34567]86-ncr-*
5760 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
5761 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
5762 i[34567]86-*-netware*
5763 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
5764 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
5765 i[34567]86-*-sco*
5766 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
5767 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
5768 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
5769 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
5770 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
5771 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
5772 i[34567]86-*-isc*
5773 m68*-cisco*-*
5774 m68*-tandem-*
5775 mips*-*-pe
5776 rs6000-*-lynxos*
5777 sh*-*-pe
5778
5779 * Other removed features
5780
5781 target abug
5782 target cpu32bug
5783 target est
5784 target rom68k
5785
5786 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
5787
5788 target hms
5789 target e7000
5790 target sh3
5791 target sh3e
5792
5793 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
5794 H8/300.
5795
5796 target ocd
5797
5798 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
5799 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
5800 interfaces.
5801
5802 DWARF 1 support
5803
5804 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
5805 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
5806
5807 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
5808
5809 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
5810 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
5811 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
5812 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
5813
5814 MIPS ".pdr" sections
5815
5816 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
5817 in debugging information.
5818
5819 Scheme support
5820
5821 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
5822 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
5823
5824 set mips stack-arg-size
5825 set mips saved-gpreg-size
5826
5827 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
5828
5829 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
5830
5831 * New targets
5832
5833 Xtensa xtensa-elf
5834 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
5835
5836 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
5837 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
5838 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
5839
5840 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
5841 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
5842 supported.
5843
5844 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
5845 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
5846
5847 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
5848 stub provides the required support.
5849
5850 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
5851 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
5852
5853 * New commands
5854
5855 set substitute-path
5856 unset substitute-path
5857 show substitute-path
5858 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
5859 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
5860 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
5861 between compilation and debugging.
5862
5863 set trace-commands
5864 show trace-commands
5865 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
5866 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
5867 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
5868
5869 * REMOVED features
5870
5871 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
5872
5873 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
5874 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
5875
5876 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
5877
5878 * New remote packets
5879
5880 qSupported:
5881 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
5882 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
5883 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
5884 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
5885 target.
5886
5887 qXfer:auxv:read:
5888 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
5889 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
5890
5891 qXfer:memory-map:read:
5892 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
5893 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
5894
5895 vFlashErase:
5896 vFlashWrite:
5897 vFlashDone:
5898 Erase and program a flash memory device.
5899
5900 * Removed remote packets
5901
5902 qPart:auxv:read:
5903 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
5904 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
5905
5906 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
5907
5908 * New targets
5909
5910 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
5911
5912 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5913
5914 * New commands
5915
5916 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
5917 only if it doesn't already have a value.
5918
5919 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
5920
5921 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
5922
5923 restart <n> Return the program state to a
5924 previously saved state.
5925
5926 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
5927
5928 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
5929
5930 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
5931 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
5932
5933 info forks List forks of the user program that
5934 are available to be debugged.
5935
5936 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
5937 forks of the user program that are
5938 available to be debugged.
5939
5940 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5941 that are available to be debugged (and
5942 kill the forked process).
5943
5944 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5945 that are available to be debugged (and
5946 allow the process to continue).
5947
5948 * New architecture
5949
5950 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
5951
5952 * Improved Windows host support
5953
5954 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
5955 native console support, and remote communications using either
5956 network sockets or serial ports.
5957
5958 * Improved Modula-2 language support
5959
5960 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
5961 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
5962 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
5963 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
5964 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
5965 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
5966
5967 * REMOVED features
5968
5969 The ARM rdi-share module.
5970
5971 The Netware NLM debug server.
5972
5973 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
5974
5975 * New native configurations
5976
5977 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
5978 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
5979
5980 * New targets
5981
5982 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5983
5984 * New command line options
5985
5986 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
5987 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
5988 the child (debugged) program exited with.
5989 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
5990 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
5991 specified multiple times and in conjunction
5992 with the --command (-x) option.
5993
5994 * Deprecated commands removed
5995
5996 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
5997 removed:
5998
5999 Command Replacement
6000 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
6001 othernames set arm disassembler
6002 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
6003 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
6004 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
6005 regs info registers
6006
6007 * New BSD user-level threads support
6008
6009 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
6010 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
6011 configurations are:
6012
6013 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
6014 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
6015 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
6016
6017 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
6018 are not yet supported.
6019
6020 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
6021 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
6022
6023 * REMOVED configurations and files
6024
6025 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
6026 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
6027 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
6028
6029 * New "set print array-indexes" command
6030
6031 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
6032 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
6033 behavior.
6034
6035 * VAX floating point support
6036
6037 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
6038
6039 * User-defined command support
6040
6041 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
6042 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
6043 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
6044
6045 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
6046
6047 * New command line option
6048
6049 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
6050 debugging.
6051
6052 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
6053
6054 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
6055 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
6056 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
6057 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
6058 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
6059
6060 * Internationalization
6061
6062 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
6063 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
6064 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
6065
6066 * Ada
6067
6068 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
6069 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
6070 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
6071
6072 * New native configurations
6073
6074 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
6075
6076 * Remote 'p' packet
6077
6078 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
6079 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
6080
6081 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
6082
6083 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
6084 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
6085 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
6086 i386 application).
6087
6088 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the registers[]
6089 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
6090 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
6091 configurations:
6092
6093 hppa-*-hpux
6094 ia64-*-aix
6095 mips-*-irix*
6096 *-*-lynx
6097 mips-*-linux-gnu
6098 sds protocol
6099 xdr protocol
6100 powerpc bdm protocol
6101
6102 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
6103 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
6104
6105 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6106
6107 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6108 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6109 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6110 permanently REMOVED.
6111
6112 h8300-*-*
6113 mcore-*-*
6114 mn10300-*-*
6115 ns32k-*-*
6116 sh64-*-*
6117 v850-*-*
6118
6119 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
6120
6121 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
6122
6123 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
6124 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
6125 been fixed.
6126
6127 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
6128
6129 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
6130 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
6131 IRIX long double values).
6132
6133 * VAX and "next"
6134
6135 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
6136 command. This problem has been fixed.
6137
6138 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
6139
6140 * Fix for ``many threads''
6141
6142 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
6143 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
6144 error message:
6145
6146 ptrace: No such process.
6147 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
6148
6149 This problem has been fixed.
6150
6151 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
6152
6153 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
6154 GDB to dump core).
6155
6156 * New ``start'' command.
6157
6158 This command runs the program until the beginning of the main procedure.
6159
6160 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
6161
6162 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
6163 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
6164 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
6165
6166 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
6167 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
6168 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
6169 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
6170 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
6171 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
6172 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
6173 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
6174 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
6175
6176 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
6177
6178 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
6179 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
6180 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
6181 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
6182 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
6183
6184 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
6185 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
6186 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
6187
6188 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
6189
6190 * New native configurations
6191
6192 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
6193 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
6194 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
6195 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
6196 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6197 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
6198 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6199
6200 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
6201
6202 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
6203 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
6204 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
6205 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
6206 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
6207 work, was also included.
6208
6209 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
6210 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
6211
6212 h8300-*-*
6213 mcore-*-*
6214 mn10300-*-*
6215 ns32k-*-*
6216 sh64-*-*
6217 v850-*-*
6218 xstormy16-*-*
6219
6220 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
6221 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
6222
6223 * REMOVED configurations and files
6224
6225 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
6226 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
6227 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
6228 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
6229 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
6230 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
6231 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
6232 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
6233 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
6234 sonymips mips-sony-*
6235 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
6236
6237 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
6238
6239 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
6240
6241 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
6242 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
6243 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
6244 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
6245 with GDB".
6246
6247 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
6248
6249 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
6250 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
6251 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
6252 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
6253 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
6254 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
6255 are created.
6256
6257 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
6258
6259 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
6260
6261 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
6262 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
6263 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
6264
6265 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
6266
6267 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
6268 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
6269
6270 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
6271
6272 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
6273 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
6274 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
6275
6276 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
6277
6278 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
6279 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
6280
6281 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
6282
6283 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
6284 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
6285 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
6286
6287 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
6288
6289 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
6290 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
6291 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
6292
6293 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
6294
6295 * Removed --with-mmalloc
6296
6297 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
6298 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
6299
6300 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
6301
6302 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
6303 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
6304 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
6305 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
6306
6307 * Revised SPARC target
6308
6309 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
6310 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
6311 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
6312 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
6313 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
6314
6315 * New C++ demangler
6316
6317 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
6318 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
6319 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
6320 programs.
6321
6322 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
6323
6324 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
6325 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
6326 encountered these.
6327
6328 * C++ nested types and namespaces
6329
6330 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
6331 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
6332 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
6333 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
6334 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
6335 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
6336 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
6337 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
6338 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
6339
6340 * New native configurations
6341
6342 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
6343 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
6344 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
6345 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
6346 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
6347
6348 * New debugging protocols
6349
6350 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
6351
6352 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
6353
6354 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
6355 and its very obscure effect on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
6356 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
6357
6358 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6359
6360 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6361 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6362 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6363 permanently REMOVED.
6364
6365 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
6366 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
6367 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
6368 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
6369 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
6370 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
6371 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
6372 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
6373 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
6374 sonymips mips-sony-*
6375 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
6376
6377 * REMOVED configurations and files
6378
6379 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
6380 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
6381 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6382 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6383 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6384 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
6385 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6386 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
6387 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
6388 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
6389 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
6390 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
6391 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
6392 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
6393 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
6394 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6395 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6396
6397 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
6398
6399 * Objective-C
6400
6401 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
6402 integrated into GDB.
6403
6404 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
6405
6406 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
6407 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
6408 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
6409 backtraces.
6410
6411 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
6412 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
6413 DWARF 2 CFI support.
6414
6415 * Hosted file I/O.
6416
6417 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
6418 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
6419 remote protocol documentation for details.
6420
6421 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
6422
6423 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
6424 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
6425 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
6426 ppc32 on ppc64).
6427
6428 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
6429
6430 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
6431 per-thread variables.
6432
6433 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
6434
6435 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
6436 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
6437
6438 * Separate debug info.
6439
6440 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
6441 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
6442 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
6443 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
6444 and optional debug files.
6445
6446 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
6447
6448 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
6449 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
6450 debugger.
6451
6452 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
6453 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
6454
6455 * Java
6456
6457 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
6458 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
6459 considered "useable".
6460
6461 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
6462
6463 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
6464 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
6465 kernel.
6466
6467 * GDB supports logging output to a file
6468
6469 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
6470 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
6471
6472 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
6473
6474 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
6475 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
6476 command.
6477
6478 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
6479
6480 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
6481 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
6482
6483 * Profiling support
6484
6485 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
6486 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
6487 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
6488 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
6489 data, for more informative profiling results.
6490
6491 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
6492
6493 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
6494 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
6495 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
6496
6497 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
6498 removed.
6499
6500 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
6501 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
6502 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
6503 in a subsequent -var-update.
6504
6505 * New native configurations.
6506
6507 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
6508
6509 * Multi-arched targets.
6510
6511 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
6512 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6513
6514 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6515
6516 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6517 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6518 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6519 permanently REMOVED.
6520
6521 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6522 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6523 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6524 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
6525 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6526 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
6527 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
6528 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
6529 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
6530 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
6531 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6532 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6533
6534 * REMOVED configurations and files
6535
6536 V850EA ISA
6537 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
6538 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
6539 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
6540 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
6541 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
6542 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
6543 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
6544 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
6545 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6546 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6547 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6548 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6549 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6550
6551 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
6552
6553 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
6554 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
6555 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
6556 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
6557 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
6558
6559 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
6560
6561 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
6562
6563 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
6564 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
6565 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
6566 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
6567 shared libs like mad''.
6568
6569 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6570
6571 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
6572 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
6573 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
6574 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6575
6576 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
6577
6578 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
6579 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
6580 they expand.
6581
6582 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
6583 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
6584
6585 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
6586 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
6587
6588 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
6589 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
6590 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
6591 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
6592
6593 * Multi-arched targets.
6594
6595 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
6596 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
6597 NEC V850 v850-*-*
6598 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
6599 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
6600 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
6601
6602 * New targets.
6603
6604 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
6605
6606
6607 * New native configurations
6608
6609 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
6610 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
6611 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
6612 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
6613
6614 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6615
6616 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6617 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6618 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6619 permanently REMOVED.
6620
6621 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6622 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6623 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
6624 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6625 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
6626 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6627 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
6628 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
6629 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
6630 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
6631 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
6632 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
6633 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6634
6635 * OBSOLETE languages
6636
6637 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
6638
6639 * REMOVED configurations and files
6640
6641 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
6642 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6643 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6644 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6645 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6646
6647 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
6648
6649 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
6650
6651 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
6652 commands. The default is 1024.
6653
6654 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
6655
6656 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
6657
6658 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
6659
6660 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
6661 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
6662 from a file into memory (restore).
6663
6664 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
6665
6666 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
6667 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
6668 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
6669
6670 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
6671
6672 * New targets.
6673
6674 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
6675
6676 * Bug fixes
6677
6678 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
6679 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
6680 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
6681
6682 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
6683 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
6684 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
6685
6686 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
6687 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
6688 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
6689
6690 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
6691 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
6692 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
6693
6694 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
6695
6696 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
6697
6698 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
6699 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
6700 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
6701 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
6702 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
6703 (notably embedded) targets.
6704
6705 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
6706
6707 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
6708 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
6709 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
6710 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
6711
6712 * New command line option
6713
6714 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
6715
6716 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
6717
6718 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
6719 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
6720 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
6721 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
6722 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
6723 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
6724 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
6725 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
6726 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
6727 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
6728
6729 * Changes in ARM configurations.
6730
6731 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
6732 configuration is fully multi-arch.
6733
6734 * New native configurations
6735
6736 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
6737 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
6738 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
6739 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
6740
6741 * New targets
6742
6743 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
6744
6745 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6746
6747 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6748 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6749 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6750 permanently REMOVED.
6751
6752 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
6753 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6754 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6755 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6756 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6757
6758 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
6759
6760 * REMOVED configurations and files
6761
6762 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6763 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6764 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6765 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6766 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6767 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6768 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6769 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6770 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6771 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6772 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6773 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6774 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
6775
6776 * Changes to command line processing
6777
6778 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
6779 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
6780
6781 * Changes to key bindings
6782
6783 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
6784
6785 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
6786
6787 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
6788
6789 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
6790 corrupted.
6791
6792 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
6793
6794 Numerous documentation fixes.
6795
6796 Numerous testsuite fixes.
6797
6798 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
6799
6800 * New native configurations
6801
6802 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
6803 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
6804 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
6805 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6806 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
6807 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
6808
6809 * New targets
6810
6811 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
6812 CRIS cris-axis
6813 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
6814
6815 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6816
6817 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
6818 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6819 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6820 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6821 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6822 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6823 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6824 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6825 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6826 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6827 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6828 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6829 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6830 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
6831
6832 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
6833 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
6834
6835 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6836 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6837 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6838 permanently REMOVED.
6839
6840 * REMOVED configurations and files
6841
6842 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6843 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6844 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
6845 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6846 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
6847 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
6848
6849 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
6850
6851 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
6852 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
6853 present.
6854
6855 * Other news:
6856
6857 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
6858
6859 * The MI enabled by default.
6860
6861 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
6862 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
6863 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
6864 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
6865 which is now deprecated.
6866
6867 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
6868
6869 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
6870 main features are supported:
6871
6872 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
6873
6874 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
6875 extension;
6876
6877 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
6878
6879 - a Pascal expression parser.
6880
6881 However, some important features are not yet supported.
6882
6883 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
6884
6885 - there are some problems with boolean types;
6886
6887 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
6888 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
6889
6890 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
6891
6892 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
6893
6894 * Changes in completion.
6895
6896 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
6897 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
6898 users expect at the shell prompt.
6899
6900 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
6901 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
6902 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
6903 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
6904 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
6905 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
6906 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
6907
6908 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
6909
6910 * New platform-independent commands:
6911
6912 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
6913 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
6914 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
6915
6916 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
6917
6918 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
6919 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
6920 many threads as your system allows you to have.
6921
6922 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
6923
6924 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
6925 multi-threaded programs though.
6926
6927 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
6928
6929 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
6930
6931 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
6932 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
6933 supported.)
6934
6935 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
6936
6937 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
6938 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
6939 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
6940 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
6941 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
6942 registers.
6943
6944 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
6945 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
6946 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
6947
6948 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
6949
6950 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
6951 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
6952
6953 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
6954 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
6955 IDT.
6956
6957 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
6958 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
6959 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
6960 a given linear address.
6961
6962 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
6963 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
6964 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
6965
6966 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
6967
6968 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
6969
6970 * Changes in documentation.
6971
6972 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
6973 Documentation License.
6974
6975 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6976 manual.
6977
6978 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
6979
6980 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6981 manual.
6982
6983 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
6984 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
6985 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
6986
6987 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
6988
6989 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
6990 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
6991 contents of this file.
6992
6993 * gdba.el deleted
6994
6995 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
6996
6997 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
6998
6999 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
7000
7001 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
7002 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
7003 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
7004 greater level of detail.
7005
7006 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
7007
7008 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
7009 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
7010 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
7011 written.
7012
7013 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
7014
7015 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
7016 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
7017 machines ``out of the box''.
7018
7019 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
7020 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
7021 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
7022 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
7023 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
7024
7025 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
7026 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
7027 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
7028 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
7029 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
7030
7031 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
7032 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
7033 also works.
7034
7035 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
7036 GDB.
7037
7038 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
7039 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
7040 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
7041 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
7042
7043 * New native configurations
7044
7045 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
7046 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
7047
7048 * New targets
7049
7050 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
7051 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
7052 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7053 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7054
7055 * OBSOLETE configurations
7056
7057 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
7058 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
7059 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
7060 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
7061 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7062
7063 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
7064 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
7065 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
7066 be permanently REMOVED.
7067
7068 * Gould support removed
7069
7070 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
7071
7072 * New features for SVR4
7073
7074 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
7075 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
7076 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
7077
7078 * Many C++ enhancements
7079
7080 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
7081 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
7082
7083 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
7084
7085 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
7086 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
7087 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
7088 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
7089
7090 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
7091 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
7092
7093 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
7094
7095 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
7096 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
7097 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
7098
7099 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
7100 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
7101
7102 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
7103
7104 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
7105 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
7106 include ``set remote P-packet''.
7107
7108 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
7109
7110 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
7111 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
7112 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
7113
7114 * ``apropos'' command added.
7115
7116 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
7117 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
7118 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
7119
7120 * New MI interface
7121
7122 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
7123 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7124 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
7125 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
7126 enabled by configuring with:
7127
7128 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
7129
7130 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
7131
7132 * New native configurations
7133
7134 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
7135 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
7136 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
7137
7138 * New targets
7139
7140 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7141 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
7142 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
7143
7144 * OBSOLETE configurations
7145
7146 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
7147
7148 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
7149 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
7150 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
7151 be permanently REMOVED.
7152
7153 * ANSI/ISO C
7154
7155 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
7156 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
7157 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
7158 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
7159 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
7160 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
7161 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
7162 already.
7163
7164 * Readline 2.2
7165
7166 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
7167
7168 * set extension-language
7169
7170 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
7171 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
7172 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
7173 set extension-language .c c++
7174 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
7175 and their associated languages.
7176
7177 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
7178
7179 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
7180 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
7181 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
7182
7183 set processor NAME
7184
7185 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
7186 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
7187
7188 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
7189 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
7190 403 IBM PowerPC 403
7191 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
7192 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
7193 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
7194 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
7195 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
7196 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
7197 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
7198 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
7199
7200 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
7201 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
7202 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
7203 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
7204
7205 * HP-UX support
7206
7207 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
7208 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
7209 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
7210 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
7211 for xdb and dbx commands.
7212
7213 * Catchpoints
7214
7215 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
7216 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
7217 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
7218
7219 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
7220 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
7221 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
7222
7223 * Debugging across forks
7224
7225 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
7226 in the inferior.
7227
7228 * TUI
7229
7230 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
7231 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
7232 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
7233
7234 * GDB remote protocol additions
7235
7236 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
7237 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
7238 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
7239 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
7240
7241 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
7242 full 64-bit address. The command
7243
7244 set remoteaddresssize 32
7245
7246 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
7247 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
7248 will be discarded.
7249
7250 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
7251 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
7252
7253 maint packet heythere
7254
7255 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
7256 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
7257 time.
7258
7259 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
7260 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
7261 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
7262
7263 * Tracing can collect general expressions
7264
7265 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
7266 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
7267 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
7268
7269 * mask-address variable for Mips
7270
7271 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
7272 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
7273 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
7274
7275 * Higher serial baud rates
7276
7277 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
7278 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
7279 to achieve all of these rates.)
7280
7281 * i960 simulator
7282
7283 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
7284 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
7285
7286
7287 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
7288
7289 * New native configurations
7290
7291 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
7292 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
7293 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
7294 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
7295 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
7296 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
7297 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
7298
7299 * New targets
7300
7301 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
7302 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
7303 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
7304 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
7305 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
7306 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
7307 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
7308 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
7309 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
7310 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
7311 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
7312
7313 * New debugging protocols
7314
7315 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
7316 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
7317 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
7318 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
7319 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
7320 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
7321
7322 * DWARF 2
7323
7324 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
7325 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
7326 information.
7327
7328 * Java frontend
7329
7330 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
7331 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
7332
7333 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
7334
7335 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
7336 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
7337 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
7338
7339 * Live range splitting
7340
7341 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
7342 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
7343 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
7344
7345 * Hurd support
7346
7347 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
7348 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
7349
7350 * ARM Thumb support
7351
7352 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
7353 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
7354 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
7355 accordingly.
7356
7357 * MIPS16 support
7358
7359 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
7360 instruction set.
7361
7362 * Overlay support
7363
7364 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
7365 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
7366 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
7367 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
7368 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
7369 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
7370
7371 * info symbol
7372
7373 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
7374 the symbol at the specified address.
7375
7376 * Trace support
7377
7378 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
7379 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
7380 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
7381 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
7382 file tracepoint.c for more details.
7383
7384 * MIPS simulator
7385
7386 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
7387 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
7388 of most MIPS variants.
7389
7390 * Sparc simulator
7391
7392 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
7393 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
7394 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
7395
7396 * set architecture
7397
7398 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
7399 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
7400 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
7401 the possible architectures.
7402
7403 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
7404
7405 * New native configurations
7406
7407 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
7408 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
7409 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
7410 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
7411 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
7412 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
7413
7414 * New targets
7415
7416 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
7417 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
7418 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
7419 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
7420 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
7421 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
7422 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
7423
7424 * PowerPC simulator
7425
7426 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
7427 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
7428 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
7429 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
7430 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
7431
7432 * Solaris 2.5
7433
7434 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
7435
7436 * Windows 95/NT native
7437
7438 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
7439 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
7440 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
7441 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
7442 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
7443
7444 * dont-repeat command
7445
7446 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
7447 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
7448 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
7449 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
7450
7451 * Send break instead of ^C
7452
7453 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
7454 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
7455 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
7456
7457 * Remote protocol timeout
7458
7459 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
7460 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
7461 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
7462
7463 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
7464
7465 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
7466 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
7467 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
7468 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
7469 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
7470
7471 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
7472 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
7473 automatically on hpux10.
7474
7475 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
7476
7477 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
7478
7479 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
7480
7481 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
7482 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
7483 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
7484 every character. The default value is 1050.
7485
7486 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
7487
7488 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
7489 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
7490 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
7491 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
7492 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
7493 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
7494
7495 * Speedups for remote debugging
7496
7497 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
7498 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
7499 and more efficient S-record downloading.
7500
7501 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
7502
7503 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
7504 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
7505
7506 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
7507
7508 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
7509
7510 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
7511 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
7512
7513 * Remote targets use caching
7514
7515 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
7516 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
7517 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
7518 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
7519 off' turns the data cache off.
7520
7521 * Remote targets may have threads
7522
7523 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
7524 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
7525 gdb/remote.c for details.
7526
7527 * NetROM support
7528
7529 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
7530 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
7531 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
7532 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
7533 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
7534 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
7535 sequence is something like
7536
7537 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
7538 load <prog>
7539 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
7540
7541 * Macintosh host
7542
7543 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
7544 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
7545 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
7546 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
7547 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
7548 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
7549 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
7550 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
7551
7552 * Autoconf
7553
7554 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
7555 but does simplify configuration and building.
7556
7557 * hpux10
7558
7559 GDB now supports hpux10.
7560
7561 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
7562
7563 * New native configurations
7564
7565 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
7566 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
7567 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
7568 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
7569
7570 * New targets
7571
7572 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
7573 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
7574 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
7575 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
7576 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7577
7578 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
7579
7580 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
7581 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
7582 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
7583 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
7584 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
7585
7586 * Arguments to user-defined commands
7587
7588 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
7589 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
7590 trivial example:
7591 define adder
7592 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
7593
7594 To execute the command use:
7595 adder 1 2 3
7596
7597 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
7598 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
7599 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
7600
7601 * New `if' and `while' commands
7602
7603 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
7604 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
7605 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
7606 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
7607 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
7608 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
7609 if the expression is zero.
7610
7611 * Fortran source language mode
7612
7613 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
7614 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
7615 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
7616 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
7617 Fortran compilers.
7618
7619 * Better HPUX support
7620
7621 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
7622 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
7623 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
7624 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
7625 that behavior do the following before running the program:
7626
7627 adb -w a.out
7628 __dld_flags?W 0x5
7629 control-d
7630
7631 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
7632 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
7633
7634 adb -w a.out
7635 __dld_flags?W 0x4
7636 control-d
7637
7638 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
7639 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
7640 external linkage.
7641
7642 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
7643 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
7644
7645 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
7646
7647 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
7648 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
7649 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
7650 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
7651 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
7652 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
7653
7654 * New DOS host serial code
7655
7656 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
7657 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
7658 a PC's serial port.
7659
7660 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
7661
7662 * New "complete" command
7663
7664 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
7665 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
7666
7667 * Trailing space optional in prompt
7668
7669 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
7670 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
7671
7672 * Breakpoint hit counts
7673
7674 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
7675 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
7676 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
7677 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
7678 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
7679 that breakpoint.
7680
7681 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
7682
7683 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
7684 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
7685 arrays actually contain only short strings.
7686
7687 * Shared library breakpoints
7688
7689 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
7690 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
7691
7692 * Hardware watchpoints
7693
7694 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
7695 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
7696
7697 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
7698
7699 * Annotations
7700
7701 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
7702 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
7703
7704 * Improved Irix 5 support
7705
7706 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
7707
7708 * Improved HPPA support
7709
7710 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
7711
7712 * New native configurations
7713
7714 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
7715 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
7716 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
7717 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
7718
7719 * New targets
7720
7721 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
7722 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
7723 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
7724
7725 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
7726
7727 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
7728 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
7729
7730 * Fixes
7731
7732 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
7733 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
7734
7735 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
7736
7737 * Irix 5 is now supported
7738
7739 * HPPA support
7740
7741 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
7742 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
7743 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
7744 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
7745 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
7746
7747
7748 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
7749
7750 * User visible changes:
7751
7752 * Remote Debugging
7753
7754 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
7755 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
7756 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
7757 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
7758 debugging info for the mips target).
7759
7760 * DEC Alpha native support
7761
7762 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
7763 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
7764 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
7765 Alpha-specific notes.
7766
7767 * Preliminary thread implementation
7768
7769 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
7770
7771 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
7772
7773 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
7774 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
7775 for details).
7776
7777 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
7778
7779 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
7780 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
7781 call methods, ...etc.
7782
7783 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
7784
7785 * User visible changes:
7786
7787 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
7788 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
7789 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
7790 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
7791
7792 Filename completion now works.
7793
7794 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
7795 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
7796 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
7797
7798 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
7799 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
7800 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
7801 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
7802 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
7803
7804 * DEC alpha support
7805
7806 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
7807 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
7808
7809
7810 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
7811
7812 * Testsuite
7813
7814 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
7815 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
7816 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
7817
7818 * C++ demangling
7819
7820 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
7821 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
7822 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
7823 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
7824 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
7825
7826 * Simulators
7827
7828 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
7829 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
7830 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
7831
7832 * New targets supported
7833
7834 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7835 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
7836 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
7837 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
7838 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
7839
7840 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
7841 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
7842 GO32 memory extender.
7843
7844 * New remote protocols
7845
7846 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
7847
7848 * New source languages supported
7849
7850 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
7851 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
7852 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
7853
7854
7855 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
7856
7857 * HP Precision Architecture supported
7858
7859 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
7860 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
7861 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
7862 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
7863 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
7864 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
7865
7866 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
7867
7868 * Faster and better demangling
7869
7870 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
7871 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
7872 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
7873 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
7874 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
7875 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
7876 symbol lookups.
7877
7878 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
7879 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
7880 compiler does not actually implement.
7881
7882 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
7883
7884 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
7885 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
7886 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
7887 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
7888 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
7889 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
7890 fix.
7891
7892 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
7893 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
7894
7895 * Improved configure script
7896
7897 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
7898 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
7899 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
7900 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
7901
7902 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
7903 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
7904 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
7905 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
7906 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
7907 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
7908
7909 * Documentation improvements
7910
7911 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
7912 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
7913 before submitting changes.
7914
7915 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
7916 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
7917 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
7918 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
7919 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
7920
7921 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
7922 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
7923 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
7924 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
7925 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
7926 around this problem.
7927
7928 * New features
7929
7930 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
7931 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
7932 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
7933 the target program.
7934
7935 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
7936 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
7937
7938 * New native hosts supported
7939
7940 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
7941 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
7942
7943 * New targets supported
7944
7945 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
7946
7947 * New file formats supported
7948
7949 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
7950 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
7951
7952 * Major bug fixes
7953
7954 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
7955
7956 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
7957 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
7958
7959 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
7960 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
7961 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
7962
7963 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
7964 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
7965
7966 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
7967 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
7968 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
7969 libraries.
7970
7971 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
7972 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
7973 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
7974 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
7975 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
7976
7977 * Internal improvements
7978
7979 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
7980 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
7981
7982 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
7983 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
7984 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
7985 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
7986 shared code that handles any of them.
7987
7988 * New command line options
7989
7990 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
7991
7992 * Mmalloc licensing
7993
7994 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
7995 General Public License.
7996
7997 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
7998
7999 * Host/native/target split
8000
8001 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
8002 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
8003 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
8004 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
8005 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
8006
8007 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
8008 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
8009 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
8010 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
8011 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
8012 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
8013 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
8014
8015 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
8016 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
8017 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
8018
8019 * New hosts supported
8020
8021 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
8022 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
8023 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
8024
8025 * New targets supported
8026
8027 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
8028 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
8029
8030 * New native hosts supported
8031
8032 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
8033 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
8034 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
8035
8036 * New file formats supported
8037
8038 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
8039 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
8040 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
8041
8042 * New commands
8043
8044 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
8045 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
8046 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
8047
8048 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
8049
8050 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
8051 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
8052 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
8053 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
8054
8055 * C++ improvements
8056
8057 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
8058 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
8059 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
8060
8061 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
8062
8063 * Major bug fixes
8064
8065 The crash that occurred when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
8066 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
8067 by the compiler.
8068
8069 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
8070 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
8071
8072 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
8073 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
8074 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
8075 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
8076 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
8077 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
8078
8079 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
8080 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
8081 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
8082 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
8083
8084 * AMD 29k support
8085
8086 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
8087 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
8088 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
8089 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
8090 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
8091
8092 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
8093 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
8094 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
8095 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
8096
8097 * Remote interfaces
8098
8099 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
8100 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
8101 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
8102 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
8103 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
8104 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
8105 each instruction being stepped through.
8106
8107 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
8108 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
8109
8110 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
8111 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
8112 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
8113 processor with a serial port.
8114
8115 * Configuration
8116
8117 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
8118 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
8119 supported, and what files each one uses.
8120
8121 * Library changes
8122
8123 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
8124 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
8125 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
8126 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
8127
8128 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
8129 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
8130 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
8131 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
8132
8133 * Documentation
8134
8135 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
8136 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
8137 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
8138 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
8139 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
8140 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
8141
8142 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
8143
8144
8145 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
8146
8147 * Better support for C++ function names
8148
8149 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
8150 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
8151 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
8152 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
8153 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
8154
8155 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
8156 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
8157 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
8158 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
8159 for the list of formats.
8160
8161 * G++ symbol mangling problem
8162
8163 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
8164 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
8165 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
8166 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compiling gdb/symtab.c. The
8167 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
8168 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
8169 this problem.)
8170
8171 * New 'maintenance' command
8172
8173 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
8174 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
8175 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
8176
8177 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
8178 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
8179 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
8180 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
8181 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
8182 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
8183
8184 The following commands are new:
8185
8186 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
8187 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
8188 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
8189
8190 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
8191
8192 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
8193 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
8194 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
8195 read after argv processing.
8196
8197 * New hosts supported
8198
8199 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
8200
8201 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
8202
8203 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
8204 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
8205 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
8206 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
8207 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
8208 It costs extra.
8209
8210 * New targets supported
8211
8212 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
8213
8214 * More smarts about finding #include files
8215
8216 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
8217 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
8218 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
8219 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
8220 the one that contains your sources.
8221
8222 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
8223 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
8224 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
8225
8226 * Interesting infernals change
8227
8228 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
8229 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
8230 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
8231 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
8232
8233 * Bug fixes (of course!)
8234
8235 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
8236 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
8237 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
8238
8239 See the ChangeLog for details.
8240
8241 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
8242
8243 * New machines supported (host and target)
8244
8245 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
8246
8247 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
8248
8249 * New malloc package
8250
8251 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
8252 Mmalloc is capable of handling multiple heaps of memory. It is also
8253 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
8254 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
8255 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
8256 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
8257
8258 * info proc
8259
8260 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
8261 'help info proc' for details.
8262
8263 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
8264
8265 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
8266 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
8267 possible.
8268
8269 * File name changes for MS-DOS
8270
8271 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
8272 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
8273 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
8274 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
8275 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
8276 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
8277
8278 * Cross byte order fixes
8279
8280 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
8281 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
8282
8283 * New -mapped and -readnow options
8284
8285 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
8286 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
8287 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
8288 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
8289 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
8290 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
8291 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
8292 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
8293 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
8294 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
8295
8296 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
8297 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
8298 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
8299 slower, but makes future operations faster.
8300
8301 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
8302 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
8303 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
8304 use is:
8305
8306 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
8307
8308 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
8309 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
8310 shared across multiple host platforms.
8311
8312 * longjmp() handling
8313
8314 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
8315 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
8316 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
8317 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
8318
8319 * Solaris 2.0
8320
8321 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
8322 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
8323 reading symbols.
8324
8325 * Bug fixes
8326
8327 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
8328 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
8329 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
8330
8331 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
8332
8333 * New machines supported (host and target)
8334
8335 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
8336 (except core files)
8337 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
8338 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
8339
8340 * New machines supported (target)
8341
8342 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
8343
8344 * C++ support
8345
8346 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
8347 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
8348 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
8349
8350 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
8351 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
8352 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
8353 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
8354 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
8355 released.
8356
8357 * New features for SVR4
8358
8359 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
8360 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
8361 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
8362
8363 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
8364 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
8365 it prints the address mappings of the process.
8366
8367 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
8368 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
8369
8370 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
8371
8372 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
8373 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
8374 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
8375 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
8376 same code linked statically.
8377
8378 * New Getopt
8379
8380 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
8381 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
8382 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
8383 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
8384 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
8385 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
8386
8387 * Bugs fixed
8388
8389 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
8390 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
8391 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
8392
8393
8394 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
8395
8396 * New machines supported (host and target)
8397
8398 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
8399 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
8400 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
8401
8402 * Almost SCO Unix support
8403
8404 We had hoped to support:
8405 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
8406 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
8407 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
8408 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
8409
8410 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
8411
8412 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
8413 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
8414 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
8415 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
8416 reqired (if any).
8417
8418 * New Readline
8419
8420 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
8421 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
8422 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
8423
8424 * Bugs fixed
8425
8426 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
8427 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
8428 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
8429
8430 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
8431
8432 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
8433 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
8434 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
8435
8436 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
8437 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
8438 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
8439 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
8440 version 2.
8441
8442 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
8443 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
8444 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
8445 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
8446 situation somewhat.
8447
8448 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
8449 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
8450 methods.
8451
8452 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
8453 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
8454 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
8455
8456
8457 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
8458
8459 * Improved configuration
8460
8461 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
8462 Porting BFD is simpler.
8463
8464 * Stepping improved
8465
8466 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
8467 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
8468 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
8469 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
8470
8471 * Bug fixing
8472
8473 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
8474
8475 * New host supported (not target)
8476
8477 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
8478
8479
8480 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
8481
8482 * Multiple source language support
8483
8484 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
8485 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
8486 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
8487 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
8488 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
8489 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
8490
8491 * GDB and Modula-2
8492
8493 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
8494 currently under development at the State University of New York at
8495 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
8496 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
8497
8498 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
8499 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
8500 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
8501
8502 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
8503 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
8504
8505 * set write on/off
8506
8507 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
8508 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
8509 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
8510 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
8511 effect immediately.
8512
8513 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
8514
8515 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
8516 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
8517 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
8518 examining core files.
8519
8520 * set listsize
8521
8522 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
8523 The default is 10.
8524
8525 * New machines supported (host and target)
8526
8527 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
8528 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
8529 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
8530
8531 * New hosts supported (not targets)
8532
8533 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
8534
8535 * New targets supported (not hosts)
8536
8537 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
8538 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
8539 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
8540
8541 * New remote interfaces
8542
8543 AMD 29000 Adapt
8544 AMD 29000 Minimon
8545
8546
8547 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
8548
8549 * New Facilities
8550
8551 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
8552
8553 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
8554 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
8555 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
8556 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
8557 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
8558 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
8559 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
8560 stub on the target system.
8561
8562 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
8563
8564 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
8565 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
8566 object file types such as a.out and coff.
8567
8568 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
8569 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
8570
8571
8572 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
8573
8574 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
8575 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
8576
8577 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
8578 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
8579 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
8580
8581 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
8582 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
8583 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
8584 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
8585
8586 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
8587 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
8588 it is already running. Default is ON.
8589
8590 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
8591 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
8592 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
8593 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
8594 Default is ON.
8595
8596 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
8597 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
8598 or the value of the environment variable
8599 GDBHISTFILE.
8600
8601 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
8602 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
8603 HISTSIZE.
8604
8605 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
8606 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
8607 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
8608
8609 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
8610 history expansion will be performed on
8611 command line input. The default is OFF.
8612
8613 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
8614 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
8615 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
8616
8617 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
8618 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
8619 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
8620 variable TERM.
8621
8622 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
8623 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
8624 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
8625 variable TERM.
8626
8627 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
8628 ``set width'' instead.
8629
8630 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
8631 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
8632 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
8633 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
8634
8635 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
8636 is OFF.
8637
8638 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
8639 "raw" form if off.
8640
8641 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
8642 like instructions.
8643
8644 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
8645
8646
8647 * Support for Epoch Environment.
8648
8649 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
8650 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
8651 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
8652 window.
8653
8654
8655 * Support for Shared Libraries
8656
8657 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
8658 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
8659 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
8660 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
8661 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
8662 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
8663 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
8664 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
8665
8666 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
8667 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
8668 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
8669
8670 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
8671
8672
8673 * Watchpoints
8674
8675 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
8676 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
8677 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
8678 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
8679 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
8680 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
8681
8682 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
8683
8684 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
8685
8686 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
8687 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
8688 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
8689
8690
8691 * C++ multiple inheritance
8692
8693 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
8694 for C++ programs.
8695
8696 * C++ exception handling
8697
8698 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
8699 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
8700 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
8701 handler's context).
8702
8703 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
8704 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
8705 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
8706
8707 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
8708 current stack frame.
8709
8710
8711 * Minor command changes
8712
8713 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
8714 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
8715 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
8716
8717 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
8718 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
8719 frames without printing.
8720
8721 * New directory command
8722
8723 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
8724 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
8725 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
8726 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
8727 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
8728
8729 * Configuring GDB for compilation
8730
8731 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
8732 for more details.
8733
8734 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
8735 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
8736 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
8737 where the program that you are debugging will run.