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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4*** Changes since GDB 8.1
5
6* The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
7 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
8 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
9 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
10 default.
11
12* The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
13 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
14
15* 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
16 files created on FreeBSD systems.
17
18* C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
19 alignof.
20
21* New commands
22
23set debug fbsd-nat
24show debug fbsd-nat
25 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
26
27set|show varsize-limit
28 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
29 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
30 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
31
32set|show record btrace cpu
33 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
34 branch trace decode.
35
36* Python API
37
38 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
39
40 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
41 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
42
43 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
44
45 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
46 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
47 of convenience variables.
48
49 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
50 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
51 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
52
53* New targets
54
55RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
56
57* Removed targets and native configurations
58
59m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
60SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
61SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
62SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
63
64* Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
65
66 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
67 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
68 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
69 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
70 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
71 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
72 reported.
73
74*** Changes in GDB 8.1
75
76* GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
77 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
78 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
79
80* The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
81 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
82
83* New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
84 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
85 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
86 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
87 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
88
89* GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
90 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
91 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
92 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
93
94* GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
95 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
96
97* On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
98 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
99 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
100
101 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
102 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
103 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
104
105 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
106 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
107 environment" command.
108
109* Completion improvements
110
111 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
112 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
113 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
114 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
115 correctly:
116
117 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
118 (gdb) b function(int)
119
120 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
121 C++ anonymous namespaces:
122
123 (gdb) b (anon[TAB]
124 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
125 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
126 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
127
128 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
129 completion support, that better understands what you're
130 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
131 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
132 setting a breakpoint.
133
134 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
135
136 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
137
138* New command line options (gcore)
139
140-a
141 Dump all memory mappings.
142
143* Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
144
145 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
146 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
147 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
148
149 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
150
151 A::B::func()
152 B::func()
153
154 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
155 on both symbols.
156
157 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
158 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
159 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
160 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
161 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
162 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
163 a breakpoint from Python.
164
165* Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
166
167 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
168 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
169 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
170
171 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
172
173 function[abi:cxx11](int)
174 ^^^^^^^^^^^
175
176 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
177 no tag, like:
178
179 (gdb) b function(int)
180
181 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
182
183 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
184
185 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
186
187* Python Scripting
188
189 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
190 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
191 description of these.
192
193 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
194 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
195 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
196
197 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
198 manual for a further description of this feature.
199
200
201* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
202
203 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
204 specified initial working directory.
205
206 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
207 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
208
209 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
210 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
211
212 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
213 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
214
215 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
216 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
217 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
218 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
219 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
220
221 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
222 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
223 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
224
225* When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
226 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
227 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
228 in the *stopped notification.
229
230* Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
231 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
232
233* New remote packets
234
235QEnvironmentHexEncoded
236 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
237 the inferior when starting it.
238
239QEnvironmentUnset
240 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
241 before starting the remote inferior.
242
243QEnvironmentReset
244 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
245 user-set environment variables should be unset).
246
247QStartupWithShell
248 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
249
250QSetWorkingDir
251 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
252 working directory.
253
254* The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
255 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
256
257* The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
258 filter the tests to be run.
259
260* The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
261 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
262
263* New commands
264
265set|show cwd
266 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
267
268set|show compile-gcc
269 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
270 with the 'compile' commands.
271
272set debug separate-debug-file
273show debug separate-debug-file
274 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
275
276set dump-excluded-mappings
277show dump-excluded-mappings
278 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
279 dumped when generating a core file.
280
281maint info selftests
282 List the registered selftests.
283
284starti
285 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
286
287set|show debug or1k
288 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
289
290set|show print type nested-type-limit
291 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
292 type printer will show.
293
294* TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
295 `o' for nexti.
296
297* Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
298
299 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
300 'int'.
301
302 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
303 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
304 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
305 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
306
307 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
308 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
309 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
310 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
311 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
312 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
313
314 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
315 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
316 unless you tell it the variable's type:
317
318 (gdb) p var
319 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
320 (gdb) p (float) var
321 $3 = 3.14
322
323* New native configurations
324
325FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
326FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
327
328* New targets
329
330FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
331FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
332OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
333
334* Removed targets and native configurations
335
336Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
337
338*** Changes in GDB 8.0
339
340* GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
341 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
342 available in future Intel CPUs.
343
344* GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
345
346* Python Scripting
347
348 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
349 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
350
351* GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
352 instructions.
353
354* Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
355
356 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
357
358 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
359 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
360 removed.
361
362* Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
363
364 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
365 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
366
367* Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
368
369 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
370 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
371 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
372 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
373 features.
374
375* Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
376
377 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
378 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
379 debugger.
380
381* Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
382
383* User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
384 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
385
386* The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
387
388 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
389
390 define mycommand
391 set $i = 0
392 while $i < $argc
393 eval "print $arg%d", $i
394 set $i = $i + 1
395 end
396 end
397
398* Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
399
400* GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
401 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
402
403* New native configurations
404
405FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
406
407* New targets
408
409Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
410FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
411
412* Removed targets and native configurations
413
414Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
415Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
416
417* New commands
418
419flash-erase
420 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
421
422maint print arc arc-instruction address
423 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
424
425* New options
426
427set disassembler-options
428show disassembler-options
429 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
430 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
431 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
432 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
433 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
434
435* New MI commands
436
437-target-flash-erase
438 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
439 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
440
441-file-list-shared-libraries
442 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
443 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
444
445-catch-handlers
446 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
447 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
448
449*** Changes in GDB 7.12
450
451* GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
452
453 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
454 default. One must now explicitly configure with
455 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
456 option will be removed in a future release.
457
458* GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
459 GDB connection.
460
461* GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
462 memory backward from the given address. For example:
463
464 (gdb) bt
465 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
466 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
467 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
468 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
469 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
470 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
471 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
472 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
473 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
474
475* Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
476 arrays of dynamic types.
477
478* The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
479maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
480maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
481maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
482maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
483maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
484
485* GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
486 descriptions.
487
488* New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
489 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
490 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
491
492* Intel MPX bound violation handling.
493
494 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
495 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
496 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
497 signal received and code location.
498
499 For example:
500
501 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
502 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
503 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
504 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
505
506* Rust language support.
507 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
508 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
509 Rust.
510
511* Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
512
513 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
514 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
515 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
516 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
517 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
518 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
519 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
520 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
521 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
522 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
523 line.
524
525* The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
526
527 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
528 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
529
530* New commands
531
532skip -file file
533skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
534skip -function function
535skip -rfunction regular-expression
536 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
537 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
538 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
539
540maint info line-table REGEXP
541 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data struture.
542
543maint selftest
544 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
545
546new-ui INTERP TTY
547 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
548 using the TTY file for input/output.
549
550* Python Scripting
551
552 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
553 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
554 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
555 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
556 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
557
558signal-event EVENTID
559 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
560 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
561 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
562 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
563 signalling an event.
564
565* Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
566 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
567 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
568
569* Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
570 been removed:
571
572 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
573 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
574 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
575 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
576 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
577 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
578
579* Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
580 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
581 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
582 bytecode into native code.
583
584* MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
585 recording. For example:
586
587 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
588
589* MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
590
591 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
592
593* New targets
594
595Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
596
597*** Changes in GDB 7.11
598
599* GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
600
601* Per-inferior thread numbers
602
603 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
604 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
605 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
606
607 (gdb) info threads
608 Id Target Id Frame
609 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
610 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
611 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
612 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
613
614 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
615 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
616 are no longer unique between inferiors.
617
618 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
619 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
620 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
621
622 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
623 IDs.
624
625* Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
626 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
627
628 (gdb) thread 2.1
629 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
630 (gdb)
631
632* In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
633 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
634 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
635 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
636 threads 2.*".
637
638* You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
639 all threads.
640
641* The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
642 the current thread.
643
644* The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
645 current inferior.
646
647* GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
648 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
649 example:
650
651 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
652 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
653
654* Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
655
656* Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
657
658* The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
659 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
660
661* GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
662 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
663 clients.
664
665* Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
666 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
667 at the same time.
668
669* Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
670 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
671 into native code.
672
673* GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
674
675* "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
676 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
677 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
678
679* In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
680 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
681
682* New commands
683
684maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
685maint show target-non-stop
686 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
687 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
688 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
689
690maint set bfd-sharing
691maint show bfd-sharing
692 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
693
694set debug bfd-cache
695show debug bfd-cache
696 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
697
698set debug fbsd-lwp
699show debug fbsd-lwp
700 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
701
702set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
703show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
704 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
705
706set remote thread-events
707show remote thread-events
708 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
709
710set ada print-signatures on|off
711show ada print-signatures"
712 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
713 selection menus. It is activaled (@code{on}) by default.
714
715set max-value-size
716show max-value-size
717 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
718 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
719 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
720
721* The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
722 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
723 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
724 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
725 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
726 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
727
728* The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
729 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
730
731* The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
732 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
733
734* Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
735
736 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
737 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
738 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
739 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
740 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
741 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
742
743* Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
744 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
745
746catch handlers
747 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
748
749* New remote packets
750
751exec stop reason
752 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
753
754exec-events feature in qSupported
755 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
756 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
757 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
758 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
759
760vCtrlC
761 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
762 non-stop mode.
763
764thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
765 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
766
767thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
768 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
769
770QThreadEvents
771 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
772 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
773 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
774 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
775 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
776 stop for that same thread.
777
778N stop reply
779 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
780 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
781 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
782
783QCatchSyscalls
784 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
785 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
786
787syscall_entry stop reason
788 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
789
790syscall_return stop reason
791 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
792
793* Extended-remote exec events
794
795 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
796 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
797 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
798
799set remote exec-event-feature-packet
800show remote exec-event-feature-packet
801 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
802
803 * Thread names in remote protocol
804
805 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
806 thread.
807
808* Target remote mode fork and exec events
809
810 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
811 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
812 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
813 fork and exec catchpoints.
814
815* Remote syscall events
816
817 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
818 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
819
820set remote catch-syscall-packet
821show remote catch-syscall-packet
822 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
823
824* MI changes
825
826 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
827 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
828 left.
829
830* Python Scripting
831
832 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
833 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
834 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
835 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
836 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
837 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
838
839*** Changes in GDB 7.10
840
841* Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
842 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
843 including advance SIMD instructions.
844
845* Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
846
847* GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
848 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
849 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
850 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
851 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
852 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
853 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
854
855* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
856 cpu information :
857 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
858
859* GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
860 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
861 remote serial I/O.
862
863* The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
864 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
865 and may include things like its command line arguments.
866
867* The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
868 is now available on all platforms.
869
870* Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
871 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
872 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
873 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
874 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
875 backward compatibility.
876
877* The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
878 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
879 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
880 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
881
882* GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
883 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
884 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
885 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
886 packets" below.
887
888* The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
889
890* GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
891
892* On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
893 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
894 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
895 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
896 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
897 See "New remote packets" below.
898
899* The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
900 available register groups, including target specific groups.
901
902* The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
903 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
904 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
905 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
906 are ignored.
907
908* Guile Scripting
909
910 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
911
912* Python Scripting
913
914 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
915 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
916 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
917 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
918 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
919 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
920 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
921 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
922 "const" version of the value respectively.
923
924* New commands
925
926maint print symbol-cache
927 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
928
929maint print symbol-cache-statistics
930 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
931
932maint flush-symbol-cache
933 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
934
935record btrace bts
936record bts
937 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
938
939compile print
940 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
941
942tui enable
943tui disable
944 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
945
946show mpx bound
947set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
948 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
949
950record btrace pt
951record pt
952 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
953
954maint info btrace
955 Print information about branch tracing internals.
956
957maint btrace packet-history
958 Print the raw branch tracing data.
959
960maint btrace clear-packet-history
961 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
962
963maint btrace clear
964 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
965 anew by the next "record" command.
966
967* New options
968
969set debug dwarf-die
970 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
971show debug dwarf-die
972 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
973
974set debug dwarf-read
975 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
976show debug dwarf-read
977 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
978
979maint set dwarf always-disassemble
980 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
981maint show dwarf always-disassemble
982 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
983
984maint set dwarf max-cache-age
985 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
986maint show dwarf max-cache-age
987 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
988
989set debug dwarf-line
990show debug dwarf-line
991 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
992
993set max-completions
994show max-completions
995 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
996 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
997 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
998 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
999
1000set history remove-duplicates
1001show history remove-duplicates
1002 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1003
1004maint set symbol-cache-size
1005maint show symbol-cache-size
1006 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1007
1008set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1009 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1010 BTS format.
1011 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1012 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1013
1014set debug linux-namespaces
1015show debug linux-namespaces
1016 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1017
1018set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1019 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1020 Intel Processor Trace format.
1021 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1022 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1023
1024maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1025 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1026 packet history.
1027
1028* The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
1029 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
1030
1031* Python/Guile scripting
1032
1033 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
1034 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
1035
1036* New remote packets
1037
1038qXfer:btrace-conf:read
1039 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
1040
1041Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
1042 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
1043
1044Qbtrace:pt
1045 Enable Intel Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
1046 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
1047 qSupported query.
1048
1049Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
1050 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
1051 Trace format.
1052
1053swbreak stop reason
1054 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
1055 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
1056 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
1057 mode operation.
1058
1059hwbreak stop reason
1060 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
1061 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
1062
1063vFile:fstat:
1064 Return information about files on the remote system.
1065
1066qXfer:exec-file:read
1067 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
1068 create a process running on the remote system.
1069
1070vFile:setfs:
1071 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
1072 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
1073 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
1074 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
1075
1076fork stop reason
1077 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
1078
1079vfork stop reason
1080 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
1081
1082vforkdone stop reason
1083 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
1084 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
1085
1086fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
1087 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
1088 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
1089 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
1090 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
1091 whether these features are enabled.
1092
1093* Extended-remote fork events
1094
1095 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
1096 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
1097 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
1098 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
1099
1100* The info record command now shows the recording format and the
1101 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
1102 the btrace record target.
1103 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
1104
1105* GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
1106 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
1107
1108* GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
1109 targets.
1110
1111* Removed command line options
1112
1113-xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
1114
1115* Removed targets and native configurations
1116
1117HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
1118Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1119
1120* New configure options
1121
1122--with-intel-pt
1123 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
1124 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
1125
1126--with-libipt-prefix=PATH
1127 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
1128 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
1129 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
1130
1131*** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
1132
1133* Python Scripting
1134
1135 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
1136
1137*** Changes in GDB 7.9
1138
1139* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
1140
1141* Python Scripting
1142
1143 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
1144 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
1145 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
1146 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
1147 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
1148 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
1149 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
1150 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
1151 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
1152 selecting a new file to debug.
1153 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
1154 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
1155
1156 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
1157 inferior.
1158
1159 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
1160 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
1161 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
1162 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
1163
1164* New Python-based convenience functions:
1165
1166 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1167 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1168 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1169 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1170
1171* GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
1172 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
1173 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
1174 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
1175 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
1176 interface with this new feature are:
1177
1178 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
1179 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
1180
1181* New commands
1182
1183demangle [-l language] [--] name
1184 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
1185 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
1186 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
1187 as "maint demangler-warning".
1188
1189queue-signal signal-name-or-number
1190 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
1191
1192add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
1193 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
1194 scripts.
1195
1196maint print user-registers
1197 List all currently available "user" registers.
1198
1199compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
1200 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
1201 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
1202
1203compile file [-r|-raw] filename
1204 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
1205 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
1206 provided.
1207
1208* On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
1209 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
1210 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
1211 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
1212 at resume time.
1213
1214* Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
1215 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
1216 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
1217 switched threads meanwhile.
1218
1219* "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
1220
1221 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
1222 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
1223 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
1224 is now the default mode.
1225
1226* New options
1227
1228set debug symbol-lookup
1229show debug symbol-lookup
1230 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
1231
1232* MI changes
1233
1234 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
1235 inferiors that have exited.
1236
1237* New targets
1238
1239MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
1240
1241* Removed targets
1242
1243Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1244
1245Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
1246SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
1247SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
1248VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
1249VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
1250
1251* The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1252 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1253 its alias "share", instead.
1254
1255*** Changes in GDB 7.8
1256
1257* New command line options
1258
1259-D data-directory
1260 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
1261
1262* GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
1263 as specified in ISO C99.
1264
1265* The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
1266 with or without disassembly.
1267
1268* Guile scripting
1269
1270 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
1271 available is determined at configure time.
1272 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
1273 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
1274
1275* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1276
1277guile [code]
1278gu [code]
1279 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
1280
1281guile-repl
1282gr
1283 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
1284
1285info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
1286 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
1287
1288* The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
1289 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
1290
1291* New options
1292
1293set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
1294show print symbol-loading
1295 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
1296 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
1297 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
1298 becomes less useful.
1299
1300set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
1301show guile print-stack
1302 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
1303
1304set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
1305show auto-load guile-scripts
1306 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
1307
1308maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
1309maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
1310 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
1311 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
1312 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
1313 usage of this option.
1314
1315set auto-connect-native-target
1316
1317 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
1318 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
1319 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
1320
1321set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
1322show record btrace replay-memory-access
1323 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
1324
1325maint set target-async (on|off)
1326maint show target-async
1327 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
1328 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
1329 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
1330 occurring only in synchronous mode.
1331
1332set mi-async (on|off)
1333show mi-async
1334 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
1335 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
1336
1337* "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
1338 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
1339
1340* Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
1341 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
1342 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
1343 "set target-async on" command.
1344
1345* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1346
1347 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
1348 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
1349 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
1350 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
1351 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
1352
1353* The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
1354 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
1355 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
1356
1357* The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
1358 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
1359 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
1360 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
1361 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
1362 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
1363 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
1364
1365* The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
1366 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
1367
1368* The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
1369 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
1370 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
1371
1372* The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
1373 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
1374 memory or registers.
1375
1376* The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
1377
1378* The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
1379 remote. It now works with all targets.
1380
1381* All native targets are now consistently called "native".
1382 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
1383 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
1384 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
1385 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
1386 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
1387 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
1388 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
1389 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
1390 target-stack".
1391
1392* The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
1393 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
1394 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
1395
1396* GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
1397
1398* Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
1399 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
1400 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
1401
1402* New remote packets
1403
1404qXfer:btrace:read's annex
1405 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
1406 branch trace incrementally.
1407
1408* Python Scripting
1409
1410 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
1411 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
1412 available.
1413 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
1414 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
1415 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
1416 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
1417 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
1418
1419* New targets
1420PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
1421
1422* The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1423 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1424 its alias "share", instead.
1425
1426* The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
1427 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
1428 instead.
1429
1430* MI changes
1431
1432 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
1433 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
1434 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
1435 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
1436 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
1437 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
1438 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
1439 commands and CLI execution commands.
1440
1441*** Changes in GDB 7.7
1442
1443* Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
1444 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
1445 recording has been added.
1446
1447* GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1448
1449* GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
1450 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
1451
1452* New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
1453 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
1454 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
1455 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
1456 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
1457 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
1458 "void".
1459
1460* The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
1461
1462* The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
1463
1464* GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
1465 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
1466 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
1467 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
1468
1469 (gdb) p $rax
1470 $1 = <not saved>
1471
1472 (gdb) info registers rax
1473 rax <not saved>
1474
1475 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
1476 "*value not available*".
1477
1478* New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
1479 to binaries.
1480
1481* Python scripting
1482
1483 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
1484 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
1485 ** Line tables representation has been added.
1486 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
1487 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
1488 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
1489
1490* New targets
1491
1492Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
1493Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
1494Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
1495
1496* Removed native configurations
1497
1498Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
1499been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
1500
1501arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1502i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1503i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
1504i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
1505m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1506sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1507vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1508
1509* New commands:
1510catch rethrow
1511 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
1512maint check-psymtabs
1513 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
1514maint check-symtabs
1515 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
1516maint expand-symtabs
1517 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
1518
1519show configuration
1520 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1521
1522maint set|show per-command
1523maint set|show per-command space
1524maint set|show per-command time
1525maint set|show per-command symtab
1526 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
1527
1528remove-symbol-file FILENAME
1529remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
1530 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
1531 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
1532 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
1533
1534info exceptions
1535info exceptions REGEXP
1536 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
1537 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
1538 are listed.
1539
1540* New options
1541
1542set debug symfile off|on
1543show debug symfile
1544 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
1545 symbol tables within those files
1546
1547set print raw frame-arguments
1548show print raw frame-arguments
1549 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
1550 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
1551
1552set remote trace-status-packet
1553show remote trace-status-packet
1554 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
1555
1556set debug nios2
1557show debug nios2
1558 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
1559
1560set range-stepping
1561show range-stepping
1562 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
1563
1564set startup-with-shell
1565show startup-with-shell
1566 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
1567 directly.
1568
1569set code-cache
1570show code-cache
1571 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
1572 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
1573
1574* You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
1575 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
1576 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
1577 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
1578 "set height 0".
1579
1580* The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
1581 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
1582 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
1583
1584* New command-line options
1585--configuration
1586 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1587
1588* The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
1589 buffer in Common Trace Format.
1590
1591* Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
1592 GDB command gcore.
1593
1594* GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
1595
1596* The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
1597 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
1598
1599* The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
1600 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
1601
1602* The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
1603 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
1604 due to an uncaught signal.
1605
1606* MI changes
1607
1608 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
1609 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
1610 command, which should contain "language-option".
1611
1612 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
1613 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
1614
1615 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
1616 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
1617 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
1618 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
1619 "undefined-command-error-code".
1620
1621 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
1622 Trace Format now.
1623
1624 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
1625
1626 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
1627 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
1628 are displayed.
1629
1630 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
1631 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
1632
1633 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
1634 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
1635 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
1636
1637 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
1638 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
1639 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
1640 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
1641 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
1642 "exec-run-start-option".
1643
1644 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
1645 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
1646
1647 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
1648 the new "info exceptions" command.
1649
1650* New system-wide configuration scripts
1651 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
1652 configuration scripts for the following systems:
1653 ** ElinOS
1654 ** Wind River Linux
1655
1656* GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
1657 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
1658 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
1659 below.
1660
1661* GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
1662 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
1663
1664* On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
1665 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
1666 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
1667
1668* New remote packets
1669
1670vCont;r
1671
1672 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
1673 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
1674 involvemement at each single-step.
1675
1676qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
1677 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
1678 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
1679 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
1680 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
1681 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
1682 speedup.
1683
1684* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1685
1686 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
1687 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
1688
1689 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
1690 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
1691 trace state variables.
1692
1693 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
1694 target.
1695
1696* New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
1697 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
1698
1699* GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
1700
1701* The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
1702 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
1703 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
1704 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1705
1706*** Changes in GDB 7.6
1707
1708* Target record has been renamed to record-full.
1709 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
1710 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
1711 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
1712
1713set|show record full insn-number-max
1714set|show record full stop-at-limit
1715set|show record full memory-query
1716
1717* A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
1718 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
1719 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
1720 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
1721 This new recording method can be enabled using:
1722
1723record btrace
1724
1725 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
1726 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
1727
1728* Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
1729 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
1730 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
1731
1732record instruction-history prints the execution history at
1733 instruction granularity
1734
1735record function-call-history prints the execution history at
1736 function granularity
1737
1738* New native configurations
1739
1740ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
1741FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
1742x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
1743Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
1744
1745* New targets
1746
1747ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
1748ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
1749Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
1750x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
1751Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
1752
1753* If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
1754 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
1755 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
1756 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
1757 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
1758 --data-directory command-line option.
1759
1760* New command line options:
1761
1762-nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
1763 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
1764
1765* Removed command line options
1766
1767-epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
1768 Emacs.
1769
1770* The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
1771 type formatting.
1772
1773* 'info proc' now works on some core files.
1774
1775* Python scripting
1776
1777 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
1778
1779 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
1780
1781 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
1782
1783 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
1784
1785 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
1786 of architecture in the Python API.
1787
1788 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
1789 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
1790
1791* New Python-based convenience functions:
1792
1793 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
1794 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
1795 ** $_strlen(str)
1796 ** $_regex(str, regex)
1797
1798* The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
1799 given an argument.
1800
1801* The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
1802 default for GCC since November 2000.
1803
1804* The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
1805
1806* The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
1807 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
1808
1809* New configure options
1810
1811--enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
1812 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
1813 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
1814 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
1815 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
1816 options allow the user to override that default.
1817--with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
1818 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
1819 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
1820
1821* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1822
1823catch signal
1824 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
1825 conditions to be attached.
1826
1827maint info bfds
1828 List the BFDs known to GDB.
1829
1830python-interactive [command]
1831pi [command]
1832 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
1833 and print the result of expressions.
1834
1835py [command]
1836 "py" is a new alias for "python".
1837
1838enable type-printer [name]...
1839disable type-printer [name]...
1840 Enable or disable type printers.
1841
1842* Removed commands
1843
1844 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
1845 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
1846 instead.
1847
1848* New options
1849
1850set print type methods (on|off)
1851show print type methods
1852 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
1853 The default is to show them.
1854
1855set print type typedefs (on|off)
1856show print type typedefs
1857 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
1858 The default is to show them.
1859
1860set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
1861show filename-display
1862 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
1863 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
1864
1865set trace-buffer-size
1866show trace-buffer-size
1867 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
1868
1869set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
1870show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
1871 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
1872
1873set debug aarch64
1874show debug aarch64
1875 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
1876 The default is off.
1877
1878set debug coff-pe-read
1879show debug coff-pe-read
1880 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
1881 exported symbols.
1882
1883set debug mach-o
1884show debug mach-o
1885 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
1886 processing.
1887
1888set debug notification
1889show debug notification
1890 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
1891
1892* MI changes
1893
1894 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
1895 "=cmd-param-changed".
1896 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
1897 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
1898 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
1899 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
1900 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
1901 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
1902 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
1903 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
1904 "=memory-changed".
1905 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
1906 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
1907 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
1908 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
1909 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
1910 library load/unload events.
1911 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
1912 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
1913 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
1914 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
1915 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
1916 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
1917 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
1918 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
1919
1920* GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
1921 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
1922 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
1923 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
1924
1925* New remote packets
1926
1927QTBuffer:size
1928 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
1929 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1930
1931Qbtrace:bts
1932 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
1933 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
1934 qSupported query.
1935
1936Qbtrace:off
1937 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
1938 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1939
1940qXfer:btrace:read
1941 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
1942 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1943
1944*** Changes in GDB 7.5
1945
1946* GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
1947 for more x32 ABI info.
1948
1949* GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
1950
1951* GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
1952
1953* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1954 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
1955 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
1956 "info os files" lists file descriptors
1957 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
1958 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
1959 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
1960 "info os msg" lists message queues
1961 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
1962
1963* GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
1964 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
1965 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
1966 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
1967 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
1968 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
1969
1970* GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
1971 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
1972 record/replay support.
1973
1974* The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
1975
1976* Python scripting
1977
1978 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
1979 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
1980
1981 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
1982
1983 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
1984 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
1985
1986 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
1987
1988 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
1989 the source at which the symbol was defined.
1990
1991 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
1992 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
1993 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
1994 symbol's value.
1995
1996 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
1997 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
1998
1999 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2000 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2001 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2002
2003 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2004 object associated with a PC value.
2005
2006 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2007 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2008
2009* Go language support.
2010 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2011 language.
2012
2013* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2014 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2015
2016* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2017 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2018
2019* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2020 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2021 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2022 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2023 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2024 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
2025
2026* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
2027 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
2028 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
2029 build/libcpp/expr.c.
2030
2031* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
2032 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
2033
2034* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
2035 since December 2007.
2036
2037* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
2038 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
2039 command does. For instance:
2040
2041 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
2042
2043 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
2044 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
2045 created, using the "condition" command.
2046
2047* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
2048 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
2049
2050* GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
2051
2052* The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
2053 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
2054 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
2055 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
2056 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
2057 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
2058 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
2059 files with older .gdb_index sections.
2060
2061 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
2062 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
2063 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
2064 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
2065 the .gdb_index section.
2066
2067* Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
2068
2069* GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
2070 target.
2071
2072* MI changes
2073
2074 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
2075
2076 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
2077
2078* New commands
2079
2080 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2081 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2082 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
2083
2084 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
2085 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
2086
2087 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
2088 several hits.
2089
2090 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
2091 C++ and Java objects.
2092
2093 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
2094 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
2095 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
2096 configured with '--with-python'.
2097
2098 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
2099 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
2100 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
2101 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
2102 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
2103 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
2104 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
2105
2106 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
2107 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
2108 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
2109 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
2110
2111 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
2112 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
2113 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
2114 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
2115
2116 ** "set print symbol"
2117 "show print symbol"
2118 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
2119 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
2120 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
2121
2122* Deprecated commands
2123
2124 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
2125 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
2126
2127* New targets
2128
2129Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2130HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
2131
2132* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
2133 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
2134 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
2135 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
2136 evaluates to true.
2137
2138* New options
2139
2140set mips compression
2141show mips compression
2142 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
2143 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
2144 mips16
2145 micromips
2146 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
2147
2148set breakpoint condition-evaluation
2149show breakpoint condition-evaluation
2150 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
2151 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
2152 available mode.
2153 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
2154 target.
2155
2156set auto-load off
2157 Disable auto-loading globally.
2158
2159show auto-load
2160 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
2161
2162set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
2163show auto-load gdb-scripts
2164 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
2165
2166set auto-load python-scripts on|off
2167show auto-load python-scripts
2168 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
2169
2170set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
2171show auto-load local-gdbinit
2172 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
2173
2174set auto-load libthread-db on|off
2175show auto-load libthread-db
2176 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
2177
2178set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2179show auto-load scripts-directory
2180 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
2181 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
2182 of the directories listed by this option.
2183 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2184
2185set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2186show auto-load safe-path
2187 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
2188 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2189
2190set debug auto-load on|off
2191show debug auto-load
2192 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
2193
2194set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
2195show dprintf-style
2196 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
2197 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
2198 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
2199 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
2200
2201set dprintf-function <expr>
2202show dprintf-function
2203set dprintf-channel <expr>
2204show dprintf-channel
2205 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
2206 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
2207
2208set disconnected-dprintf on|off
2209show disconnected-dprintf
2210 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
2211 after GDB disconnects.
2212
2213* New configure options
2214
2215--with-auto-load-dir
2216 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
2217 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
2218 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
2219 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
2220 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
2221
2222--with-auto-load-safe-path
2223 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
2224 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
2225
2226--without-auto-load-safe-path
2227 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
2228 security feature.
2229
2230* New remote packets
2231
2232z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
2233
2234 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
2235 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
2236 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
2237 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
2238
2239QProgramSignals:
2240
2241 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
2242 program without GDB involvement.
2243
2244* New command line options
2245
2246--init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
2247 before loading inferior.
2248--init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
2249 execute it before loading inferior.
2250
2251*** Changes in GDB 7.4
2252
2253* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
2254 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
2255 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
2256 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
2257 inferior changes.
2258
2259* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
2260 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
2261
2262* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
2263 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
2264 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
2265 target hardware watchpoint.
2266
2267 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
2268 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
2269 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
2270 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
2271
2272* Python scripting
2273
2274 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
2275 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
2276 existing one.
2277
2278 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
2279 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
2280 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
2281 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
2282 now "message", which just prints the error message without
2283 the stack trace.
2284
2285 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
2286 Python API.
2287
2288 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
2289 modules library. This module provides functionality for
2290 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
2291 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
2292 corresponding value.
2293
2294 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
2295 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
2296 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
2297 on GDB start-up.
2298
2299 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
2300 static_block will return the global and static blocks
2301 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
2302 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
2303
2304 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
2305
2306 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
2307 "gdb.breakpoints".
2308
2309 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
2310 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
2311 available in the CLI.
2312
2313 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
2314 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
2315 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
2316 "some_type.items()".
2317
2318 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
2319 new object file.
2320
2321 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
2322 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
2323 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
2324 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
2325 any anonymous fields.
2326
2327* MI changes
2328
2329 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
2330 "solib-event".
2331
2332 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
2333 "=breakpoint-modified".
2334
2335 ** New command -ada-task-info.
2336
2337* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
2338 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
2339 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
2340 lives.
2341
2342 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
2343 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
2344 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
2345 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
2346 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
2347
2348 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
2349 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
2350
2351* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
2352 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
2353 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
2354 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
2355 use this option to specify where to find it.
2356
2357* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2358 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
2359 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
2360 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
2361 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
2362 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2363 section in the user manual for more details.
2364
2365* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
2366 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
2367 become available after that.
2368
2369* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
2370
2371* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
2372 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
2373 gcc version 4.7.
2374
2375* New commands
2376
2377!SHELL COMMAND
2378 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
2379 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
2380
2381* Changed commands
2382
2383watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
2384 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
2385 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
2386
2387info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
2388 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
2389 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
2390
2391info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
2392 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
2393 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
2394 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
2395 name starts with a hyphen.
2396
2397collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
2398 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
2399 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
2400 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
2401 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
2402 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
2403 number of bytes that will be collected.
2404
2405tstart [NOTES]
2406 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
2407 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
2408 setting the variable trace-notes.
2409
2410tstop [NOTES]
2411 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
2412 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
2413 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
2414 trace-stop-notes.
2415
2416* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
2417 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
2418 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
2419 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
2420 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
2421 is running.
2422
2423* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
2424 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
2425 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
2426
2427* New options
2428
2429set debug dwarf2-read
2430show debug dwarf2-read
2431 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
2432 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
2433
2434set debug symtab-create
2435show debug symtab-create
2436 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
2437 creation. The default is off.
2438
2439set extended-prompt
2440show extended-prompt
2441 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
2442 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
2443 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
2444 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
2445 prompt is displayed.
2446
2447set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
2448show print entry-values
2449 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
2450 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
2451 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
2452
2453set debug entry-values
2454show debug entry-values
2455 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
2456 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
2457
2458set basenames-may-differ
2459show basenames-may-differ
2460 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
2461 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
2462 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
2463 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
2464 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
2465 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
2466 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
2467 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
2468
2469set trace-user
2470show trace-user
2471set trace-notes
2472show trace-notes
2473 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
2474 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
2475 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
2476 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
2477
2478set trace-stop-notes
2479show trace-stop-notes
2480 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
2481 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
2482 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
2483 started by someone else.
2484
2485* New remote packets
2486
2487QTEnable
2488
2489 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2490
2491QTDisable
2492
2493 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2494
2495QTNotes
2496
2497 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
2498
2499qTP
2500
2501 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
2502
2503qTMinFTPILen
2504
2505 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
2506 be placed.
2507
2508* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
2509 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
2510
2511* New targets
2512
2513Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
2514
2515* New Simulators
2516
2517Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2518
2519*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
2520
2521* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
2522
2523*** Changes in GDB 7.3
2524
2525* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
2526 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
2527 matches the given regular expression.
2528
2529* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
2530
2531* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
2532 dumping the instruction opcodes.
2533
2534* New command line options
2535
2536-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
2537 This is mostly for testing purposes.
2538
2539* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
2540 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
2541
2542* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
2543 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
2544 source path list instead of augmenting it.
2545
2546* GDB now understands thread names.
2547
2548 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
2549 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
2550
2551 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
2552 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
2553
2554* OpenCL C
2555 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
2556 has been integrated into GDB.
2557
2558* Python scripting
2559
2560 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
2561 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
2562 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
2563
2564 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2565 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
2566 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
2567 and allows for more dynamic content.
2568
2569 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
2570 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
2571 have an is_valid method.
2572
2573 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2574 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
2575 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
2576
2577 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
2578
2579 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
2580 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
2581 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
2582 that function like so:
2583
2584 result = some_value (10,20)
2585
2586 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
2587 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
2588 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
2589
2590 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
2591 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
2592 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
2593 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
2594 New function: register_pretty_printer.
2595
2596 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
2597 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
2598
2599 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
2600
2601 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
2602 selected thread.
2603
2604 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
2605 holds the thread's name.
2606
2607 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
2608 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
2609 occurring in the process being debugged.
2610 The following events are currently supported:
2611 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
2612 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
2613 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
2614
2615* C++ Improvements:
2616
2617 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
2618 instantiation. For example, if you have:
2619
2620 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
2621
2622 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
2623 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
2624 was added to GCC 4.5.
2625
2626 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
2627 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
2628 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
2629 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
2630 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
2631 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
2632
2633* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
2634 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
2635 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
2636 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
2637 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
2638
2639* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
2640 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
2641 execution to a label.
2642
2643* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
2644 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
2645 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
2646 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
2647
2648* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
2649 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
2650 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
2651 of scope.
2652
2653* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
2654
2655 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
2656 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
2657 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
2658 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
2659 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
2660 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
2661
2662 (gdb) info threads
2663 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
2664
2665 While now you see this:
2666
2667 (gdb) info threads
2668 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
2669
2670 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
2671 dumps.
2672
2673 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
2674 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
2675 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
2676 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
2677
2678* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2679 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
2680 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
2681 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2682 section in the user manual for more details.
2683
2684* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2685
2686 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
2687 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
2688
2689 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
2690
2691* New native configurations
2692
2693ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
2694
2695* New targets:
2696
2697Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
2698
2699* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
2700 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
2701 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
2702 in the GDB user manual.
2703
2704* Guile support was removed.
2705
2706* New features in the GNU simulator
2707
2708 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
2709
2710 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
2711
2712*** Changes in GDB 7.2
2713
2714* Shared library support for remote targets by default
2715
2716 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
2717 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
2718 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
2719 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
2720 was always disabled for such configurations.
2721
2722* C++ Improvements:
2723
2724 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
2725
2726 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
2727 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
2728 For example:
2729 namespace A
2730 {
2731 class B { };
2732 void foo (B) { }
2733 }
2734 ...
2735 A::B b
2736 foo(b)
2737 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
2738 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
2739 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
2740
2741 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
2742
2743 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
2744 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
2745 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
2746 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
2747 entry.
2748 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
2749 mentioned flavors of operators.
2750
2751 ** static const class members
2752
2753 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
2754 class definition has been fixed.
2755
2756* Windows Thread Information Block access.
2757
2758 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
2759 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
2760 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
2761 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
2762 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
2763 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
2764
2765* Static tracepoints
2766
2767 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
2768 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
2769 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
2770 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
2771 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
2772 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
2773 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
2774 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
2775 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
2776 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
2777 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
2778 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
2779 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
2780 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
2781 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
2782 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
2783 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
2784 the "New remote packets" section below.
2785
2786* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
2787
2788 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
2789 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
2790 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
2791 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
2792
2793* Observer mode
2794
2795 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
2796 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
2797 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
2798 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
2799 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
2800 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
2801 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
2802
2803* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
2804 current thread.
2805
2806* New remote packets
2807
2808qGetTIBAddr
2809
2810 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
2811
2812qRelocInsn
2813
2814 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
2815 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
2816 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
2817 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
2818 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
2819 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
2820
2821qTfSTM, qTsSTM
2822
2823 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
2824
2825qTSTMat
2826
2827 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
2828 program.
2829
2830qXfer:statictrace:read
2831
2832 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
2833 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
2834 to gdb's qSupported query.
2835
2836QAllow
2837
2838 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
2839
2840QTDPsrc
2841
2842 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
2843 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
2844
2845* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
2846 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
2847 a directory.
2848
2849* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2850
2851 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
2852 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
2853 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
2854 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
2855
2856 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
2857 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
2858 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
2859 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
2860 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
2861 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
2862 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
2863
2864 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
2865 for static tracepoints support.
2866
2867 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
2868
2869* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
2870 it understands register description.
2871
2872* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
2873
2874* X86 general purpose registers
2875
2876 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
2877 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
2878 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
2879 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
2880 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
2881
2882* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
2883 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
2884 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
2885 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
2886 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
2887 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
2888
2889* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
2890 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
2891 in the specified file.
2892
2893* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
2894 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
2895 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
2896 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
2897 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
2898 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
2899 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
2900 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
2901 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
2902 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
2903
2904* New commands
2905
2906eval template, expressions...
2907 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
2908 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
2909
2910set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
2911show target-file-system-kind
2912 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
2913 names.
2914
2915save breakpoints <filename>
2916 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
2917 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
2918 definitions, use the `source' command.
2919
2920`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
2921is now deprecated.
2922
2923info static-tracepoint-markers
2924 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
2925
2926strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
2927 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
2928 function, line, address, or marker ID.
2929
2930set observer on|off
2931show observer
2932 Enable and disable observer mode.
2933
2934set may-write-registers on|off
2935set may-write-memory on|off
2936set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
2937set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
2938set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
2939set may-interrupt on|off
2940 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
2941 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
2942 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
2943 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
2944 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
2945 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
2946 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
2947
2948set record memory-query on|off
2949show record memory-query
2950 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
2951 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
2952
2953* Changed commands
2954
2955disassemble
2956 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
2957
2958* Python scripting
2959
2960** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
2961 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
2962 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
2963 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
2964 GDB using Python' in the manual.
2965
2966** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
2967 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
2968 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
2969 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
2970
2971** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
2972 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
2973
2974** New exception gdb.GdbError.
2975
2976** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
2977
2978** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
2979
2980** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
2981 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
2982 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
2983
2984* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
2985there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
2986tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
2987regular breakpoints.
2988
2989* New targets
2990
2991ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
2992
2993* D language support.
2994 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
2995 language.
2996
2997* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
2998 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
2999 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3000 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3001 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3002
3003* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3004 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3005 conditions of the form:
3006
3007 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3008
3009 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3010 interface mentioned above.
3011
3012*** Changes in GDB 7.1
3013
3014* C++ Improvements
3015
3016 ** Namespace Support
3017
3018 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3019 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3020 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3021 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3022 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3023
3024 ** Bug Fixes
3025
3026 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
3027 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
3028 qualified name.
3029
3030 ** Cast Operators
3031
3032 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
3033 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
3034
3035* New targets
3036
3037Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
3038Renesas RX rx-*-elf
3039
3040* New Simulators
3041
3042Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
3043Renesas RX rx
3044
3045* Multi-program debugging.
3046
3047 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
3048 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
3049 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
3050 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
3051 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
3052 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
3053 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
3054 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
3055
3056* New tracing features
3057
3058 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
3059
3060 ** Trace state variables
3061
3062 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
3063 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
3064 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
3065 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
3066 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
3067 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
3068 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
3069 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
3070 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
3071 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
3072
3073 ** Fast tracepoints
3074
3075 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
3076 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
3077 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
3078 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
3079 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
3080 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
3081 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
3082 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
3083 the regular trace command.
3084
3085 ** Disconnected tracing
3086
3087 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
3088 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
3089 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
3090 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
3091 connection is lost unexpectedly.
3092
3093 ** Trace files
3094
3095 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
3096 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
3097 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
3098 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
3099 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
3100 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
3101 <name>".
3102
3103 ** Circular trace buffer
3104
3105 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
3106 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
3107 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
3108 not be available for all target agents.
3109
3110* Changed commands
3111
3112disassemble
3113 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
3114 the arguments to be comma-separated.
3115
3116info variables
3117 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
3118 which only declare a variable are not shown.
3119
3120source
3121 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
3122 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
3123 support.
3124
3125 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
3126 "set script-extension" (see below).
3127
3128* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3129
3130record save [<FILENAME>]
3131 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
3132 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
3133
3134record restore <FILENAME>
3135 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
3136 earlier time, for replay debugging.
3137
3138add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
3139 Add a new inferior.
3140
3141clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
3142 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
3143 inferior has loaded.
3144
3145remove-inferior ID
3146 Remove an inferior.
3147
3148maint info program-spaces
3149 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
3150
3151set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
3152show remote interrupt-sequence
3153 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
3154 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
3155 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
3156 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
3157 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
3158
3159set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
3160show remote interrupt-on-connect
3161 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
3162 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
3163 Linux kernel.
3164
3165set remotebreak [on | off]
3166show remotebreak
3167Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
3168
3169tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
3170 Create or modify a trace state variable.
3171
3172info tvariables
3173 List trace state variables and their values.
3174
3175delete tvariable $NAME ...
3176 Delete one or more trace state variables.
3177
3178teval EXPR, ...
3179 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
3180 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
3181
3182ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
3183 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
3184
3185* New expression syntax
3186
3187 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
3188 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
3189
3190* New options
3191
3192set follow-exec-mode new|same
3193show follow-exec-mode
3194 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
3195 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
3196 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
3197
3198set default-collect EXPR, ...
3199show default-collect
3200 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
3201 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
3202 such as registers or a critical global variable.
3203
3204set disconnected-tracing
3205show disconnected-tracing
3206 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
3207 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
3208 upon disconnection.
3209
3210set circular-trace-buffer
3211show circular-trace-buffer
3212 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
3213 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
3214 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
3215 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
3216
3217set script-extension off|soft|strict
3218show script-extension
3219 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
3220 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
3221 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
3222 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
3223 evaluation failed.
3224 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
3225
3226set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
3227show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
3228 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
3229 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
3230 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
3231 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
3232 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
3233 is on.
3234
3235* Python API Improvements
3236
3237 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
3238 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
3239 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
3240
3241 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
3242 `is_base_class' attribute.
3243
3244 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
3245
3246 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
3247 evaluate an expression.
3248
3249* New remote packets
3250
3251QTDV
3252 Define a trace state variable.
3253
3254qTV
3255 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
3256
3257QTDisconnected
3258 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
3259
3260QTBuffer:circular
3261 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
3262
3263qTfP, qTsP
3264 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
3265
3266* Bug fixes
3267
3268Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
3269
3270Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
3271much more reliable. In particular:
3272 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
3273 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
3274 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
3275 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
3276 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
3277 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
3278 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
3279 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
3280 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
3281 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
3282 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
3283 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
3284 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
3285 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
3286 non-threaded programs.
3287
3288PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
3289This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
3290libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
3291executable program.
3292
3293*** Changes in GDB 7.0
3294
3295* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
3296dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
3297them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
3298for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
3299"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
3300
3301* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
3302breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
3303or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
3304the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
3305for tracepoint actions.
3306
3307* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
3308raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
3309modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
3310
3311* Process record and replay
3312
3313 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
3314 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
3315 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
3316 execute commands.
3317
3318* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
3319step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
3320set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
3321reverse execution.
3322
3323* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
3324feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
33252.6.28 or later.
3326
3327* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
3328target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
3329char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
3330literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
3331U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
3332`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
3333system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
3334the installation instructions for more information.
3335
3336* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
3337remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
3338with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
3339the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
3340
3341* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
3342and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
3343
3344* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
3345now complete on file names.
3346
3347* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
3348completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
3349For instance, consider:
3350
3351 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
3352 # struct example variable;
3353 (gdb) p variable.
3354
3355If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
3356completions will be "f1" and "f2".
3357
3358* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
3359the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
3360
3361* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
3362operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
3363macros.
3364
3365* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
3366the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
3367implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
3368
3369* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
3370registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
3371can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
3372and simulator targets may also provide them.
3373
3374* New remote packets
3375
3376qSearch:memory:
3377 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3378
3379QStartNoAckMode
3380 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
3381 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
3382 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
3383
3384vKill
3385 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
3386 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
3387
3388qXfer:osdata:read
3389 Obtains additional operating system information
3390
3391qXfer:siginfo:read
3392qXfer:siginfo:write
3393 Read or write additional signal information.
3394
3395* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
3396
3397 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
3398 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
3399 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
3400
3401* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
3402DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
3403
3404* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
3405and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
3406`set/show sh calling-convention'.
3407
3408* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
3409with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
3410
3411* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
3412
3413* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
3414
3415* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
3416which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
3417
3418* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
3419list of section offsets.
3420
3421* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
3422conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
3423have also been fixed.
3424
3425* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
3426From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
3427are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
3428
3429* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
3430example, given:
3431
3432 template<typename T> class C { };
3433 C<char const *> c;
3434
3435GDB will now correctly handle all of:
3436
3437 ptype C<char const *>
3438 ptype C<char const*>
3439 ptype C<const char *>
3440 ptype C<const char*>
3441
3442* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
3443
3444 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
3445 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3446
3447 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
3448 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3449 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
3450
3451 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
3452 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
3453
3454 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
3455 gdbserver.
3456
3457 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
3458 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3459
3460 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
3461 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
3462 as appropriate.
3463
3464* Python scripting
3465
3466 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
3467 available is determined at configure time.
3468
3469 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
3470
3471* Ada tasking support
3472
3473 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
3474 been introduced:
3475
3476 info tasks
3477 Print the list of Ada tasks.
3478 info task N
3479 Print detailed information about task number N.
3480 task
3481 Print the task number of the current task.
3482 task N
3483 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
3484
3485* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
3486add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
3487
3488* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
3489
3490 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
3491 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
3492 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
3493 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
3494 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
3495 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
3496 below.
3497
3498* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
3499"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
3500information.
3501
3502* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
3503to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
3504architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
3505See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
3506more information.
3507
3508* Multi-architecture debugging.
3509
3510 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
3511 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
3512 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
3513 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
3514 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
3515
3516* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
3517use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
3518Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
3519powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
3520--enable-targets configure option.
3521
3522* Non-stop mode debugging.
3523
3524 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
3525 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
3526 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
3527 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
3528 section in the user manual for more information.
3529
3530 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
3531 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
3532 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
3533 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
3534 extensions on linux targets.
3535
3536* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3537
3538catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
3539 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
3540 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
3541 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
3542 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
3543 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
3544 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
3545 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
3546 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
3547
3548find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
3549 val1 [, val2, ...]
3550 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3551
3552maint set python print-stack
3553maint show python print-stack
3554 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
3555
3556python [CODE]
3557 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
3558
3559macro define
3560macro list
3561macro undef
3562 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
3563 interactively.
3564
3565info os processes
3566 Show operating system information about processes.
3567
3568info inferiors
3569 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
3570
3571inferior NUM
3572 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
3573
3574detach inferior NUM
3575 Detach from inferior number NUM.
3576
3577kill inferior NUM
3578 Kill inferior number NUM.
3579
3580* New options
3581
3582set spu stop-on-load
3583show spu stop-on-load
3584 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3585
3586set spu auto-flush-cache
3587show spu auto-flush-cache
3588 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
3589 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3590
3591set sh calling-convention
3592show sh calling-convention
3593 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
3594
3595set debug timestamp
3596show debug timestamp
3597 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
3598
3599set disassemble-next-line
3600show disassemble-next-line
3601 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
3602 the debuggee stops.
3603
3604set remote noack-packet
3605show remote noack-packet
3606 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
3607 under "New remote packets."
3608
3609set remote query-attached-packet
3610show remote query-attached-packet
3611 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
3612
3613set remote read-siginfo-object
3614show remote read-siginfo-object
3615 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
3616 packet.
3617
3618set remote write-siginfo-object
3619show remote write-siginfo-object
3620 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
3621 packet.
3622
3623set remote reverse-continue
3624show remote reverse-continue
3625 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
3626
3627set remote reverse-step
3628show remote reverse-step
3629 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
3630
3631set displaced-stepping
3632show displaced-stepping
3633 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
3634 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
3635 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
3636
3637set debug displaced
3638show debug displaced
3639 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
3640
3641maint set internal-error
3642maint show internal-error
3643 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
3644
3645maint set internal-warning
3646maint show internal-warning
3647 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
3648
3649set exec-wrapper
3650show exec-wrapper
3651unset exec-wrapper
3652 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3653
3654set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
3655show multiple-symbols
3656 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
3657 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
3658 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
3659
3660set breakpoint always-inserted
3661show breakpoint always-inserted
3662 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
3663 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
3664 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
3665
3666set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
3667show arm fallback-mode
3668set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
3669show arm force-mode
3670 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
3671 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
3672 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
3673 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
3674
3675set disable-randomization
3676show disable-randomization
3677 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
3678 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
3679 multiple debugging sessions.
3680
3681set non-stop
3682show non-stop
3683 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
3684 a breakpoint.
3685
3686set target-async
3687show target-async
3688 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
3689 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
3690 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
3691 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
3692
3693set target-wide-charset
3694show target-wide-charset
3695 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
3696 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
3697
3698set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
3699show tcp auto-retry
3700set tcp connect-timeout
3701show tcp connect-timeout
3702 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
3703 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
3704 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
3705
3706set libthread-db-search-path
3707show libthread-db-search-path
3708 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
3709 libthread_db.
3710
3711set schedule-multiple (on|off)
3712show schedule-multiple
3713 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
3714 the current process.
3715
3716set stack-cache
3717show stack-cache
3718 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
3719 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
3720 affecting correctness.
3721
3722set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
3723show interactive-mode
3724 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
3725 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
3726 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
3727 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
3728 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
3729
3730* Removed commands
3731
3732info forks
3733 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
3734 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
3735 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
3736 command.
3737
3738fork NUM
3739 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
3740 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
3741 alias for the `fork' command.
3742
3743process PID
3744 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
3745 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
3746 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
3747
3748delete fork NUM
3749 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
3750 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
3751 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
3752 fork' command.
3753
3754detach fork NUM
3755 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
3756 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
3757 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
3758 fork' command.
3759
3760* New native configurations
3761
3762x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
3763
3764x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
3765
3766* New targets
3767
3768Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
3769x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
3770x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
3771S+core 3 score-*-*
3772
3773* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
3774 (mingw32ce) debugging.
3775
3776* Removed commands
3777
3778catch load
3779catch unload
3780 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
3781
3782*** Changes in GDB 6.8
3783
3784* New native configurations
3785
3786NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
3787Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
3788
3789* New targets
3790
3791NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
3792Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
3793
3794* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3795
3796 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
3797 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
3798 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
3799 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
3800
3801* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
3802(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
3803
3804* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
3805is resolved.
3806
3807* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
3808including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
3809and in inlined functions.
3810
3811* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
3812accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
3813more than one contiguous range of addresses.
3814
3815* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
3816
3817* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
3818registers on PowerPC targets.
3819
3820* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
3821targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
3822
3823* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
3824commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
3825
3826* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
3827extended-remote mode.
3828
3829* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
3830The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
3831error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
3832The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
3833
3834* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
3835building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
3836target architectures.
3837
3838* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
3839Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
3840now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
3841stored in two consecutive float registers.
3842
3843* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
3844breakpoints now.
3845
3846* Improved support for debugging Ada
3847Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
3848include:
3849 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
3850 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
3851 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
3852 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
3853 of an assignment
3854 - Improved command completion in Ada
3855 - Several bug fixes
3856
3857* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
3858process.
3859
3860* New commands
3861
3862set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
3863show print frame-arguments
3864 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
3865 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
3866
3867remote put
3868remote get
3869remote delete
3870 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
3871
3872* New MI commands
3873
3874-target-file-put
3875-target-file-get
3876-target-file-delete
3877 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
3878
3879* New remote packets
3880
3881vFile:open:
3882vFile:close:
3883vFile:pread:
3884vFile:pwrite:
3885vFile:unlink:
3886 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
3887
3888vAttach
3889 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
3890 mode.
3891
3892vRun
3893 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
3894
3895*** Changes in GDB 6.7
3896
3897* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
3898bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
3899Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
3900
3901* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
3902symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
3903-Bsymbolic linker option.
3904
3905* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
3906recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
3907is not supported.
3908
3909* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
3910frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
3911
3912* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
391332-bit or 64-bit register values.
3914
3915* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
3916
3917* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
3918target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
3919a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
3920
3921* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
3922automatically displayed as character or string data.
3923
3924* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
3925arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
3926as strings.
3927
3928* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
3929for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
3930only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
3931
3932* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
3933iWMMXt coprocessor.
3934
3935* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
3936ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
3937has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
3938
3939* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
3940
3941* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
3942
3943* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
3944layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
3945segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
3946
3947* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
3948immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
3949
3950* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
3951"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
3952packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
3953where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
3954Windows and SymbianOS).
3955
3956* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
3957(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
3958
3959* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
3960according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
3961
3962* New commands
3963
3964set remoteflow
3965show remoteflow
3966 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
3967 when debugging using remote targets.
3968
3969set mem inaccessible-by-default
3970show mem inaccessible-by-default
3971 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
3972 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
3973 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
3974 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
3975 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
3976
3977set breakpoint auto-hw
3978show breakpoint auto-hw
3979 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
3980 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
3981 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
3982 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
3983 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
3984 including "next" and "finish".
3985
3986catch exception
3987catch exception unhandled
3988 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
3989
3990catch assert
3991 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
3992
3993set sysroot
3994show sysroot
3995 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
3996 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
3997 an alias to "set sysroot".
3998
3999info spu
4000 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4001 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4002 architecture.
4003
4004* New native configurations
4005
4006OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4007
4008set tdesc filename
4009unset tdesc filename
4010show tdesc filename
4011 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4012 not query the target for its built-in description.
4013
4014* New targets
4015
4016OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4017MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4018Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4019
4020* New remote packets
4021
4022QPassSignals:
4023 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4024 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4025
4026qXfer:features:read:
4027 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
4028 features.
4029
4030qXfer:spu:read:
4031qXfer:spu:write:
4032 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
4033 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
4034
4035qXfer:libraries:read:
4036 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
4037 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
4038 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
4039 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
4040
4041* Removed targets
4042
4043Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
4044
4045alpha*-*-osf1*
4046alpha*-*-osf2*
4047d10v-*-*
4048hppa*-*-hiux*
4049i[34567]86-ncr-*
4050i[34567]86-*-dgux*
4051i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
4052i[34567]86-*-netware*
4053i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
4054i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
4055i[34567]86-*-sco*
4056i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
4057i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
4058i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
4059i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
4060i[34567]86-*-unixware*
4061i[34567]86-*-sysv*
4062i[34567]86-*-isc*
4063m68*-cisco*-*
4064m68*-tandem-*
4065mips*-*-pe
4066rs6000-*-lynxos*
4067sh*-*-pe
4068
4069* Other removed features
4070
4071target abug
4072target cpu32bug
4073target est
4074target rom68k
4075
4076 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
4077
4078target hms
4079target e7000
4080target sh3
4081target sh3e
4082
4083 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
4084 H8/300.
4085
4086target ocd
4087
4088 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
4089 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
4090 interfaces.
4091
4092DWARF 1 support
4093
4094 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
4095 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
4096
4097Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
4098
4099 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
4100 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
4101 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
4102 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
4103
4104MIPS ".pdr" sections
4105
4106 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
4107 in debugging information.
4108
4109Scheme support
4110
4111 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
4112 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
4113
4114set mips stack-arg-size
4115set mips saved-gpreg-size
4116
4117 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
4118
4119*** Changes in GDB 6.6
4120
4121* New targets
4122
4123Xtensa xtensa-elf
4124Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
4125
4126* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
4127(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
4128running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
4129
4130* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
4131Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
4132supported.
4133
4134* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
4135broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
4136
4137* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
4138stub provides the required support.
4139
4140* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
4141longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
4142
4143* New commands
4144
4145set substitute-path
4146unset substitute-path
4147show substitute-path
4148 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
4149 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
4150 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
4151 between compilation and debugging.
4152
4153set trace-commands
4154show trace-commands
4155 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
4156 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
4157 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
4158
4159* REMOVED features
4160
4161The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
4162
4163Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
4164an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
4165
4166The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
4167
4168* New remote packets
4169
4170qSupported:
4171 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
4172 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
4173 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
4174 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
4175 target.
4176
4177qXfer:auxv:read:
4178 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
4179 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
4180
4181qXfer:memory-map:read:
4182 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
4183 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
4184
4185vFlashErase:
4186vFlashWrite:
4187vFlashDone:
4188 Erase and program a flash memory device.
4189
4190* Removed remote packets
4191
4192qPart:auxv:read:
4193 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
4194 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
4195
4196*** Changes in GDB 6.5
4197
4198* New targets
4199
4200Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
4201
4202Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4203
4204* New commands
4205
4206init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
4207 only if it doesn't already have a value.
4208
4209The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
4210
4211checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
4212
4213restart <n> Return the program state to a
4214 previously saved state.
4215
4216info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
4217
4218delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
4219
4220set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
4221 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
4222
4223info forks List forks of the user program that
4224 are available to be debugged.
4225
4226fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
4227 forks of the user program that are
4228 available to be debugged.
4229
4230delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4231 that are available to be debugged (and
4232 kill the forked process).
4233
4234detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4235 that are available to be debugged (and
4236 allow the process to continue).
4237
4238* New architecture
4239
4240Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
4241
4242* Improved Windows host support
4243
4244GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
4245native console support, and remote communications using either
4246network sockets or serial ports.
4247
4248* Improved Modula-2 language support
4249
4250GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
4251basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
4252pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
4253printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
4254written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
4255GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
4256
4257* REMOVED features
4258
4259The ARM rdi-share module.
4260
4261The Netware NLM debug server.
4262
4263*** Changes in GDB 6.4
4264
4265* New native configurations
4266
4267OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
4268OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
4269
4270* New targets
4271
4272Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4273
4274* New command line options
4275
4276--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
4277--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
4278 the child (debugged) program exited with.
4279--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
4280 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
4281 specified multiple times and in conjunction
4282 with the --command (-x) option.
4283
4284* Deprecated commands removed
4285
4286The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
4287removed:
4288
4289 Command Replacement
4290 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
4291 othernames set arm disassembler
4292 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
4293 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
4294 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
4295 regs info registers
4296
4297* New BSD user-level threads support
4298
4299It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
4300library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
4301configurations are:
4302
4303FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4304FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
4305OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
4306
4307Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
4308are not yet supported.
4309
4310* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
4311(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
4312
4313* REMOVED configurations and files
4314
4315VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
4316Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4317National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
4318
4319* New "set print array-indexes" command
4320
4321After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
4322when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
4323behavior.
4324
4325* VAX floating point support
4326
4327GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
4328
4329* User-defined command support
4330
4331In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
4332to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
4333section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
4334
4335*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
4336
4337* New command line option
4338
4339GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
4340debugging.
4341
4342* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
4343
4344GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
4345information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
4346by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
4347proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
4348to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
4349
4350* Internationalization
4351
4352When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
4353internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
4354continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
4355
4356* Ada
4357
4358Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
4359implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
4360into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
4361
4362* New native configurations
4363
4364GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
4365
4366* Remote 'p' packet
4367
4368GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
4369packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
4370
4371* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
4372
4373GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4374The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
4375features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
4376i386 application).
4377
4378GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
4379compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
4380continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
4381configurations:
4382
4383hppa-*-hpux
4384ia64-*-aix
4385mips-*-irix*
4386*-*-lynx
4387mips-*-linux-gnu
4388sds protocol
4389xdr protocol
4390powerpc bdm protocol
4391
4392Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4393made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
4394
4395* OBSOLETE configurations and files
4396
4397Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4398been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4399configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4400permanently REMOVED.
4401
4402h8300-*-*
4403mcore-*-*
4404mn10300-*-*
4405ns32k-*-*
4406sh64-*-*
4407v850-*-*
4408
4409*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
4410
4411* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
4412
4413When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
4414heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
4415been fixed.
4416
4417* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
4418
4419When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
4420fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
4421IRIX long double values).
4422
4423* VAX and "next"
4424
4425A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
4426command. This problem has been fixed.
4427
4428*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
4429
4430* Fix for ``many threads''
4431
4432On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
4433rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
4434error message:
4435
4436 ptrace: No such process.
4437 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
4438
4439This problem has been fixed.
4440
4441* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
4442
4443Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
4444GDB to dump core).
4445
4446* New ``start'' command.
4447
4448This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
4449
4450* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
4451
4452Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
4453live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
4454platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
4455
4456FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4457FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
4458NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
4459NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
4460NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
4461OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4462OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
4463OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
4464OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4465
4466* Signal trampoline code overhauled
4467
4468Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
4469These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
4470of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
4471call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
4472signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
4473
4474Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
4475features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
4476include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
4477
4478* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
4479
4480* New native configurations
4481
4482GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
4483OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
4484OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
4485OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
4486OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
4487NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
4488OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
4489
4490* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
4491
4492GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4493The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
4494including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
4495migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
4496compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
4497work, was also included.
4498
4499GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
4500module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
4501
4502h8300-*-*
4503mcore-*-*
4504mn10300-*-*
4505ns32k-*-*
4506sh64-*-*
4507v850-*-*
4508xstormy16-*-*
4509
4510Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4511made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
4512
4513* REMOVED configurations and files
4514
4515Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
4516Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
4517Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
4518Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
4519Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
4520AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
4521Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
4522decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
4523riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
4524sonymips mips-sony-*
4525sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
4526
4527*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
4528
4529* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
4530
4531The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
4532GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
4533command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
4534program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
4535with GDB".
4536
4537* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
4538
4539Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
4540libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
4541cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
4542GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
4543shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
4544the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
4545are created.
4546
4547Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
4548
4549* Fixed ISO-C build problems
4550
4551The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
4552non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
4553compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
4554
4555* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
4556
4557Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
4558wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
4559
4560* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
4561
4562The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
4563permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
4564systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
4565
4566* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
4567
4568Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
4569has been updated to use constant array sizes.
4570
4571* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
4572
4573GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
4574its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
4575panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
4576
4577* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
4578
4579When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
4580by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
4581not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
4582
4583*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
4584
4585* Removed --with-mmalloc
4586
4587Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
4588conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
4589
4590* Changes in AMD64 configurations
4591
4592The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
4593the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
4594and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
4595you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
4596
4597* Revised SPARC target
4598
4599The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
4600FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
4601support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
4602from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
4603(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
4604
4605* New C++ demangler
4606
4607GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
4608names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
4609with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
4610programs.
4611
4612* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
4613
4614GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
4615arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
4616encountered these.
4617
4618* C++ nested types and namespaces
4619
4620GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
4621improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
4622is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
4623Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
4624namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
4625"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
4626frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
4627if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
4628GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
4629
4630* New native configurations
4631
4632NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
4633OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4634OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
4635OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4636OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
4637
4638* New debugging protocols
4639
4640M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
4641
4642* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
4643
4644The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
4645and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
4646tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
4647
4648* OBSOLETE configurations and files
4649
4650Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4651been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4652configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4653permanently REMOVED.
4654
4655Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
4656Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
4657Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
4658Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
4659Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
4660AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
4661Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
4662decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
4663riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
4664sonymips mips-sony-*
4665sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
4666
4667* REMOVED configurations and files
4668
4669SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4670SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4671Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4672Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4673H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4674HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
4675HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4676HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
4677PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
4678386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4679Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
4680 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
4681 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
4682SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
4683SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4684Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4685Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4686
4687*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
4688
4689* Objective-C
4690
4691Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
4692integrated into GDB.
4693
4694* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
4695
4696DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
4697information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
4698By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
4699backtraces.
4700
4701The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
4702have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
4703DWARF 2 CFI support.
4704
4705* Hosted file I/O.
4706
4707GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
4708file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
4709remote protocol documentation for details.
4710
4711* All targets using the new architecture framework.
4712
4713All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
4714architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
4715to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
4716ppc32 on ppc64).
4717
4718* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
4719
4720GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
4721per-thread variables.
4722
4723* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
4724
4725GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
4726GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
4727
4728* Separate debug info.
4729
4730GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
4731automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
4732of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
4733system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
4734and optional debug files.
4735
4736* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
4737
4738DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
4739describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
4740debugger.
4741
4742GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
4743for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
4744
4745* Java
4746
4747A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
4748Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
4749considered "useable".
4750
4751* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
4752
4753The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
4754commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
4755kernel.
4756
4757* GDB supports logging output to a file
4758
4759There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
4760used to capture GDB's output to a file.
4761
4762* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
4763
4764The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
4765disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
4766command.
4767
4768* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
4769
4770The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
4771registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
4772
4773* Profiling support
4774
4775A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
4776be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
4777session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
4778"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
4779data, for more informative profiling results.
4780
4781* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
4782
4783The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
4784option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
4785"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
4786
4787Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
4788removed.
4789
4790Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
4791Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
4792Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
4793 in a subsequent -var-update.
4794
4795* New native configurations.
4796
4797FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4798
4799* Multi-arched targets.
4800
4801HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
4802Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4803
4804* OBSOLETE configurations and files
4805
4806Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4807been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4808configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4809permanently REMOVED.
4810
4811Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4812Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4813H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4814HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
4815HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4816HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
4817PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
4818Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
4819 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
4820 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
4821Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4822Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4823
4824* REMOVED configurations and files
4825
4826V850EA ISA
4827Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4828IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
4829i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
4830i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
4831i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
4832HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
4833 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
4834 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4835Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4836Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4837Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4838OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4839I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4840
4841* MIPS $fp behavior changed
4842
4843The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
4844the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
4845context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
4846address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
4847The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
4848
4849*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
4850
4851* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
4852
4853When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
4854`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
4855in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
4856library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
4857shared libs like mad''.
4858
4859* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
4860
4861Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
4862the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
4863arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
4864powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
4865
4866* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
4867
4868GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
4869and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
4870they expand.
4871
4872The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
4873invocations in expression, and shows the result.
4874
4875The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
4876macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
4877
4878Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
4879information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
4880your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
4881information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
4882
4883* Multi-arched targets.
4884
4885DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
4886DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
4887NEC V850 v850-*-*
4888National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
4889Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
4890Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4891
4892* New targets.
4893
4894Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
4895
4896
4897* New native configurations
4898
4899Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
4900SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
4901MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
4902UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
4903
4904* OBSOLETE configurations and files
4905
4906Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4907been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4908configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4909permanently REMOVED.
4910
4911Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4912OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4913IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
4914Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4915Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4916Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4917i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
4918i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
4919i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
4920HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
4921 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
4922 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4923I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4924
4925* OBSOLETE languages
4926
4927CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
4928
4929* REMOVED configurations and files
4930
4931AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
4932A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4933AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4934AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4935AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4936
4937testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
4938
4939* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
4940
4941This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
4942commands. The default is 1024.
4943
4944* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
4945
4946Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
4947
4948* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
4949
4950These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
4951to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
4952from a file into memory (restore).
4953
4954* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
4955
4956The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
4957including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
4958of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
4959
4960*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
4961
4962* New targets.
4963
4964Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
4965
4966* Bug fixes
4967
4968gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
4969mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
4970Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
4971
4972gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
4973dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
4974Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
4975
4976Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
4977Surprisingly enough, it works now.
4978By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
4979
4980i386 hardware watchpoint support:
4981avoid misses on second run for some targets.
4982By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
4983
4984*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
4985
4986* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
4987
4988This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
4989really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
4990In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
4991target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
4992This can be a significant performance improvement on some
4993(notably embedded) targets.
4994
4995* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
4996
4997This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
4998process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
4999GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5000hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5001
5002* New command line option
5003
5004GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5005
5006* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5007
5008There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5009command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5010a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5011be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5012open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5013issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5014a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5015it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5016GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5017is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5018
5019* Changes in ARM configurations.
5020
5021Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5022configuration is fully multi-arch.
5023
5024* New native configurations
5025
5026ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
5027x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
5028AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
5029Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
5030
5031* New targets
5032
5033Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
5034
5035* OBSOLETE configurations and files
5036
5037Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5038been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5039configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5040permanently REMOVED.
5041
5042AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5043A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5044AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5045AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5046AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5047
5048testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5049
5050* REMOVED configurations and files
5051
5052TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5053WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5054PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5055PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5056PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5057Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5058Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5059 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5060SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5061Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5062Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5063ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5064Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
5065
5066* Changes to command line processing
5067
5068The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
5069for the inferior from gdb's command line.
5070
5071* Changes to key bindings
5072
5073There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
5074
5075*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
5076
5077Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
5078
5079Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
5080corrupted.
5081
5082Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
5083
5084Numerous documentation fixes.
5085
5086Numerous testsuite fixes.
5087
5088*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
5089
5090* New native configurations
5091
5092Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
5093x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
5094MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
5095MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5096ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
5097s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
5098
5099* New targets
5100
5101Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
5102CRIS cris-axis
5103UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
5104
5105* OBSOLETE configurations and files
5106
5107x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
5108Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5109Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5110 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5111TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5112WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5113Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5114PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5115PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5116PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5117SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5118Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5119ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5120Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
5121
5122stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
5123kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
5124
5125Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5126been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5127configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5128permanently REMOVED.
5129
5130* REMOVED configurations and files
5131
5132Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5133Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5134Pyramid pyramid-*-*
5135ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5136Tahoe tahoe-*-*
5137ser-ocd.c *-*-*
5138
5139* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
5140
5141GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
5142sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
5143present.
5144
5145* Other news:
5146
5147* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
5148
5149* The MI enabled by default.
5150
5151The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
5152revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
5153engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
5154using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
5155which is now deprecated.
5156
5157* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
5158
5159GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
5160main features are supported:
5161
5162 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
5163
5164 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
5165 extension;
5166
5167 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
5168
5169 - a Pascal expression parser.
5170
5171However, some important features are not yet supported.
5172
5173 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
5174
5175 - there are some problems with boolean types;
5176
5177 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
5178 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
5179
5180 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
5181
5182 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
5183
5184* Changes in completion.
5185
5186Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
5187to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
5188users expect at the shell prompt.
5189
5190Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
5191`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
5192program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
5193files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
5194be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
5195considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
5196name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
5197
5198`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
5199
5200* New platform-independent commands:
5201
5202It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
5203hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
5204documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
5205
5206* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
5207
5208Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
5209revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
5210many threads as your system allows you to have.
5211
5212Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
5213
5214Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
5215multi-threaded programs though.
5216
5217* Changes in MIPS configurations.
5218
5219Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
5220
5221GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
5222debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
5223supported.)
5224
5225* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
5226
5227Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
5228breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
5229implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
5230put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
5231and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
5232registers.
5233
5234The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
5235debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
5236watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
5237
5238* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
5239
5240New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
5241the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
5242
5243New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
5244display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
5245IDT.
5246
5247New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
5248from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
5249New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
5250a given linear address.
5251
5252GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
5253program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
5254which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
5255
5256DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
5257
5258It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
5259
5260* Changes in documentation.
5261
5262All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
5263Documentation License.
5264
5265Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5266manual.
5267
5268TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
5269
5270Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5271manual.
5272
5273The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
5274documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
5275hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
5276
5277* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
5278
5279The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
5280``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
5281contents of this file.
5282
5283* gdba.el deleted
5284
5285GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
5286
5287*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
5288
5289* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
5290
5291Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
5292programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
5293displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
5294greater level of detail.
5295
5296* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
5297
5298It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
5299bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
5300on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
5301written.
5302
5303* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
5304
5305The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
5306necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
5307machines ``out of the box''.
5308
5309The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
5310possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
5311signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
5312would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
5313interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
5314
5315It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
5316standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
5317even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
5318and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
5319terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
5320
5321The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
5322enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
5323also works.
5324
5325DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
5326GDB.
5327
5328It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
5329directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
5330times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
5331breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
5332
5333* New native configurations
5334
5335ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
5336PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5337
5338* New targets
5339
5340Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
5341x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
5342PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
5343TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5344
5345* OBSOLETE configurations
5346
5347Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5348Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5349Pyramid pyramid-*-*
5350ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5351Tahoe tahoe-*-*
5352
5353Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5354but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5355these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5356be permanently REMOVED.
5357
5358* Gould support removed
5359
5360Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
5361
5362* New features for SVR4
5363
5364On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
5365without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
5366load symbols from the running process's executable file.
5367
5368* Many C++ enhancements
5369
5370C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
5371in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
5372
5373* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
5374
5375A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
5376sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
5377with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
5378``|<program> <args>'' vis:
5379
5380 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
5381 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
5382
5383* MIPS 64 remote protocol
5384
5385A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
5386expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
5387instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
5388
5389The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
5390added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
5391
5392* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
5393
5394The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
5395``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
5396include ``set remote P-packet''.
5397
5398* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
5399
5400The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
5401accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
5402``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
5403
5404* ``apropos'' command added.
5405
5406The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
5407documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
5408try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
5409
5410* New MI interface
5411
5412A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
5413interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
5414process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
5415"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
5416enabled by configuring with:
5417
5418 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
5419
5420*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
5421
5422* New native configurations
5423
5424HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
5425HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
5426M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
5427
5428* New targets
5429
5430Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5431Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
5432Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5433
5434* OBSOLETE configurations
5435
5436Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
5437
5438Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5439but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5440these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5441be permanently REMOVED.
5442
5443* ANSI/ISO C
5444
5445As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
5446buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
5447containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
5448use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
5449available. If this is not true, please report the affected
5450configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
5451information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
5452already.
5453
5454* Readline 2.2
5455
5456GDB now uses readline 2.2.
5457
5458* set extension-language
5459
5460You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
5461languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
5462you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
5463 set extension-language .c c++
5464The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
5465and their associated languages.
5466
5467* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
5468
5469When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
5470you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
5471PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
5472
5473 set processor NAME
5474
5475sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
5476following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
5477
5478 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
5479 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
5480 403 IBM PowerPC 403
5481 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
5482 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
5483 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
5484 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
5485 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
5486 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
5487 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
5488 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
5489
5490At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
5491special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
5492registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
5493only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
5494
5495* HP-UX support
5496
5497Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
5498more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
5499library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
5500support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
5501for xdb and dbx commands.
5502
5503* Catchpoints
5504
5505HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
5506generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
5507to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
5508
5509This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
5510argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
5511output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
5512
5513* Debugging across forks
5514
5515On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
5516in the inferior.
5517
5518* TUI
5519
5520HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
5521it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
5522configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
5523
5524* GDB remote protocol additions
5525
5526A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
5527Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
5528fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
5529allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
5530
5531For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
5532full 64-bit address. The command
5533
5534 set remoteaddresssize 32
5535
5536can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
5537the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
5538will be discarded.
5539
5540In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
5541command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
5542
5543 maint packet heythere
5544
5545sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
5546disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
5547time.
5548
5549The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
5550target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
5551downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
5552
5553* Tracing can collect general expressions
5554
5555You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
5556further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
5557doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
5558
5559* mask-address variable for Mips
5560
5561For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
5562a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
5563of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
5564
5565* Higher serial baud rates
5566
5567GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
5568230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
5569to achieve all of these rates.)
5570
5571* i960 simulator
5572
5573The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
5574builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
5575
5576
5577*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
5578
5579* New native configurations
5580
5581Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
5582Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
5583Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5584PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5585PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5586Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
5587Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
5588
5589* New targets
5590
5591Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5592Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
5593Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5594Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
5595MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
5596MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
5597MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
5598Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
5599Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5600Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5601NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
5602
5603* New debugging protocols
5604
5605ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
5606M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
5607DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
5608PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5609PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5610Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5611
5612* DWARF 2
5613
5614All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
5615format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
5616information.
5617
5618* Java frontend
5619
5620GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
5621only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
5622
5623* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
5624
5625For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
5626loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
5627locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
5628
5629* Live range splitting
5630
5631GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
5632range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
5633more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
5634
5635* Hurd support
5636
5637GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
5638updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
5639
5640* ARM Thumb support
5641
5642GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
5643instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
5644instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
5645accordingly.
5646
5647* MIPS16 support
5648
5649GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
5650instruction set.
5651
5652* Overlay support
5653
5654GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
5655linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
5656will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
5657control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
5658additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
5659in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
5660
5661* info symbol
5662
5663The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
5664the symbol at the specified address.
5665
5666* Trace support
5667
5668The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
5669asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
5670extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
5671includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
5672file tracepoint.c for more details.
5673
5674* MIPS simulator
5675
5676Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
5677by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
5678of most MIPS variants.
5679
5680* Sparc simulator
5681
5682Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
5683by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
5684Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
5685
5686* set architecture
5687
5688For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
5689basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
5690architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
5691the possible architectures.
5692
5693*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
5694
5695* New native configurations
5696
5697Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
5698M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
5699PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
5700PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
5701PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5702RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
5703
5704* New targets
5705
5706ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
5707I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5708MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
5709MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
5710PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
5711Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
5712Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5713
5714* PowerPC simulator
5715
5716The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
5717contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
5718PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
5719basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
5720performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
5721
5722* Solaris 2.5
5723
5724GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
5725
5726* Windows 95/NT native
5727
5728GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
5729To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
5730which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
5731Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
5732ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
5733
5734* dont-repeat command
5735
5736If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
5737command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
5738useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
5739extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
5740
5741* Send break instead of ^C
5742
5743The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
5744rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
5745GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
5746
5747* Remote protocol timeout
5748
5749The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
5750that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
5751to read from the target. The default value is 2.
5752
5753* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
5754
5755By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
5756loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
5757stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
5758when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
5759in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
5760
5761Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
5762/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
5763automatically on hpux10.
5764
5765* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
5766
5767Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
5768
5769* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
5770
5771When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
5772may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
5773the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
5774every character. The default value is 1050.
5775
5776* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
5777
5778If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
5779a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
5780replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
5781details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
5782remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
5783to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
5784
5785* Speedups for remote debugging
5786
5787GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
5788the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
5789and more efficient S-record downloading.
5790
5791* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
5792
5793GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
5794Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
5795
5796*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
5797
5798* Psymtabs for XCOFF
5799
5800The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
5801can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
5802
5803* Remote targets use caching
5804
5805Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
5806remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
5807it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
5808debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
5809off' turns the the data cache off.
5810
5811* Remote targets may have threads
5812
5813The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
5814in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
5815gdb/remote.c for details.
5816
5817* NetROM support
5818
5819If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
5820support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
5821acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
5822write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
5823support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
5824another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
5825sequence is something like
5826
5827 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
5828 load <prog>
5829 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
5830
5831* Macintosh host
5832
5833GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
5834may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
5835it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
5836available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
5837device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
5838directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
5839scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
5840mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
5841
5842* Autoconf
5843
5844GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
5845but does simplify configuration and building.
5846
5847* hpux10
5848
5849GDB now supports hpux10.
5850
5851*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
5852
5853* New native configurations
5854
5855x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
5856x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
5857NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
5858Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
5859
5860* New targets
5861
5862A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5863HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
5864CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
5865PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
5866WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5867
5868* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
5869
5870GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
5871possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
5872filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
5873the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
5874if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
5875
5876* Arguments to user-defined commands
5877
5878User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
5879Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
5880trivial example:
5881define adder
5882 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
5883
5884To execute the command use:
5885adder 1 2 3
5886
5887Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
5888Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
5889use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
5890
5891* New `if' and `while' commands
5892
5893This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
5894commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
5895expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
5896execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
5897terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
5898`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
5899if the expression is zero.
5900
5901* Fortran source language mode
5902
5903GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
5904Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
5905variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
5906with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
5907Fortran compilers.
5908
5909* Better HPUX support
5910
5911Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
5912running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
5913processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
5914for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
5915that behavior do the following before running the program:
5916
5917 adb -w a.out
5918 __dld_flags?W 0x5
5919 control-d
5920
5921This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
5922To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
5923
5924 adb -w a.out
5925 __dld_flags?W 0x4
5926 control-d
5927
5928You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
5929the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
5930external linkage.
5931
5932GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
5933HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
5934
5935* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
5936
5937You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
5938commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
5939current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
5940"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
5941associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
5942configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
5943
5944* New DOS host serial code
5945
5946This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
5947no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
5948a PC's serial port.
5949
5950*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
5951
5952* New "complete" command
5953
5954This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
5955were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
5956
5957* Trailing space optional in prompt
5958
5959"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
5960allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
5961
5962* Breakpoint hit counts
5963
5964"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
5965has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
5966can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
5967to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
5968less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
5969that breakpoint.
5970
5971* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
5972
5973"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
5974an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
5975arrays actually contain only short strings.
5976
5977* Shared library breakpoints
5978
5979In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
5980breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
5981
5982* Hardware watchpoints
5983
5984There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
5985targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
5986
5987Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
5988
5989* Annotations
5990
5991Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
5992and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
5993
5994* Improved Irix 5 support
5995
5996GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
5997
5998* Improved HPPA support
5999
6000GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6001
6002* New native configurations
6003
6004Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6005HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6006Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6007RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6008
6009* New targets
6010
6011OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6012MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6013Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
6014
6015* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6016
6017There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6018This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6019
6020* Fixes
6021
6022As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6023and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6024
6025*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6026
6027* Irix 5 is now supported
6028
6029* HPPA support
6030
6031GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
6032to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
6033GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
6034of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
6035can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
6036
6037
6038*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
6039
6040* User visible changes:
6041
6042* Remote Debugging
6043
6044The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
6045target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
6046debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
6047integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
6048debugging info for the mips target).
6049
6050* DEC Alpha native support
6051
6052GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
6053debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
6054work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
6055Alpha-specific notes.
6056
6057* Preliminary thread implementation
6058
6059GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
6060
6061* LynxOS native and target support for 386
6062
6063This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
6064to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
6065for details).
6066
6067* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
6068
6069This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
6070mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
6071call methods, ...etc.
6072
6073*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
6074
6075 * User visible changes:
6076
6077Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
6078supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
6079other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
6080somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
6081
6082Filename completion now works.
6083
6084When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
6085arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
6086addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
6087
6088All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
6089vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
6090should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
6091your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
6092to be on the far side of a thin network line.
6093
6094 * DEC alpha support
6095
6096This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
6097cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
6098
6099
6100*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
6101
6102 * Testsuite
6103
6104This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
6105The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
6106via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
6107
6108 * C++ demangling
6109
6110'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
6111emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
6112Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
6113disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
6114use gdb with AT&T cfront.
6115
6116 * Simulators
6117
6118GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
6119So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
6120Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
6121
6122 * New targets supported
6123
6124H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6125H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6126SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
6127Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6128IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
6129
6130Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
6131version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
6132GO32 memory extender.
6133
6134 * New remote protocols
6135
6136MIPS remote debugging protocol.
6137
6138 * New source languages supported
6139
6140This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
6141used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
6142into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
6143
6144
6145*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
6146
6147 * HP Precision Architecture supported
6148
6149GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
6150version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
6151University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
6152compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
6153format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
6154(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
6155
6156Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
6157
6158 * Faster and better demangling
6159
6160We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
6161demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
6162character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
6163only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
6164This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
6165increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
6166symbol lookups.
6167
6168`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
6169from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
6170compiler does not actually implement.
6171
6172 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
6173
6174In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
6175inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
6176recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
6177very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
6178The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
6179circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
6180fix.
6181
6182The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
6183release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
6184
6185 * Improved configure script
6186
6187The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
6188you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
6189host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
6190done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
6191
6192We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
6193version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
6194`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
6195The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
6196only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
6197We hope to make this the default in a future release.
6198
6199 * Documentation improvements
6200
6201There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
6202produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
6203before submitting changes.
6204
6205The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
6206M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
6207`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
6208you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
6209a future texinfo-X.Y release.
6210
6211*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
6212We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
6213been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
6214or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
6215`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
6216around this problem.
6217
6218 * New features
6219
6220GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
6221the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
6222`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
6223the target program.
6224
6225The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
6226how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
6227
6228 * New native hosts supported
6229
6230HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
6231386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
6232
6233 * New targets supported
6234
6235AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
6236
6237 * New file formats supported
6238
6239BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
6240HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
6241
6242 * Major bug fixes
6243
6244Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
6245
6246We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
6247printf_filtered("%s") problems.
6248
6249We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
6250for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
6251release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
6252
6253You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
6254will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
6255
6256We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
6257for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
6258especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
6259libraries.
6260
6261The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
6262information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
6263command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
6264any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
6265when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
6266
6267 * Internal improvements
6268
6269GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
6270debugging of multiple languages in the future.
6271
6272GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
6273Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
6274symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
6275contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
6276shared code that handles any of them.
6277
6278 * New command line options
6279
6280We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
6281
6282 * Mmalloc licensing
6283
6284The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
6285General Public License.
6286
6287*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
6288
6289 * Host/native/target split
6290
6291GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
6292hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
6293target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
6294local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
6295ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
6296
6297The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
6298GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
6299is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
6300code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
6301any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
6302built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
6303handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
6304
6305GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
6306It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
6307plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
6308
6309 * New hosts supported
6310
6311HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
6312386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6313386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
6314
6315 * New targets supported
6316
6317Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
631868030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
6319
6320 * New native hosts supported
6321
6322386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6323 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
6324386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
6325
6326 * New file formats supported
6327
6328BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
6329supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
6330format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
6331
6332 * New commands
6333
6334`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
6335`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
6336These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
6337
6338`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
6339
6340You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
6341scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
6342prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
6343executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
6344
6345 * C++ improvements
6346
6347We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
6348info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
6349symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
6350
6351Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
6352
6353 * Major bug fixes
6354
6355The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
6356fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
6357by the compiler.
6358
6359We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
6360support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
6361
6362John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
6363slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
6364that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
6365purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
6366the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
6367mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
6368
6369Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
6370about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
6371completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
6372we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
6373
6374 * AMD 29k support
6375
6376A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
6377specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
6378calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
6379usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
6380in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
6381
6382We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
6383Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
6384of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
6385resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
6386
6387 * Remote interfaces
6388
6389We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
6390with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
6391message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
6392This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
6393needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
6394breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
6395each instruction being stepped through.
6396
6397The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
6398registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
6399
6400There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
6401find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
6402Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
6403processor with a serial port.
6404
6405 * Configuration
6406
6407Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
6408`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
6409supported, and what files each one uses.
6410
6411 * Library changes
6412
6413There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
6414disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
6415Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
6416disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
6417
6418The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
6419Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
6420can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
6421grants all the rights from the General Public License.
6422
6423 * Documentation
6424
6425The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
6426reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
6427as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
6428encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
6429system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
6430bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
6431
6432And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
6433
6434
6435*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
6436
6437 * Better support for C++ function names
6438
6439GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
6440names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
6441(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
6442single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
6443Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
6444
6445GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
6446the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
6447You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
6448lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
6449for the list of formats.
6450
6451 * G++ symbol mangling problem
6452
6453Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
6454C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
6455directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
6456can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
6457usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
6458about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
6459this problem.)
6460
6461 * New 'maintenance' command
6462
6463All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
6464the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
6465can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
6466
6467 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
6468 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
6469 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
6470 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
6471 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
6472 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
6473
6474The following commands are new:
6475
6476 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
6477 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
6478 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
6479
6480 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
6481
6482We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
6483(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
6484be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
6485read after argv processing.
6486
6487 * New hosts supported
6488
6489Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
6490
6491GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
6492
6493We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
6494is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
6495for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
6496masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
6497fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
6498It costs extra.
6499
6500 * New targets supported
6501
6502Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6503
6504 * More smarts about finding #include files
6505
6506GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
6507all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
6508greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
6509especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
6510the one that contains your sources.
6511
6512We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
6513breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
6514try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
6515
6516 * Interesting infernals change
6517
6518GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
6519section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
6520target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
6521stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
6522
6523 * Bug fixes (of course!)
6524
6525There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
6526 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
6527 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
6528
6529See the ChangeLog for details.
6530
6531*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
6532
6533 * New machines supported (host and target)
6534
6535IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
6536
6537SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
6538
6539 * New malloc package
6540
6541GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
6542Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
6543capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
6544This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
6545pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
6546more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
6547
6548 * info proc
6549
6550The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
6551'help info proc' for details.
6552
6553 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
6554
6555The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
6556Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
6557possible.
6558
6559 * File name changes for MS-DOS
6560
6561Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
6562support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
6563conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
6564environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
6565that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
6566in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
6567
6568 * Cross byte order fixes
6569
6570Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
6571targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
6572
6573 * New -mapped and -readnow options
6574
6575If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
6576system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
6577`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
6578program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
6579called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
6580Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
6581and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
6582the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
6583option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
6584starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
6585
6586You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
6587the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
6588information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
6589slower, but makes future operations faster.
6590
6591The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
6592build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
6593A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
6594use is:
6595
6596 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
6597
6598The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
6599It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
6600shared across multiple host platforms.
6601
6602 * longjmp() handling
6603
6604GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
6605siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
6606all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
6607platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
6608
6609 * Solaris 2.0
6610
6611Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
6612this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
6613reading symbols.
6614
6615 * Bug fixes
6616
6617As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
6618People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
6619crashes and trashed symbol tables.
6620
6621*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
6622
6623 * New machines supported (host and target)
6624
6625SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
6626 (except core files)
6627BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
6628Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
6629
6630 * New machines supported (target)
6631
6632AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6633
6634 * C++ support
6635
6636GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
6637The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
6638per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
6639
6640GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
6641`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
6642extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
6643good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
6644will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
6645released.
6646
6647 * New features for SVR4
6648
6649GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
6650shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
6651only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
6652
6653The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
6654on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
6655it prints the address mappings of the process.
6656
6657If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
6658bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
6659
6660 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
6661
6662Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
6663now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
6664skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
6665make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
6666same code linked statically.
6667
6668 * New Getopt
6669
6670GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
6671version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
6672continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
6673Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
6674added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
6675future by other options that begin with the same letter.
6676
6677 * Bugs fixed
6678
6679The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
6680Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
6681See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
6682
6683
6684*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
6685
6686 * New machines supported (host and target)
6687
6688Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
6689NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
6690Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
6691
6692 * Almost SCO Unix support
6693
6694We had hoped to support:
6695SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
6696(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
6697that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
6698about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
6699
6700 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
6701
6702GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
6703debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
6704is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
6705send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
6706reqired (if any).
6707
6708 * New Readline
6709
6710GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
6711is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
6712required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
6713
6714 * Bugs fixed
6715
6716The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
6717Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
6718See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
6719
6720 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
6721
6722GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
6723supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
6724symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
6725
6726Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
6727mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
6728debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
6729mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
6730version 2.
6731
6732Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
6733really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
6734line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
6735variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
6736situation somewhat.
6737
6738When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
6739However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
6740methods.
6741
6742We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
6743DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
6744encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
6745
6746
6747*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
6748
6749 * Improved configuration
6750
6751Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
6752Porting BFD is simpler.
6753
6754 * Stepping improved
6755
6756The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
6757of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
6758in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
6759function that has debugging information is called within the line.
6760
6761 * Bug fixing
6762
6763Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
6764
6765 * New host supported (not target)
6766
6767Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
6768
6769
6770*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
6771
6772 * Multiple source language support
6773
6774GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
6775It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
6776and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
6777language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
6778You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
6779`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
6780
6781 * GDB and Modula-2
6782
6783GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
6784currently under development at the State University of New York at
6785Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
6786continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
6787
6788Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
6789debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
6790symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
6791
6792There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
6793in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
6794
6795 * set write on/off
6796
6797GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
6798a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
6799the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
6800by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
6801effect immediately.
6802
6803 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
6804
6805When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
6806shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
6807The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
6808examining core files.
6809
6810 * set listsize
6811
6812You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
6813The default is 10.
6814
6815 * New machines supported (host and target)
6816
6817SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
6818Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
6819Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
6820
6821 * New hosts supported (not targets)
6822
6823IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
6824
6825 * New targets supported (not hosts)
6826
6827AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6828AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6829Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
6830
6831 * New remote interfaces
6832
6833AMD 29000 Adapt
6834AMD 29000 Minimon
6835
6836
6837*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
6838
6839 * New Facilities
6840
6841Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
6842
6843Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
6844target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
6845is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
6846remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
6847remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
6848also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
6849using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
6850stub on the target system.
6851
6852New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
6853
6854GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
6855library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
6856object file types such as a.out and coff.
6857
6858There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
6859refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
6860
6861
6862 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
6863
6864All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
6865by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
6866
6867For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
6868``Show prompt'' produces the response:
6869Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
6870
6871What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
6872print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
6873will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
6874all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
6875
6876confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
6877 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
6878 it is already running. Default is ON.
6879
6880editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
6881 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
6882 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
6883 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
6884 Default is ON.
6885
6886history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
6887 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
6888 or the value of the environment variable
6889 GDBHISTFILE.
6890
6891history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
6892 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
6893 HISTSIZE.
6894
6895history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
6896 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
6897 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
6898
6899history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
6900 history expansion will be performed on
6901 command line input. The default is OFF.
6902
6903radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
6904 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
6905 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
6906
6907height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
6908 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
6909 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
6910 variable TERM.
6911
6912width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
6913 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
6914 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
6915 variable TERM.
6916
6917Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
6918``set width'' instead.
6919
6920print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
6921 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
6922 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
6923 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
6924
6925print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
6926 is OFF.
6927
6928print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
6929 "raw" form if off.
6930
6931print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
6932 like instructions.
6933
6934print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
6935
6936
6937 * Support for Epoch Environment.
6938
6939The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
6940new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
6941are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
6942window.
6943
6944
6945 * Support for Shared Libraries
6946
6947GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
6948Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
6949before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
6950happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
6951At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
6952from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
6953shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
6954It can be abbreviated ``share''.
6955
6956sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
6957 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
6958 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
6959
6960info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
6961
6962
6963 * Watchpoints
6964
6965A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
6966expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
6967tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
6968quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
6969problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
6970more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
6971
6972watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
6973
6974info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
6975
6976delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6977disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6978enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6979
6980
6981 * C++ multiple inheritance
6982
6983When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
6984for C++ programs.
6985
6986 * C++ exception handling
6987
6988Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
6989ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
6990the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
6991handler's context).
6992
6993catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
6994 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
6995 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
6996
6997info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
6998 current stack frame.
6999
7000
7001 * Minor command changes
7002
7003The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7004command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7005is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7006
7007The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7008at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7009frames without printing.
7010
7011 * New directory command
7012
7013'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7014The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7015about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7016with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7017find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7018
7019 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7020
7021For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7022for more details.
7023
7024GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7025two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7026Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
7027where the program that you are debugging will run.
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