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