3e08aee7c6fe012ac3bebd7a3bb6fbe0d9649a78
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 10
5
6 * MI changes
7
8 ** '-break-insert --qualified' and '-dprintf-insert --qualified'
9
10 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
11 new "--qualified" option that makes GDB interpret a specified
12 function name as a complete fully-qualified name. This is the
13 equivalent of the CLI's "break -qualified" and "dprintf
14 -qualified".
15
16 * GDB now supports core file debugging for x86_64 Cygwin programs.
17
18 * GDB will now look for the .gdbinit file in a config directory before
19 looking for ~/.gdbinit. The file is searched for in the following
20 locations: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.config/gdb/gdbinit,
21 $HOME/.gdbinit. On Apple hosts the search order is instead:
22 $HOME/Library/Preferences/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.gdbinit.
23
24 * New commands
25
26 set debug event-loop
27 show debug event-loop
28 Control the display of debug output about GDB's event loop.
29
30 * Changed commands
31
32 break [PROBE_MODIFIER] [LOCATION] [thread THREADNUM]
33 [-force-condition] [if CONDITION]
34 This command would previously refuse setting a breakpoint if the
35 CONDITION expression is invalid at a location. It now accepts and
36 defines the breakpoint if there is at least one location at which
37 the CONDITION is valid. The locations for which the CONDITION is
38 invalid, are automatically disabled. If CONDITION is invalid at all
39 of the locations, setting the breakpoint is still rejected. However,
40 the '-force-condition' flag can be used in this case for forcing GDB to
41 define the breakpoint, making all the current locations automatically
42 disabled. This may be useful if the user knows the condition will
43 become meaningful at a future location, e.g. due to a shared library
44 load.
45
46 condition [-force] N COND
47 The behavior of this command is changed the same way for the 'break'
48 command as explained above. The '-force' flag can be used to force
49 GDB into defining the condition even when COND is invalid for all the
50 current locations of breakpoint N.
51
52 *** Changes in GDB 10
53
54 * There are new feature names for ARC targets: "org.gnu.gdb.arc.core"
55 and "org.gnu.gdb.arc.aux". The old names are still supported but
56 must be considered obsolete. They will be deprecated after some
57 grace period.
58
59 * Help and apropos commands will now show the documentation of a
60 command only once, even if that command has one or more aliases.
61 These commands now show the command name, then all of its aliases,
62 and finally the description of the command.
63
64 * 'help aliases' now shows only the user defined aliases. GDB predefined
65 aliases are shown together with their aliased command.
66
67 * GDB now supports debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF
68 debugging information as well as source code.
69
70 When built with debuginfod, GDB can automatically query debuginfod
71 servers for the separate debug files and source code of the executable
72 being debugged.
73
74 To build GDB with debuginfod, pass --with-debuginfod to configure (this
75 requires libdebuginfod, the debuginfod client library).
76
77 debuginfod is distributed with elfutils, starting with version 0.178.
78
79 You can get the latest version from https://sourceware.org/elfutils.
80
81 * Multi-target debugging support
82
83 GDB now supports debugging multiple target connections
84 simultaneously. For example, you can now have each inferior
85 connected to different remote servers running in different machines,
86 or have one inferior debugging a local native process, an inferior
87 debugging a core dump, etc.
88
89 This support is experimental and comes with some limitations -- you
90 can only resume multiple targets simultaneously if all targets
91 support non-stop mode, and all remote stubs or servers must support
92 the same set of remote protocol features exactly. See also "info
93 connections" and "add-inferior -no-connection" below, and "maint set
94 target-non-stop" in the user manual.
95
96 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
97
98 ** GDBserver is now supported on ARC GNU/Linux.
99
100 ** GDBserver is now supported on RISC-V GNU/Linux.
101
102 ** GDBserver no longer supports these host triplets:
103
104 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
105 powerpc-*-lynxos*
106 i[34567]86-*-nto*
107 bfin-*-*linux*
108 crisv32-*-linux*
109 cris-*-linux*
110 m32r*-*-linux*
111 tilegx-*-linux*
112 arm*-*-mingw32ce*
113 i[34567]86-*-mingw32ce*
114
115 * Debugging MS-Windows processes now sets $_exitsignal when the
116 inferior is terminated by a signal, instead of setting $_exitcode.
117
118 * Multithreaded symbol loading has now been enabled by default on systems
119 that support it (see entry for GDB 9, below), providing faster
120 performance for programs with many symbols.
121
122 * The $_siginfo convenience variable now also works on Windows targets,
123 and will display the EXCEPTION_RECORD of the last handled exception.
124
125 * TUI windows can now be arranged horizontally.
126
127 * The command history filename can now be set to the empty string
128 either using 'set history filename' or by setting 'GDBHISTFILE=' in
129 the environment. The effect of setting this filename to the empty
130 string is that GDB will not try to load any previous command
131 history.
132
133 * On Windows targets, it is now possible to debug 32-bit programs with a
134 64-bit GDB.
135
136 * New commands
137
138 set exec-file-mismatch -- Set exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
139 show exec-file-mismatch -- Show exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
140 Set or show the option 'exec-file-mismatch'. When GDB attaches to a
141 running process, this new option indicates whether to detect
142 a mismatch between the current executable file loaded by GDB and the
143 executable file used to start the process. If 'ask', the default,
144 display a warning and ask the user whether to load the process
145 executable file; if 'warn', just display a warning; if 'off', don't
146 attempt to detect a mismatch.
147
148 tui new-layout NAME WINDOW WEIGHT [WINDOW WEIGHT]...
149 Define a new TUI layout, specifying its name and the windows that
150 will be displayed.
151
152 maintenance print xml-tdesc [FILE]
153 Prints the current target description as an XML document. If the
154 optional FILE is provided (which is an XML target description) then
155 the target description is read from FILE into GDB, and then
156 reprinted.
157
158 maintenance print core-file-backed-mappings
159 Prints file-backed mappings loaded from a core file's note section.
160 Output is expected to be similar to that of "info proc mappings".
161
162 * Changed commands
163
164 alias [-a] [--] ALIAS = COMMAND [DEFAULT-ARGS...]
165 The alias command can now specify default args for an alias.
166 GDB automatically prepends the alias default args to the argument list
167 provided explicitly by the user.
168 For example, to have a backtrace with full details, you can define
169 an alias 'bt_ALL' as
170 'alias bt_ALL = backtrace -entry-values both -frame-arg all
171 -past-main -past-entry -full'.
172 Alias default arguments can also use a set of nested 'with' commands,
173 e.g. 'alias pp10 = with print pretty -- with print elem 10 -- print'
174 defines the alias pp10 that will pretty print a maximum of 10 elements
175 of the given expression (if the expression is an array).
176
177 * New targets
178
179 GNU/Linux/RISC-V (gdbserver) riscv*-*-linux*
180 BPF bpf-unknown-none
181
182 * Python API
183
184 ** gdb.register_window_type can be used to implement new TUI windows
185 in Python.
186
187 ** Dynamic types can now be queried. gdb.Type has a new attribute,
188 "dynamic", and gdb.Type.sizeof can be None for a dynamic type. A
189 field of a dynamic type may have None for its "bitpos" attribute
190 as well.
191
192 ** Commands written in Python can be in the "TUI" help class by
193 registering with the new constant gdb.COMMAND_TUI.
194
195 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.architecture () to retrieve the
196 architecture of the pending frame.
197
198 ** New gdb.Architecture.registers method that returns a
199 gdb.RegisterDescriptorIterator object, an iterator that returns
200 gdb.RegisterDescriptor objects. The new RegisterDescriptor is a
201 way to query the registers available for an architecture.
202
203 ** New gdb.Architecture.register_groups method that returns a
204 gdb.RegisterGroupIterator object, an iterator that returns
205 gdb.RegisterGroup objects. The new RegisterGroup is a way to
206 discover the available register groups.
207
208 * Guile API
209
210 ** GDB can now be built with GNU Guile 3.0 and 2.2 in addition to 2.0.
211
212 ** Procedures 'memory-port-read-buffer-size',
213 'set-memory-port-read-buffer-size!', 'memory-port-write-buffer-size',
214 and 'set-memory-port-write-buffer-size!' are deprecated. When
215 using Guile 2.2 and later, users who need to control the size of
216 a memory port's internal buffer can use the 'setvbuf' procedure.
217
218 *** Changes in GDB 9
219
220 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
221
222 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
223 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
224 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
225 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
226 such as in system-wide init files.
227
228 * New built-in convenience functions $_gdb_setting, $_gdb_setting_str,
229 $_gdb_maint_setting and $_gdb_maint_setting_str provide access to values
230 of the GDB settings and the GDB maintenance settings. They are handy
231 for changing the logic of user defined commands depending on the
232 current GDB settings.
233
234 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
235 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
236 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
237 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
238
239 * Support for Pointer Authentication (PAC) on AArch64 Linux. Return
240 addresses that required unmasking are shown in the backtrace with the
241 postfix [PAC].
242
243 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
244 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
245
246 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
247 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
248 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
249
250 * The command define-prefix can now define user defined prefix commands.
251 User defined commands can now be defined using these user defined prefix
252 commands.
253
254 * Command names can now use the . character.
255
256 * The RX port now supports XML target descriptions.
257
258 * GDB now shows the Ada task names at more places, e.g. in task switching
259 messages.
260
261 * GDB can now be compiled with Python 3 on Windows.
262
263 * New convenience variable $_ada_exception holds the address of the
264 Ada exception being thrown. This is set by Ada-related catchpoints.
265
266 * GDB can now place breakpoints on nested functions and subroutines in
267 Fortran code. The '::' operator can be used between parent and
268 child scopes when placing breakpoints, for example:
269
270 (gdb) break outer_function::inner_function
271
272 The 'outer_function::' prefix is only needed if 'inner_function' is
273 not visible in the current scope.
274
275 * In addition to the system-wide gdbinit file, if configured with
276 --with-system-gdbinit-dir, GDB will now also load files in that directory
277 as system gdbinit files, unless the -nx or -n flag is provided. Files
278 with extensions .gdb, .py and .scm are supported as long as GDB was
279 compiled with support for that language.
280
281 * GDB now supports multithreaded symbol loading for higher performance.
282 This feature is still in testing, so it is disabled by default. You
283 can turn it on using 'maint set worker-threads unlimited'.
284
285 * Python API
286
287 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
288 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
289 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
290 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
291 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
292
293 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
294 type was defined in.
295
296 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
297 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
298 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
299 is given.
300
301 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
302 symbols with static linkage.
303
304 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbols can be used to look up
305 all static symbols with static linkage.
306
307 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
308 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
309
310 ** gdb.Block now supports the dictionary syntax for accessing symbols in
311 this block (e.g. block['local_variable']).
312
313 * New commands
314
315 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
316 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
317 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
318 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
319 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
320 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
321 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
322
323 define-prefix COMMAND
324 Define or mark a command as a user-defined prefix command.
325
326 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
327 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
328 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
329 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
330 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
331 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
332 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
333 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
334 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
335 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
336 of array elements to print.
337
338 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
339 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
340
341 set may-call-functions [on|off]
342 show may-call-functions
343 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
344 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
345 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
346 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
347 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
348 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
349 in the program.
350
351 set print finish [on|off]
352 show print finish
353 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
354 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
355 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
356 default is `on'.
357
358 set print max-depth
359 show print max-depth
360 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
361 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
362 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
363 the old behavior back.
364
365 set print raw-values [on|off]
366 show print raw-values
367 By default, GDB applies the enabled pretty printers when printing a
368 value. This allows to ignore the enabled pretty printers for a series
369 of commands. The default is 'off'.
370
371 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
372 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
373 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
374
375 set style title foreground COLOR
376 set style title background COLOR
377 set style title intensity VALUE
378 Control the styling of titles.
379
380 set style highlight foreground COLOR
381 set style highlight background COLOR
382 set style highlight intensity VALUE
383 Control the styling of highlightings.
384
385 maint set worker-threads
386 maint show worker-threads
387 Control the number of worker threads that can be used by GDB. The
388 default is 0. "unlimited" lets GDB choose a number that is
389 reasonable. Currently worker threads are only used when demangling
390 the names of linker symbols.
391
392 set style tui-border foreground COLOR
393 set style tui-border background COLOR
394 Control the styling of TUI borders.
395
396 set style tui-active-border foreground COLOR
397 set style tui-active-border background COLOR
398 Control the styling of the active TUI border.
399
400 maint set test-settings KIND
401 maint show test-settings KIND
402 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
403 infrastructure.
404
405 maint set tui-resize-message [on|off]
406 maint show tui-resize-message
407 Control whether GDB prints a message each time the terminal is
408 resized when in TUI mode. This is primarily useful for testing the
409 TUI.
410
411 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
412 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
413 show print frame-info
414 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
415 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
416 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
417 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
418
419 set tui compact-source
420 show tui compact-source
421
422 Enable the "compact" display mode for the TUI source window. The
423 compact display uses only as much space as is needed for the line
424 numbers in the current file, and only a single space to separate the
425 line numbers from the source.
426
427 info modules [-q] [REGEXP]
428 Return a list of Fortran modules matching REGEXP, or all modules if
429 no REGEXP is given.
430
431 info module functions [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
432 Return a list of functions within all modules, grouped by module.
433 The list of functions can be restricted with the optional regular
434 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
435 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the function type signature, and REGEXP
436 matches against the function name.
437
438 info module variables [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
439 Return a list of variables within all modules, grouped by module.
440 The list of variables can be restricted with the optional regular
441 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
442 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the variable type, and REGEXP matches
443 against the variable name.
444
445 set debug remote-packet-max-chars
446 show debug remote-packet-max-chars
447 Controls the number of characters to output in a remote packet when using
448 "set debug remote".
449 The default is 512 bytes.
450
451 info connections
452 Lists the target connections currently in use.
453
454 * Changed commands
455
456 help
457 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
458 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
459 command names.
460
461 apropos [-v] REGEXP
462 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
463 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
464 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
465 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
466 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
467
468 printf
469 eval
470 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
471 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
472 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
473 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
474
475 info sources [-dirname | -basename] [--] [REGEXP]
476 This command has now optional arguments to only print the files
477 whose names match REGEXP. The arguments -dirname and -basename
478 allow to restrict matching respectively to the dirname and basename
479 parts of the files.
480
481 show style
482 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
483 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
484 the user visualize the different styles.
485
486 set print frame-arguments
487 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
488 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
489
490 set print raw-frame-arguments
491 show print raw-frame-arguments
492
493 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
494 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
495 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
496 release.
497
498 add-inferior [-no-connection]
499 The add-inferior command now supports a "-no-connection" flag that
500 makes the new inferior start with no target connection associated.
501 By default, the new inferior inherits the target connection of the
502 current inferior. See also "info connections".
503
504 info inferior
505 This command's output now includes a new "Connection" column
506 indicating which target connection an inferior is bound to. See
507 "info connections" above.
508
509 maint test-options require-delimiter
510 maint test-options unknown-is-error
511 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
512 maint show test-options-completion-result
513 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
514 framework.
515
516 focus, winheight, +, -, >, <
517 These commands are now case-sensitive.
518
519 * New command options, command completion
520
521 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
522 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
523 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
524 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
525 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
526 number of commands got support for new command options in this
527 release:
528
529 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
530 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
531 set by "set print" subcommands:
532
533 -address [on|off]
534 -array [on|off]
535 -array-indexes [on|off]
536 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
537 -null-stop [on|off]
538 -object [on|off]
539 -pretty [on|off]
540 -raw-values [on|off]
541 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
542 -static-members [on|off]
543 -symbol [on|off]
544 -union [on|off]
545 -vtbl [on|off]
546
547 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
548 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
549 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
550 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
551
552 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
553 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
554 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
555
556 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
557 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
558 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
559 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
560 |location-and-address|short-location
561 -past-main [on|off]
562 -past-entry [on|off]
563
564 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
565 exposed as command options too:
566
567 -full
568 -no-filters
569 -hide
570
571 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
572 support the following options:
573
574 -past-main [on|off]
575 -past-entry [on|off]
576
577 ** The new "info sources" options -dirname and -basename options
578 are using the standard '-OPT' infrastructure.
579
580 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
581 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
582 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
583 like for example:
584
585 (gdb) p -ra -p -o 0 -- *myptr
586
587 The above is equivalent to:
588
589 (gdb) print -raw-values -pretty -object off -- *myptr
590
591 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
592 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
593 variables" and "info functions".
594
595 ** The "info variables", "info functions", and "whereis" commands
596 now take a '-n' flag that excludes non-debug symbols (symbols
597 from the symbol table, not from the debug info such as DWARF)
598 from the results.
599
600 * Completion improvements
601
602 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
603 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
604 abbreviated.
605
606 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
607 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
608 commands.
609
610 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
611 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
612 completes on filenames.
613
614 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
615 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
616
617 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
618
619 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
620 elements unlimited".
621
622 * New MI commands
623
624 -complete
625 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
626 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
627 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
628
629 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
630 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
631 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
632
633 -symbol-info-functions, -symbol-info-types, and -symbol-info-variables
634 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
635 functions', 'info types', and 'info variables' respectively.
636
637 -symbol-info-modules, this is the MI equivalent of the CLI 'info
638 modules' command.
639
640 -symbol-info-module-functions and -symbol-info-module-variables.
641 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
642 module functions' and 'info module variables'.
643
644 * Other MI changes
645
646 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
647
648 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
649 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
650 the following commands and events:
651
652 - -break-insert
653 - -break-info
654 - =breakpoint-created
655 - =breakpoint-modified
656
657 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
658 this behavior with previous MI versions.
659
660 ** Backtraces and frames include a new optional field addr_flags which is
661 given after the addr field. On AArch64 this contains PAC if the address
662 has been masked in the frame. On all other targets the field is not
663 present.
664
665 * Testsuite
666
667 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
668 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
669 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
670 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
671
672 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.82.
673
674 Using another implementation of the make program or an earlier version of
675 GNU make to build GDB or GDBserver is not supported.
676
677 * Building GDB now requires GNU readline >= 7.0.
678
679 GDB now bundles GNU readline 8.0, but if you choose to use
680 --with-system-readline, only readline >= 7.0 can be used.
681
682 * The TUI SingleKey keymap is now named "SingleKey". This can be used
683 from .inputrc to bind keys in this keymap. This feature is only
684 available when gdb is built against GNU readline 8.0 or later.
685
686 * Removed targets and native configurations
687
688 GDB no longer supports debugging the Cell Broadband Engine. This includes
689 both debugging standalone Cell/B.E. SPU applications and integrated debugging
690 of Cell/B.E. applications that use both the PPU and SPU architectures.
691
692 * New Simulators
693
694 TI PRU pru-*-elf
695
696 * Removed targets and native configurations
697
698 Solaris 10 i?86-*-solaris2.10, x86_64-*-solaris2.10,
699 sparc*-*-solaris2.10
700
701 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
702
703 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
704 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
705 HTM registers.
706
707 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
708 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
709 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
710 and operators.
711
712 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
713 (the C++ plug-in).
714
715 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
716 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
717 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
718
719 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
720 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
721
722 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
723 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
724 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
725 in the GDB user manual.
726
727 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
728 executed failed.
729
730 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
731
732 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
733 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
734 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
735 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
736 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
737 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
738 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
739 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
740 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
741 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
742 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
743 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
744
745 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
746 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
747 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
748 information.
749
750 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
751 lucid.
752
753 * New commands
754
755 set debug compile-cplus-types
756 show debug compile-cplus-types
757 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
758 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiling
759 for other languages.
760
761 set debug skip
762 show debug skip
763 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
764 displayed.
765
766 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
767 Apply a command to some frames.
768 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
769 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
770
771 taas COMMAND
772 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
773 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
774
775 faas COMMAND
776 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
777 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
778
779 tfaas COMMAND
780 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
781 output).
782 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
783
784 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
785 maint show dwarf unwinders
786 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
787
788 info proc files
789 Display a list of open files for a process.
790
791 * Changed commands
792
793 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
794 These commands all now take a frame specification which
795 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
796 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
797 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
798 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
799 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
800
801 target remote FILENAME
802 target extended-remote FILENAME
803 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
804 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
805
806 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
807 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
808 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
809 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
810 These commands can now print only the searched entities
811 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
812 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
813 printing headers or informations messages.
814
815 info functions
816 info types
817 info variables
818 rbreak
819 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
820 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
821 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
822 the shown entities.
823
824 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
825 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
826 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
827 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
828
829 set tui tab-width NCHARS
830 show tui tab-width NCHARS
831 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
832
833 set style enabled [on|off]
834 show style enabled
835 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
836 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
837
838 set style sources [on|off]
839 show style sources
840 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
841 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
842 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
843
844 set style filename foreground COLOR
845 set style filename background COLOR
846 set style filename intensity VALUE
847 Control the styling of file names.
848
849 set style function foreground COLOR
850 set style function background COLOR
851 set style function intensity VALUE
852 Control the styling of function names.
853
854 set style variable foreground COLOR
855 set style variable background COLOR
856 set style variable intensity VALUE
857 Control the styling of variable names.
858
859 set style address foreground COLOR
860 set style address background COLOR
861 set style address intensity VALUE
862 Control the styling of addresses.
863
864 * MI changes
865
866 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
867 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
868 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
869 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
870 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
871
872 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
873 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
874
875 * New native configurations
876
877 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
878 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
879
880 * New targets
881
882 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
883 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
884 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
885 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
886 NXP S12Z s12z-*-elf
887 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
888
889 * Removed targets
890
891 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
892 before Windows XP.
893
894 * Python API
895
896 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
897
898 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
899 space associated to that inferior.
900
901 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
902 of objfiles associated to that program space.
903
904 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
905 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
906 the gdb core.
907
908 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
909 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
910 correct and did not work properly.
911
912 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
913 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
914
915 * Configure changes
916
917 --enable-ubsan
918
919 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
920 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
921 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
922 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
923 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
924
925 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
926
927 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
928 for the MIPS target.
929
930 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
931 offset to all sections.
932
933 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
934 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
935 address of individual sections using '-s'.
936
937 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
938 (address of the text section).
939
940 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
941 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
942 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
943 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
944 default.
945
946 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
947 for the rest of the current command.
948
949 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
950 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
951
952 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
953 files created on FreeBSD systems.
954
955 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
956 alignof.
957
958 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
959 the vector length while the process is running.
960
961 * New commands
962
963 set debug fbsd-nat
964 show debug fbsd-nat
965 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
966
967 set|show varsize-limit
968 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
969 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
970 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
971
972 set|show record btrace cpu
973 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
974 branch trace decode.
975
976 maint check libthread-db
977 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
978 library
979
980 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
981 maint show check-libthread-db
982 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
983 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
984 perform such checks.
985
986 * Python API
987
988 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
989
990 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
991 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
992
993 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
994
995 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
996 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
997 of convenience variables.
998
999 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
1000 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
1001 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
1002
1003 * New targets
1004
1005 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
1006
1007 * Removed targets and native configurations
1008
1009 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
1010 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
1011 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
1012 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
1013
1014 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
1015
1016 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
1017 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
1018 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
1019 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
1020 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
1021 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
1022 reported.
1023
1024 * Configure changes
1025
1026 --enable-codesign=CERT
1027 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
1028 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
1029 gdb to work properly.
1030
1031 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
1032 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
1033
1034 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
1035
1036 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
1037 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
1038 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
1039
1040 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
1041 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
1042
1043 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
1044 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
1045 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
1046 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
1047 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
1048
1049 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
1050 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
1051 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
1052 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
1053
1054 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
1055 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
1056
1057 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
1058 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
1059 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
1060
1061 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
1062 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
1063 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
1064
1065 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
1066 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
1067 environment" command.
1068
1069 * Completion improvements
1070
1071 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
1072 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
1073 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
1074 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
1075 correctly:
1076
1077 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
1078 (gdb) b function(int)
1079
1080 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
1081 C++ anonymous namespaces:
1082
1083 (gdb) b (anon[TAB]
1084 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
1085 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
1086 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
1087
1088 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
1089 completion support, that better understands what you're
1090 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
1091 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
1092 setting a breakpoint.
1093
1094 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
1095
1096 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
1097
1098 * New command line options (gcore)
1099
1100 -a
1101 Dump all memory mappings.
1102
1103 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
1104
1105 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
1106 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
1107 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
1108
1109 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
1110
1111 A::B::func()
1112 B::func()
1113
1114 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
1115 on both symbols.
1116
1117 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
1118 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
1119 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
1120 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
1121 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
1122 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
1123 a breakpoint from Python.
1124
1125 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1126
1127 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1128 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
1129 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
1130
1131 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
1132
1133 function[abi:cxx11](int)
1134 ^^^^^^^^^^^
1135
1136 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
1137 no tag, like:
1138
1139 (gdb) b function(int)
1140
1141 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
1142
1143 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
1144
1145 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
1146
1147 * Python Scripting
1148
1149 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
1150 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
1151 description of these.
1152
1153 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
1154 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
1155 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
1156
1157 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
1158 manual for a further description of this feature.
1159
1160
1161 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1162
1163 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
1164 specified initial working directory.
1165
1166 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
1167 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
1168
1169 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
1170 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
1171
1172 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
1173 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
1174
1175 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
1176 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
1177 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
1178 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
1179 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
1180
1181 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
1182 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
1183 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
1184
1185 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
1186 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
1187 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
1188 in the *stopped notification.
1189
1190 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
1191 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
1192
1193 * New remote packets
1194
1195 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
1196 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
1197 the inferior when starting it.
1198
1199 QEnvironmentUnset
1200 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
1201 before starting the remote inferior.
1202
1203 QEnvironmentReset
1204 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
1205 user-set environment variables should be unset).
1206
1207 QStartupWithShell
1208 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
1209
1210 QSetWorkingDir
1211 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
1212 working directory.
1213
1214 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
1215 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
1216
1217 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
1218 filter the tests to be run.
1219
1220 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
1221 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
1222
1223 * New commands
1224
1225 set|show cwd
1226 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
1227
1228 set|show compile-gcc
1229 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
1230 with the 'compile' commands.
1231
1232 set debug separate-debug-file
1233 show debug separate-debug-file
1234 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
1235
1236 set dump-excluded-mappings
1237 show dump-excluded-mappings
1238 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
1239 dumped when generating a core file.
1240
1241 maint info selftests
1242 List the registered selftests.
1243
1244 starti
1245 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
1246
1247 set|show debug or1k
1248 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
1249
1250 set|show print type nested-type-limit
1251 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
1252 type printer will show.
1253
1254 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
1255 `o' for nexti.
1256
1257 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
1258
1259 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
1260 'int'.
1261
1262 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
1263 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
1264 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
1265 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
1266
1267 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
1268 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
1269 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
1270 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
1271 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
1272 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
1273
1274 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
1275 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
1276 unless you tell it the variable's type:
1277
1278 (gdb) p var
1279 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
1280 (gdb) p (float) var
1281 $3 = 3.14
1282
1283 * New native configurations
1284
1285 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
1286 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
1287
1288 * New targets
1289
1290 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
1291 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
1292 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
1293
1294 * Removed targets and native configurations
1295
1296 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
1297
1298 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
1299
1300 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
1301 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
1302 available in future Intel CPUs.
1303
1304 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
1305
1306 * Python Scripting
1307
1308 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
1309 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
1310
1311 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
1312 instructions.
1313
1314 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
1315
1316 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
1317
1318 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
1319 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
1320 removed.
1321
1322 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
1323
1324 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
1325 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
1326
1327 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
1328
1329 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
1330 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
1331 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
1332 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
1333 features.
1334
1335 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
1336
1337 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
1338 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
1339 debugger.
1340
1341 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
1342
1343 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
1344 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
1345
1346 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
1347
1348 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
1349
1350 define mycommand
1351 set $i = 0
1352 while $i < $argc
1353 eval "print $arg%d", $i
1354 set $i = $i + 1
1355 end
1356 end
1357
1358 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
1359
1360 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
1361 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
1362
1363 * New native configurations
1364
1365 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1366
1367 * New targets
1368
1369 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
1370 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1371
1372 * Removed targets and native configurations
1373
1374 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1375 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
1376
1377 * New commands
1378
1379 flash-erase
1380 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
1381
1382 maint print arc arc-instruction address
1383 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
1384
1385 * New options
1386
1387 set disassembler-options
1388 show disassembler-options
1389 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
1390 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
1391 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
1392 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
1393 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
1394
1395 * New MI commands
1396
1397 -target-flash-erase
1398 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
1399 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
1400
1401 -file-list-shared-libraries
1402 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
1403 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
1404
1405 -catch-handlers
1406 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
1407 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
1408
1409 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
1410
1411 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
1412
1413 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
1414 default. One must now explicitly configure with
1415 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
1416 option will be removed in a future release.
1417
1418 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
1419 GDB connection.
1420
1421 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
1422 memory backward from the given address. For example:
1423
1424 (gdb) bt
1425 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
1426 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
1427 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
1428 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
1429 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
1430 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
1431 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
1432 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
1433 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
1434
1435 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
1436 arrays of dynamic types.
1437
1438 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
1439 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1440 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1441 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1442 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1443 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
1444
1445 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
1446 descriptions.
1447
1448 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
1449 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
1450 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
1451
1452 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
1453
1454 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
1455 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
1456 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
1457 signal received and code location.
1458
1459 For example:
1460
1461 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
1462 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
1463 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
1464 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
1465
1466 * Rust language support.
1467 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
1468 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
1469 Rust.
1470
1471 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
1472
1473 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
1474 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
1475 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
1476 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
1477 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
1478 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
1479 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
1480 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
1481 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
1482 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
1483 line.
1484
1485 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
1486
1487 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
1488 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
1489
1490 * New commands
1491
1492 skip -file file
1493 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
1494 skip -function function
1495 skip -rfunction regular-expression
1496 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
1497 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
1498 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
1499
1500 maint info line-table REGEXP
1501 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data structure.
1502
1503 maint selftest
1504 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
1505
1506 new-ui INTERP TTY
1507 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
1508 using the TTY file for input/output.
1509
1510 * Python Scripting
1511
1512 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
1513 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
1514 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
1515 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
1516 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
1517
1518 signal-event EVENTID
1519 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
1520 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
1521 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
1522 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
1523 signalling an event.
1524
1525 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
1526 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
1527 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
1528
1529 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
1530 been removed:
1531
1532 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
1533 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
1534 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
1535 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
1536 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
1537 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
1538
1539 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
1540 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
1541 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
1542 bytecode into native code.
1543
1544 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
1545 recording. For example:
1546
1547 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
1548
1549 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
1550
1551 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
1552
1553 * New targets
1554
1555 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
1556
1557 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
1558
1559 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
1560
1561 * Per-inferior thread numbers
1562
1563 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
1564 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
1565 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
1566
1567 (gdb) info threads
1568 Id Target Id Frame
1569 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
1570 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
1571 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
1572 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
1573
1574 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
1575 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
1576 are no longer unique between inferiors.
1577
1578 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
1579 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
1580 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
1581
1582 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
1583 IDs.
1584
1585 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
1586 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
1587
1588 (gdb) thread 2.1
1589 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
1590 (gdb)
1591
1592 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
1593 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
1594 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
1595 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
1596 threads 2.*".
1597
1598 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
1599 all threads.
1600
1601 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
1602 the current thread.
1603
1604 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
1605 current inferior.
1606
1607 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
1608 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
1609 example:
1610
1611 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
1612 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
1613
1614 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
1615
1616 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
1617
1618 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
1619 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
1620
1621 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
1622 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
1623 clients.
1624
1625 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1626 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
1627 at the same time.
1628
1629 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
1630 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
1631 into native code.
1632
1633 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1634
1635 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
1636 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
1637 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
1638
1639 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
1640 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
1641
1642 * New commands
1643
1644 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
1645 maint show target-non-stop
1646 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
1647 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
1648 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
1649
1650 maint set bfd-sharing
1651 maint show bfd-sharing
1652 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
1653
1654 set debug bfd-cache
1655 show debug bfd-cache
1656 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
1657
1658 set debug fbsd-lwp
1659 show debug fbsd-lwp
1660 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
1661
1662 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1663 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1664 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
1665
1666 set remote thread-events
1667 show remote thread-events
1668 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
1669
1670 set ada print-signatures on|off
1671 show ada print-signatures"
1672 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
1673 selection menus. It is activated (@code{on}) by default.
1674
1675 set max-value-size
1676 show max-value-size
1677 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
1678 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
1679 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
1680
1681 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1682 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
1683 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
1684 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
1685 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
1686 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
1687
1688 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1689 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
1690
1691 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
1692 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
1693
1694 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
1695
1696 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
1697 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
1698 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
1699 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
1700 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
1701 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
1702
1703 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
1704 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1705
1706 catch handlers
1707 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1708
1709 * New remote packets
1710
1711 exec stop reason
1712 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1713
1714 exec-events feature in qSupported
1715 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1716 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1717 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1718 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1719
1720 vCtrlC
1721 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1722 non-stop mode.
1723
1724 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1725 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1726
1727 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1728 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1729
1730 QThreadEvents
1731 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1732 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1733 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1734 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1735 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1736 stop for that same thread.
1737
1738 N stop reply
1739 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1740 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1741 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1742
1743 QCatchSyscalls
1744 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1745 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1746
1747 syscall_entry stop reason
1748 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1749
1750 syscall_return stop reason
1751 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1752
1753 * Extended-remote exec events
1754
1755 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1756 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1757 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1758
1759 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1760 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1761 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1762
1763 * Thread names in remote protocol
1764
1765 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1766 thread.
1767
1768 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1769
1770 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1771 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1772 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1773 fork and exec catchpoints.
1774
1775 * Remote syscall events
1776
1777 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1778 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1779
1780 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1781 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1782 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1783
1784 * MI changes
1785
1786 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1787 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1788 left.
1789
1790 * Python Scripting
1791
1792 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1793 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1794 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1795 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1796 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1797 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1798
1799 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1800
1801 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1802 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1803 including advance SIMD instructions.
1804
1805 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1806
1807 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1808 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1809 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1810 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1811 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1812 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1813 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1814
1815 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1816 cpu information :
1817 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1818
1819 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1820 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1821 remote serial I/O.
1822
1823 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1824 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
1825 and may include things like its command line arguments.
1826
1827 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
1828 is now available on all platforms.
1829
1830 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
1831 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
1832 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
1833 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
1834 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
1835 backward compatibility.
1836
1837 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
1838 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
1839 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
1840 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
1841
1842 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
1843 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
1844 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
1845 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
1846 packets" below.
1847
1848 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
1849
1850 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
1851
1852 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
1853 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
1854 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
1855 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
1856 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
1857 See "New remote packets" below.
1858
1859 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
1860 available register groups, including target specific groups.
1861
1862 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
1863 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
1864 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
1865 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
1866 are ignored.
1867
1868 * Guile Scripting
1869
1870 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
1871
1872 * Python Scripting
1873
1874 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
1875 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
1876 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
1877 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
1878 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
1879 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
1880 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
1881 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
1882 "const" version of the value respectively.
1883
1884 * New commands
1885
1886 maint print symbol-cache
1887 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
1888
1889 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
1890 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
1891
1892 maint flush-symbol-cache
1893 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
1894
1895 record btrace bts
1896 record bts
1897 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
1898
1899 compile print
1900 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
1901
1902 tui enable
1903 tui disable
1904 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
1905
1906 show mpx bound
1907 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
1908 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
1909
1910 record btrace pt
1911 record pt
1912 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
1913
1914 maint info btrace
1915 Print information about branch tracing internals.
1916
1917 maint btrace packet-history
1918 Print the raw branch tracing data.
1919
1920 maint btrace clear-packet-history
1921 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
1922
1923 maint btrace clear
1924 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
1925 anew by the next "record" command.
1926
1927 * New options
1928
1929 set debug dwarf-die
1930 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
1931 show debug dwarf-die
1932 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
1933
1934 set debug dwarf-read
1935 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
1936 show debug dwarf-read
1937 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
1938
1939 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
1940 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1941 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
1942 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1943
1944 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
1945 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1946 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
1947 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1948
1949 set debug dwarf-line
1950 show debug dwarf-line
1951 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
1952
1953 set max-completions
1954 show max-completions
1955 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
1956 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
1957 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
1958 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
1959
1960 set history remove-duplicates
1961 show history remove-duplicates
1962 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1963
1964 maint set symbol-cache-size
1965 maint show symbol-cache-size
1966 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1967
1968 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1969 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1970 BTS format.
1971 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1972 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1973
1974 set debug linux-namespaces
1975 show debug linux-namespaces
1976 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1977
1978 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1979 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1980 Intel Processor Trace format.
1981 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1982 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1983
1984 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1985 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1986 packet history.
1987
1988 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
1989 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
1990
1991 * Python/Guile scripting
1992
1993 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
1994 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
1995
1996 * New remote packets
1997
1998 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
1999 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
2000
2001 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
2002 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
2003
2004 Qbtrace:pt
2005 Enable Intel Processor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
2006 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
2007 qSupported query.
2008
2009 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
2010 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
2011 Trace format.
2012
2013 swbreak stop reason
2014 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
2015 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
2016 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
2017 mode operation.
2018
2019 hwbreak stop reason
2020 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
2021 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
2022
2023 vFile:fstat:
2024 Return information about files on the remote system.
2025
2026 qXfer:exec-file:read
2027 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
2028 create a process running on the remote system.
2029
2030 vFile:setfs:
2031 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
2032 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
2033 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
2034 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
2035
2036 fork stop reason
2037 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
2038
2039 vfork stop reason
2040 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
2041
2042 vforkdone stop reason
2043 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
2044 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
2045
2046 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
2047 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
2048 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
2049 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
2050 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
2051 whether these features are enabled.
2052
2053 * Extended-remote fork events
2054
2055 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
2056 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
2057 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
2058 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
2059
2060 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
2061 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
2062 the btrace record target.
2063 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
2064
2065 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
2066 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
2067
2068 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
2069 targets.
2070
2071 * Removed command line options
2072
2073 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
2074
2075 * Removed targets and native configurations
2076
2077 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
2078 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
2079
2080 * New configure options
2081
2082 --with-intel-pt
2083 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
2084 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
2085
2086 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
2087 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
2088 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
2089 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
2090
2091 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
2092
2093 * Python Scripting
2094
2095 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
2096
2097 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
2098
2099 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
2100
2101 * Python Scripting
2102
2103 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
2104 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
2105 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
2106 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
2107 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
2108 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
2109 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
2110 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
2111 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
2112 selecting a new file to debug.
2113 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
2114 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
2115
2116 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
2117 inferior.
2118
2119 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
2120 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
2121 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
2122 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
2123
2124 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2125
2126 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2127 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2128 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2129 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2130
2131 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
2132 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
2133 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
2134 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
2135 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
2136 interface with this new feature are:
2137
2138 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
2139 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
2140
2141 * New commands
2142
2143 demangle [-l language] [--] name
2144 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
2145 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
2146 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
2147 as "maint demangler-warning".
2148
2149 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
2150 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
2151
2152 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
2153 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
2154 scripts.
2155
2156 maint print user-registers
2157 List all currently available "user" registers.
2158
2159 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
2160 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
2161 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
2162
2163 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
2164 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
2165 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
2166 provided.
2167
2168 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
2169 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
2170 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
2171 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
2172 at resume time.
2173
2174 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
2175 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
2176 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
2177 switched threads meanwhile.
2178
2179 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
2180
2181 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
2182 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
2183 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
2184 is now the default mode.
2185
2186 * New options
2187
2188 set debug symbol-lookup
2189 show debug symbol-lookup
2190 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
2191
2192 * MI changes
2193
2194 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
2195 inferiors that have exited.
2196
2197 * New targets
2198
2199 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
2200
2201 * Removed targets
2202
2203 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2204
2205 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
2206 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
2207 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
2208 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
2209 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
2210
2211 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2212 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2213 its alias "share", instead.
2214
2215 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
2216
2217 * New command line options
2218
2219 -D data-directory
2220 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
2221
2222 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
2223 as specified in ISO C99.
2224
2225 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
2226 with or without disassembly.
2227
2228 * Guile scripting
2229
2230 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
2231 available is determined at configure time.
2232 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
2233 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
2234
2235 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2236
2237 guile [code]
2238 gu [code]
2239 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
2240
2241 guile-repl
2242 gr
2243 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
2244
2245 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
2246 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
2247
2248 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
2249 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
2250
2251 * New options
2252
2253 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
2254 show print symbol-loading
2255 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
2256 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
2257 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
2258 becomes less useful.
2259
2260 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
2261 show guile print-stack
2262 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
2263
2264 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
2265 show auto-load guile-scripts
2266 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
2267
2268 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
2269 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
2270 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
2271 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
2272 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
2273 usage of this option.
2274
2275 set auto-connect-native-target
2276
2277 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
2278 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
2279 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
2280
2281 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
2282 show record btrace replay-memory-access
2283 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
2284
2285 maint set target-async (on|off)
2286 maint show target-async
2287 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
2288 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
2289 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
2290 occurring only in synchronous mode.
2291
2292 set mi-async (on|off)
2293 show mi-async
2294 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
2295 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
2296
2297 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
2298 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
2299
2300 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
2301 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
2302 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
2303 "set target-async on" command.
2304
2305 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2306
2307 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
2308 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
2309 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
2310 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
2311 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
2312
2313 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
2314 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
2315 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
2316
2317 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
2318 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
2319 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
2320 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
2321 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
2322 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
2323 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
2324
2325 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
2326 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
2327
2328 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
2329 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
2330 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
2331
2332 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
2333 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
2334 memory or registers.
2335
2336 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
2337
2338 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
2339 remote. It now works with all targets.
2340
2341 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
2342 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
2343 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
2344 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
2345 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
2346 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
2347 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
2348 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
2349 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
2350 target-stack".
2351
2352 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
2353 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
2354 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
2355
2356 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
2357
2358 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
2359 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
2360 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
2361
2362 * New remote packets
2363
2364 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
2365 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
2366 branch trace incrementally.
2367
2368 * Python Scripting
2369
2370 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
2371 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
2372 available.
2373 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
2374 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
2375 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
2376 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
2377 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
2378
2379 * New targets
2380 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
2381
2382 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2383 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2384 its alias "share", instead.
2385
2386 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
2387 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
2388 instead.
2389
2390 * MI changes
2391
2392 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
2393 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
2394 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
2395 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
2396 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
2397 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
2398 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
2399 commands and CLI execution commands.
2400
2401 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
2402
2403 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
2404 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
2405 recording has been added.
2406
2407 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2408
2409 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
2410 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
2411
2412 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
2413 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
2414 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
2415 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
2416 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
2417 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
2418 "void".
2419
2420 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
2421
2422 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
2423
2424 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
2425 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
2426 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
2427 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
2428
2429 (gdb) p $rax
2430 $1 = <not saved>
2431
2432 (gdb) info registers rax
2433 rax <not saved>
2434
2435 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
2436 "*value not available*".
2437
2438 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
2439 to binaries.
2440
2441 * Python scripting
2442
2443 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
2444 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
2445 ** Line tables representation has been added.
2446 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
2447 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
2448 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
2449
2450 * New targets
2451
2452 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
2453 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
2454 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
2455
2456 * Removed native configurations
2457
2458 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
2459 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
2460
2461 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2462 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2463 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
2464 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
2465 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2466 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2467 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2468
2469 * New commands:
2470 catch rethrow
2471 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
2472 maint check-psymtabs
2473 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
2474 maint check-symtabs
2475 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
2476 maint expand-symtabs
2477 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
2478
2479 show configuration
2480 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2481
2482 maint set|show per-command
2483 maint set|show per-command space
2484 maint set|show per-command time
2485 maint set|show per-command symtab
2486 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
2487
2488 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
2489 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
2490 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
2491 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
2492 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
2493
2494 info exceptions
2495 info exceptions REGEXP
2496 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
2497 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
2498 are listed.
2499
2500 * New options
2501
2502 set debug symfile off|on
2503 show debug symfile
2504 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
2505 symbol tables within those files
2506
2507 set print raw frame-arguments
2508 show print raw frame-arguments
2509 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
2510 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
2511
2512 set remote trace-status-packet
2513 show remote trace-status-packet
2514 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
2515
2516 set debug nios2
2517 show debug nios2
2518 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
2519
2520 set range-stepping
2521 show range-stepping
2522 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
2523
2524 set startup-with-shell
2525 show startup-with-shell
2526 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
2527 directly.
2528
2529 set code-cache
2530 show code-cache
2531 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
2532 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
2533
2534 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
2535 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
2536 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
2537 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
2538 "set height 0".
2539
2540 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
2541 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
2542 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
2543
2544 * New command-line options
2545 --configuration
2546 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2547
2548 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
2549 buffer in Common Trace Format.
2550
2551 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
2552 GDB command gcore.
2553
2554 * GDB now implements the C++ 'typeid' operator.
2555
2556 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
2557 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
2558
2559 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
2560 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
2561
2562 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
2563 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
2564 due to an uncaught signal.
2565
2566 * MI changes
2567
2568 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
2569 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
2570 command, which should contain "language-option".
2571
2572 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
2573 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
2574
2575 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
2576 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
2577 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
2578 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2579 "undefined-command-error-code".
2580
2581 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
2582 Trace Format now.
2583
2584 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
2585
2586 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
2587 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
2588 are displayed.
2589
2590 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
2591 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
2592
2593 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
2594 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
2595 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
2596
2597 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
2598 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
2599 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
2600 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
2601 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2602 "exec-run-start-option".
2603
2604 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
2605 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
2606
2607 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
2608 the new "info exceptions" command.
2609
2610 * New system-wide configuration scripts
2611 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
2612 configuration scripts for the following systems:
2613 ** ElinOS
2614 ** Wind River Linux
2615
2616 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
2617 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
2618 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
2619 below.
2620
2621 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
2622 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
2623
2624 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
2625 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
2626 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
2627
2628 * New remote packets
2629
2630 vCont;r
2631
2632 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
2633 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
2634 involvemement at each single-step.
2635
2636 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
2637 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
2638 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
2639 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
2640 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
2641 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
2642 speedup.
2643
2644 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2645
2646 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
2647 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
2648
2649 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
2650 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
2651 trace state variables.
2652
2653 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
2654 target.
2655
2656 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
2657 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
2658
2659 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
2660
2661 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
2662 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
2663 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
2664 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2665
2666 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
2667
2668 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
2669 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
2670 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
2671 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
2672
2673 set|show record full insn-number-max
2674 set|show record full stop-at-limit
2675 set|show record full memory-query
2676
2677 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
2678 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
2679 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
2680 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
2681 This new recording method can be enabled using:
2682
2683 record btrace
2684
2685 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
2686 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
2687
2688 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
2689 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
2690 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
2691
2692 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
2693 instruction granularity
2694
2695 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
2696 function granularity
2697
2698 * New native configurations
2699
2700 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
2701 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
2702 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2703 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2704
2705 * New targets
2706
2707 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2708 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2709 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2710 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2711 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2712
2713 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2714 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2715 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2716 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2717 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2718 --data-directory command-line option.
2719
2720 * New command line options:
2721
2722 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2723 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2724
2725 * Removed command line options
2726
2727 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2728 Emacs.
2729
2730 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2731 type formatting.
2732
2733 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2734
2735 * Python scripting
2736
2737 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2738
2739 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2740
2741 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2742
2743 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2744
2745 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2746 of architecture in the Python API.
2747
2748 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2749 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2750
2751 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2752
2753 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2754 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2755 ** $_strlen(str)
2756 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2757
2758 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2759 given an argument.
2760
2761 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2762 default for GCC since November 2000.
2763
2764 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2765
2766 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2767 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2768
2769 * New configure options
2770
2771 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2772 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2773 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2774 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2775 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2776 options allow the user to override that default.
2777 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2778 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2779 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2780
2781 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2782
2783 catch signal
2784 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2785 conditions to be attached.
2786
2787 maint info bfds
2788 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2789
2790 python-interactive [command]
2791 pi [command]
2792 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2793 and print the result of expressions.
2794
2795 py [command]
2796 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2797
2798 enable type-printer [name]...
2799 disable type-printer [name]...
2800 Enable or disable type printers.
2801
2802 * Removed commands
2803
2804 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2805 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2806 instead.
2807
2808 * New options
2809
2810 set print type methods (on|off)
2811 show print type methods
2812 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2813 The default is to show them.
2814
2815 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2816 show print type typedefs
2817 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2818 The default is to show them.
2819
2820 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2821 show filename-display
2822 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2823 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
2824
2825 set trace-buffer-size
2826 show trace-buffer-size
2827 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
2828
2829 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
2830 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
2831 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
2832
2833 set debug aarch64
2834 show debug aarch64
2835 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
2836 The default is off.
2837
2838 set debug coff-pe-read
2839 show debug coff-pe-read
2840 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
2841 exported symbols.
2842
2843 set debug mach-o
2844 show debug mach-o
2845 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
2846 processing.
2847
2848 set debug notification
2849 show debug notification
2850 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
2851
2852 * MI changes
2853
2854 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
2855 "=cmd-param-changed".
2856 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
2857 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
2858 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
2859 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
2860 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
2861 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
2862 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
2863 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
2864 "=memory-changed".
2865 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
2866 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
2867 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
2868 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
2869 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
2870 library load/unload events.
2871 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
2872 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
2873 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
2874 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
2875 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
2876 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
2877 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
2878 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
2879
2880 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
2881 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
2882 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
2883 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
2884
2885 * New remote packets
2886
2887 QTBuffer:size
2888 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
2889 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2890
2891 Qbtrace:bts
2892 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
2893 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
2894 qSupported query.
2895
2896 Qbtrace:off
2897 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
2898 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2899
2900 qXfer:btrace:read
2901 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
2902 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2903
2904 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
2905
2906 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
2907 for more x32 ABI info.
2908
2909 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
2910
2911 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
2912
2913 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2914 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
2915 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
2916 "info os files" lists file descriptors
2917 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
2918 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
2919 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
2920 "info os msg" lists message queues
2921 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
2922
2923 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
2924 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
2925 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
2926 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
2927 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
2928 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
2929
2930 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
2931 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
2932 record/replay support.
2933
2934 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
2935
2936 * Python scripting
2937
2938 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
2939 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
2940
2941 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
2942
2943 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
2944 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
2945
2946 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
2947
2948 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
2949 the source at which the symbol was defined.
2950
2951 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
2952 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
2953 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
2954 symbol's value.
2955
2956 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
2957 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
2958
2959 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2960 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2961 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2962
2963 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2964 object associated with a PC value.
2965
2966 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2967 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2968
2969 * Go language support.
2970 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2971 language.
2972
2973 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2974 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2975
2976 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2977 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2978
2979 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2980 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2981 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2982 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2983 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2984 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
2985
2986 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
2987 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
2988 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
2989 build/libcpp/expr.c.
2990
2991 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
2992 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
2993
2994 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
2995 since December 2007.
2996
2997 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
2998 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
2999 command does. For instance:
3000
3001 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
3002
3003 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
3004 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
3005 created, using the "condition" command.
3006
3007 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
3008 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
3009
3010 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
3011
3012 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
3013 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
3014 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
3015 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
3016 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
3017 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
3018 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
3019 files with older .gdb_index sections.
3020
3021 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
3022 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
3023 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
3024 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
3025 the .gdb_index section.
3026
3027 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
3028
3029 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
3030 target.
3031
3032 * MI changes
3033
3034 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
3035
3036 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
3037
3038 * New commands
3039
3040 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
3041 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
3042 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
3043
3044 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
3045 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
3046
3047 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
3048 several hits.
3049
3050 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
3051 C++ and Java objects.
3052
3053 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
3054 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
3055 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
3056 configured with '--with-python'.
3057
3058 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
3059 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
3060 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
3061 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
3062 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
3063 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
3064 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
3065
3066 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
3067 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
3068 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
3069 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
3070
3071 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
3072 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
3073 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
3074 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
3075
3076 ** "set print symbol"
3077 "show print symbol"
3078 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
3079 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
3080 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
3081
3082 * Deprecated commands
3083
3084 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
3085 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
3086
3087 * New targets
3088
3089 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3090 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
3091
3092 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
3093 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
3094 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
3095 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
3096 evaluates to true.
3097
3098 * New options
3099
3100 set mips compression
3101 show mips compression
3102 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
3103 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
3104 mips16
3105 micromips
3106 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
3107
3108 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
3109 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
3110 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
3111 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
3112 available mode.
3113 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
3114 target.
3115
3116 set auto-load off
3117 Disable auto-loading globally.
3118
3119 show auto-load
3120 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
3121
3122 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
3123 show auto-load gdb-scripts
3124 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
3125
3126 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
3127 show auto-load python-scripts
3128 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
3129
3130 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
3131 show auto-load local-gdbinit
3132 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
3133
3134 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
3135 show auto-load libthread-db
3136 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
3137
3138 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3139 show auto-load scripts-directory
3140 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
3141 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
3142 of the directories listed by this option.
3143 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3144
3145 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3146 show auto-load safe-path
3147 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
3148 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3149
3150 set debug auto-load on|off
3151 show debug auto-load
3152 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
3153
3154 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
3155 show dprintf-style
3156 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
3157 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
3158 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
3159 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
3160
3161 set dprintf-function <expr>
3162 show dprintf-function
3163 set dprintf-channel <expr>
3164 show dprintf-channel
3165 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
3166 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
3167
3168 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
3169 show disconnected-dprintf
3170 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
3171 after GDB disconnects.
3172
3173 * New configure options
3174
3175 --with-auto-load-dir
3176 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
3177 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
3178 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
3179 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
3180 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
3181
3182 --with-auto-load-safe-path
3183 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
3184 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
3185
3186 --without-auto-load-safe-path
3187 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
3188 security feature.
3189
3190 * New remote packets
3191
3192 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
3193
3194 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
3195 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
3196 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
3197 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
3198
3199 QProgramSignals:
3200
3201 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
3202 program without GDB involvement.
3203
3204 * New command line options
3205
3206 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
3207 before loading inferior.
3208 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
3209 execute it before loading inferior.
3210
3211 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
3212
3213 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
3214 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
3215 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
3216 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
3217 inferior changes.
3218
3219 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
3220 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
3221
3222 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
3223 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
3224 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
3225 target hardware watchpoint.
3226
3227 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
3228 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
3229 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
3230 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
3231
3232 * Python scripting
3233
3234 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
3235 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
3236 existing one.
3237
3238 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
3239 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
3240 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
3241 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
3242 now "message", which just prints the error message without
3243 the stack trace.
3244
3245 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3246 Python API.
3247
3248 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
3249 modules library. This module provides functionality for
3250 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
3251 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
3252 corresponding value.
3253
3254 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
3255 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
3256 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
3257 on GDB start-up.
3258
3259 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
3260 static_block will return the global and static blocks
3261 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
3262 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
3263
3264 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
3265
3266 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
3267 "gdb.breakpoints".
3268
3269 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
3270 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
3271 available in the CLI.
3272
3273 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
3274 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
3275 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
3276 "some_type.items()".
3277
3278 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
3279 new object file.
3280
3281 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
3282 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
3283 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
3284 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
3285 any anonymous fields.
3286
3287 * MI changes
3288
3289 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
3290 "solib-event".
3291
3292 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
3293 "=breakpoint-modified".
3294
3295 ** New command -ada-task-info.
3296
3297 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
3298 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
3299 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
3300 lives.
3301
3302 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
3303 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
3304 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
3305 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
3306 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
3307
3308 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
3309 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
3310
3311 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
3312 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
3313 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
3314 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
3315 use this option to specify where to find it.
3316
3317 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3318 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
3319 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
3320 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
3321 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
3322 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3323 section in the user manual for more details.
3324
3325 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
3326 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
3327 become available after that.
3328
3329 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
3330
3331 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
3332 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
3333 gcc version 4.7.
3334
3335 * New commands
3336
3337 !SHELL COMMAND
3338 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
3339 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
3340
3341 * Changed commands
3342
3343 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
3344 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
3345 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
3346
3347 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
3348 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
3349 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
3350
3351 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
3352 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
3353 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
3354 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
3355 name starts with a hyphen.
3356
3357 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
3358 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
3359 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
3360 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
3361 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
3362 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
3363 number of bytes that will be collected.
3364
3365 tstart [NOTES]
3366 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
3367 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
3368 setting the variable trace-notes.
3369
3370 tstop [NOTES]
3371 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
3372 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
3373 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
3374 trace-stop-notes.
3375
3376 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
3377 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
3378 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
3379 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
3380 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
3381 is running.
3382
3383 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
3384 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
3385 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
3386
3387 * New options
3388
3389 set debug dwarf2-read
3390 show debug dwarf2-read
3391 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
3392 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
3393
3394 set debug symtab-create
3395 show debug symtab-create
3396 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
3397 creation. The default is off.
3398
3399 set extended-prompt
3400 show extended-prompt
3401 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
3402 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
3403 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
3404 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
3405 prompt is displayed.
3406
3407 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
3408 show print entry-values
3409 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
3410 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
3411 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
3412
3413 set debug entry-values
3414 show debug entry-values
3415 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
3416 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
3417
3418 set basenames-may-differ
3419 show basenames-may-differ
3420 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
3421 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
3422 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
3423 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
3424 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
3425 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
3426 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
3427 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
3428
3429 set trace-user
3430 show trace-user
3431 set trace-notes
3432 show trace-notes
3433 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
3434 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
3435 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
3436 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
3437
3438 set trace-stop-notes
3439 show trace-stop-notes
3440 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
3441 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
3442 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
3443 started by someone else.
3444
3445 * New remote packets
3446
3447 QTEnable
3448
3449 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3450
3451 QTDisable
3452
3453 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3454
3455 QTNotes
3456
3457 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
3458
3459 qTP
3460
3461 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
3462
3463 qTMinFTPILen
3464
3465 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
3466 be placed.
3467
3468 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
3469 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
3470
3471 * New targets
3472
3473 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
3474
3475 * New Simulators
3476
3477 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3478
3479 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
3480
3481 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
3482
3483 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
3484
3485 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
3486 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
3487 matches the given regular expression.
3488
3489 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
3490
3491 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
3492 dumping the instruction opcodes.
3493
3494 * New command line options
3495
3496 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
3497 This is mostly for testing purposes.
3498
3499 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
3500 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
3501
3502 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
3503 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
3504 source path list instead of augmenting it.
3505
3506 * GDB now understands thread names.
3507
3508 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
3509 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
3510
3511 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
3512 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
3513
3514 * OpenCL C
3515 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
3516 has been integrated into GDB.
3517
3518 * Python scripting
3519
3520 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
3521 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
3522 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
3523
3524 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3525 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
3526 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
3527 and allows for more dynamic content.
3528
3529 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
3530 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
3531 have an is_valid method.
3532
3533 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3534 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
3535 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
3536
3537 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
3538
3539 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
3540 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
3541 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
3542 that function like so:
3543
3544 result = some_value (10,20)
3545
3546 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
3547 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
3548 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
3549
3550 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
3551 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
3552 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
3553 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
3554 New function: register_pretty_printer.
3555
3556 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
3557 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
3558
3559 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
3560
3561 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
3562 selected thread.
3563
3564 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
3565 holds the thread's name.
3566
3567 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
3568 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
3569 occurring in the process being debugged.
3570 The following events are currently supported:
3571 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
3572 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
3573 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
3574
3575 * C++ Improvements:
3576
3577 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
3578 instantiation. For example, if you have:
3579
3580 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
3581
3582 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
3583 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
3584 was added to GCC 4.5.
3585
3586 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
3587 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
3588 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
3589 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
3590 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
3591 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
3592
3593 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
3594 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
3595 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
3596 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
3597 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
3598
3599 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
3600 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
3601 execution to a label.
3602
3603 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
3604 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
3605 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
3606 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
3607
3608 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
3609 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
3610 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
3611 of scope.
3612
3613 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
3614
3615 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
3616 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
3617 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
3618 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
3619 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
3620 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
3621
3622 (gdb) info threads
3623 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
3624
3625 While now you see this:
3626
3627 (gdb) info threads
3628 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
3629
3630 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
3631 dumps.
3632
3633 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
3634 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
3635 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
3636 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
3637
3638 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3639 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
3640 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
3641 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3642 section in the user manual for more details.
3643
3644 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3645
3646 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
3647 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
3648
3649 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
3650
3651 * New native configurations
3652
3653 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3654
3655 * New targets:
3656
3657 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
3658
3659 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
3660 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
3661 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
3662 in the GDB user manual.
3663
3664 * Guile support was removed.
3665
3666 * New features in the GNU simulator
3667
3668 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
3669
3670 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
3671
3672 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
3673
3674 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
3675
3676 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
3677 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
3678 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
3679 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
3680 was always disabled for such configurations.
3681
3682 * C++ Improvements:
3683
3684 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
3685
3686 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
3687 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
3688 For example:
3689 namespace A
3690 {
3691 class B { };
3692 void foo (B) { }
3693 }
3694 ...
3695 A::B b
3696 foo(b)
3697 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
3698 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
3699 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
3700
3701 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
3702
3703 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
3704 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
3705 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
3706 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3707 entry.
3708 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3709 mentioned flavors of operators.
3710
3711 ** static const class members
3712
3713 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3714 class definition has been fixed.
3715
3716 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3717
3718 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3719 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3720 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3721 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3722 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3723 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3724
3725 * Static tracepoints
3726
3727 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3728 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3729 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3730 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3731 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3732 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3733 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3734 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3735 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3736 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3737 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3738 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3739 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3740 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3741 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3742 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3743 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3744 the "New remote packets" section below.
3745
3746 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3747
3748 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3749 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3750 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3751 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3752
3753 * Observer mode
3754
3755 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3756 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3757 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3758 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3759 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3760 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3761 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3762
3763 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3764 current thread.
3765
3766 * New remote packets
3767
3768 qGetTIBAddr
3769
3770 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3771
3772 qRelocInsn
3773
3774 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3775 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3776 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3777 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3778 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3779 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3780
3781 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
3782
3783 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3784
3785 qTSTMat
3786
3787 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3788 program.
3789
3790 qXfer:statictrace:read
3791
3792 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3793 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3794 to gdb's qSupported query.
3795
3796 QAllow
3797
3798 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3799
3800 QTDPsrc
3801
3802 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3803 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3804
3805 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3806 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3807 a directory.
3808
3809 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3810
3811 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3812 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3813 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3814 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3815
3816 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3817 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3818 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3819 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3820 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3821 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3822 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3823
3824 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
3825 for static tracepoints support.
3826
3827 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
3828
3829 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
3830 it understands register description.
3831
3832 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
3833
3834 * X86 general purpose registers
3835
3836 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
3837 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
3838 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
3839 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
3840 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
3841
3842 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
3843 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
3844 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
3845 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
3846 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
3847 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
3848
3849 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
3850 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
3851 in the specified file.
3852
3853 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
3854 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
3855 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
3856 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
3857 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
3858 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
3859 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
3860 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
3861 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
3862 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
3863
3864 * New commands
3865
3866 eval template, expressions...
3867 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
3868 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
3869
3870 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
3871 show target-file-system-kind
3872 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
3873 names.
3874
3875 save breakpoints <filename>
3876 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
3877 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
3878 definitions, use the `source' command.
3879
3880 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
3881 is now deprecated.
3882
3883 info static-tracepoint-markers
3884 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
3885
3886 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
3887 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
3888 function, line, address, or marker ID.
3889
3890 set observer on|off
3891 show observer
3892 Enable and disable observer mode.
3893
3894 set may-write-registers on|off
3895 set may-write-memory on|off
3896 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
3897 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
3898 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
3899 set may-interrupt on|off
3900 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
3901 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
3902 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
3903 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
3904 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
3905 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
3906 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
3907
3908 set record memory-query on|off
3909 show record memory-query
3910 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
3911 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
3912
3913 * Changed commands
3914
3915 disassemble
3916 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
3917
3918 * Python scripting
3919
3920 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
3921 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
3922 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
3923 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
3924 GDB using Python' in the manual.
3925
3926 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
3927 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
3928 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
3929 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
3930
3931 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
3932 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
3933
3934 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
3935
3936 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
3937
3938 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
3939
3940 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
3941 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
3942 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
3943
3944 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
3945 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
3946 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
3947 regular breakpoints.
3948
3949 * New targets
3950
3951 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
3952
3953 * D language support.
3954 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
3955 language.
3956
3957 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
3958 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
3959 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3960 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3961 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3962
3963 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3964 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3965 conditions of the form:
3966
3967 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3968
3969 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3970 interface mentioned above.
3971
3972 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
3973
3974 * C++ Improvements
3975
3976 ** Namespace Support
3977
3978 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3979 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3980 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3981 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3982 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3983
3984 ** Bug Fixes
3985
3986 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
3987 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
3988 qualified name.
3989
3990 ** Cast Operators
3991
3992 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
3993 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
3994
3995 * New targets
3996
3997 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
3998 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
3999
4000 * New Simulators
4001
4002 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
4003 Renesas RX rx
4004
4005 * Multi-program debugging.
4006
4007 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
4008 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
4009 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
4010 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
4011 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
4012 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
4013 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
4014 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
4015
4016 * New tracing features
4017
4018 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
4019
4020 ** Trace state variables
4021
4022 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
4023 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
4024 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
4025 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
4026 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
4027 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
4028 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
4029 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
4030 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
4031 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
4032
4033 ** Fast tracepoints
4034
4035 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
4036 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
4037 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
4038 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
4039 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
4040 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
4041 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
4042 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
4043 the regular trace command.
4044
4045 ** Disconnected tracing
4046
4047 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
4048 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
4049 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
4050 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
4051 connection is lost unexpectedly.
4052
4053 ** Trace files
4054
4055 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
4056 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
4057 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
4058 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
4059 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
4060 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
4061 <name>".
4062
4063 ** Circular trace buffer
4064
4065 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
4066 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
4067 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
4068 not be available for all target agents.
4069
4070 * Changed commands
4071
4072 disassemble
4073 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
4074 the arguments to be comma-separated.
4075
4076 info variables
4077 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
4078 which only declare a variable are not shown.
4079
4080 source
4081 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
4082 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
4083 support.
4084
4085 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
4086 "set script-extension" (see below).
4087
4088 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4089
4090 record save [<FILENAME>]
4091 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
4092 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
4093
4094 record restore <FILENAME>
4095 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
4096 earlier time, for replay debugging.
4097
4098 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
4099 Add a new inferior.
4100
4101 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
4102 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
4103 inferior has loaded.
4104
4105 remove-inferior ID
4106 Remove an inferior.
4107
4108 maint info program-spaces
4109 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
4110
4111 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
4112 show remote interrupt-sequence
4113 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
4114 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
4115 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
4116 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
4117 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
4118
4119 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
4120 show remote interrupt-on-connect
4121 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
4122 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
4123 Linux kernel.
4124
4125 set remotebreak [on | off]
4126 show remotebreak
4127 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
4128
4129 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
4130 Create or modify a trace state variable.
4131
4132 info tvariables
4133 List trace state variables and their values.
4134
4135 delete tvariable $NAME ...
4136 Delete one or more trace state variables.
4137
4138 teval EXPR, ...
4139 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
4140 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
4141
4142 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
4143 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
4144
4145 * New expression syntax
4146
4147 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
4148 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
4149
4150 * New options
4151
4152 set follow-exec-mode new|same
4153 show follow-exec-mode
4154 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
4155 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
4156 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
4157
4158 set default-collect EXPR, ...
4159 show default-collect
4160 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
4161 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
4162 such as registers or a critical global variable.
4163
4164 set disconnected-tracing
4165 show disconnected-tracing
4166 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
4167 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
4168 upon disconnection.
4169
4170 set circular-trace-buffer
4171 show circular-trace-buffer
4172 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
4173 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
4174 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
4175 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
4176
4177 set script-extension off|soft|strict
4178 show script-extension
4179 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
4180 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
4181 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
4182 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
4183 evaluation failed.
4184 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
4185
4186 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
4187 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
4188 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
4189 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
4190 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
4191 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
4192 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
4193 is on.
4194
4195 * Python API Improvements
4196
4197 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
4198 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
4199 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
4200
4201 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
4202 `is_base_class' attribute.
4203
4204 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
4205
4206 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
4207 evaluate an expression.
4208
4209 * New remote packets
4210
4211 QTDV
4212 Define a trace state variable.
4213
4214 qTV
4215 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
4216
4217 QTDisconnected
4218 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
4219
4220 QTBuffer:circular
4221 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
4222
4223 qTfP, qTsP
4224 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
4225
4226 * Bug fixes
4227
4228 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
4229
4230 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
4231 much more reliable. In particular:
4232 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
4233 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
4234 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
4235 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
4236 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
4237 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
4238 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
4239 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
4240 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
4241 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
4242 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
4243 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
4244 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
4245 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
4246 non-threaded programs.
4247
4248 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
4249 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
4250 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
4251 executable program.
4252
4253 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
4254
4255 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
4256 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
4257 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
4258 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
4259 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
4260
4261 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
4262 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
4263 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
4264 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
4265 for tracepoint actions.
4266
4267 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
4268 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
4269 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
4270
4271 * Process record and replay
4272
4273 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
4274 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
4275 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
4276 execute commands.
4277
4278 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
4279 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
4280 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
4281 reverse execution.
4282
4283 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
4284 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
4285 2.6.28 or later.
4286
4287 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
4288 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
4289 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
4290 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
4291 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
4292 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
4293 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
4294 the installation instructions for more information.
4295
4296 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
4297 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
4298 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
4299 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
4300
4301 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
4302 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
4303
4304 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
4305 now complete on file names.
4306
4307 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
4308 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
4309 For instance, consider:
4310
4311 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
4312 # struct example variable;
4313 (gdb) p variable.
4314
4315 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
4316 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
4317
4318 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
4319 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
4320
4321 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
4322 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
4323 macros.
4324
4325 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
4326 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
4327 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
4328
4329 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
4330 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
4331 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
4332 and simulator targets may also provide them.
4333
4334 * New remote packets
4335
4336 qSearch:memory:
4337 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4338
4339 QStartNoAckMode
4340 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
4341 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
4342 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
4343
4344 vKill
4345 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
4346 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
4347
4348 qXfer:osdata:read
4349 Obtains additional operating system information
4350
4351 qXfer:siginfo:read
4352 qXfer:siginfo:write
4353 Read or write additional signal information.
4354
4355 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
4356
4357 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
4358 packet that permitted the stub to pass a process id was removed.
4359 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
4360
4361 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
4362 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
4363
4364 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
4365 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
4366 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
4367
4368 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
4369 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
4370
4371 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
4372
4373 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
4374
4375 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
4376 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
4377
4378 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote protocol packet now allows passing a
4379 list of section offsets.
4380
4381 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
4382 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
4383 have also been fixed.
4384
4385 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
4386 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
4387 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
4388
4389 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
4390 example, given:
4391
4392 template<typename T> class C { };
4393 C<char const *> c;
4394
4395 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
4396
4397 ptype C<char const *>
4398 ptype C<char const*>
4399 ptype C<const char *>
4400 ptype C<const char*>
4401
4402 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
4403
4404 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
4405 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4406
4407 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
4408 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4409 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
4410
4411 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
4412 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
4413
4414 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
4415 gdbserver.
4416
4417 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
4418 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4419
4420 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
4421 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
4422 as appropriate.
4423
4424 * Python scripting
4425
4426 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
4427 available is determined at configure time.
4428
4429 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
4430
4431 * Ada tasking support
4432
4433 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
4434 been introduced:
4435
4436 info tasks
4437 Print the list of Ada tasks.
4438 info task N
4439 Print detailed information about task number N.
4440 task
4441 Print the task number of the current task.
4442 task N
4443 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
4444
4445 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
4446 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
4447
4448 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
4449
4450 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
4451 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
4452 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
4453 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
4454 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
4455 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
4456 below.
4457
4458 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
4459 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
4460 information.
4461
4462 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
4463 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
4464 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
4465 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
4466 more information.
4467
4468 * Multi-architecture debugging.
4469
4470 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
4471 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
4472 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
4473 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
4474 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
4475
4476 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
4477 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
4478 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
4479 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
4480 --enable-targets configure option.
4481
4482 * Non-stop mode debugging.
4483
4484 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
4485 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
4486 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
4487 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
4488 section in the user manual for more information.
4489
4490 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
4491 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
4492 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
4493 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
4494 extensions on linux targets.
4495
4496 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4497
4498 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
4499 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
4500 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
4501 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
4502 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
4503 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
4504 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
4505 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
4506 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
4507
4508 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
4509 val1 [, val2, ...]
4510 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4511
4512 maint set python print-stack
4513 maint show python print-stack
4514 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
4515
4516 python [CODE]
4517 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
4518
4519 macro define
4520 macro list
4521 macro undef
4522 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
4523 interactively.
4524
4525 info os processes
4526 Show operating system information about processes.
4527
4528 info inferiors
4529 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
4530
4531 inferior NUM
4532 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
4533
4534 detach inferior NUM
4535 Detach from inferior number NUM.
4536
4537 kill inferior NUM
4538 Kill inferior number NUM.
4539
4540 * New options
4541
4542 set spu stop-on-load
4543 show spu stop-on-load
4544 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4545
4546 set spu auto-flush-cache
4547 show spu auto-flush-cache
4548 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
4549 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4550
4551 set sh calling-convention
4552 show sh calling-convention
4553 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
4554
4555 set debug timestamp
4556 show debug timestamp
4557 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
4558
4559 set disassemble-next-line
4560 show disassemble-next-line
4561 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
4562 the debuggee stops.
4563
4564 set remote noack-packet
4565 show remote noack-packet
4566 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
4567 under "New remote packets."
4568
4569 set remote query-attached-packet
4570 show remote query-attached-packet
4571 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
4572
4573 set remote read-siginfo-object
4574 show remote read-siginfo-object
4575 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
4576 packet.
4577
4578 set remote write-siginfo-object
4579 show remote write-siginfo-object
4580 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
4581 packet.
4582
4583 set remote reverse-continue
4584 show remote reverse-continue
4585 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
4586
4587 set remote reverse-step
4588 show remote reverse-step
4589 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
4590
4591 set displaced-stepping
4592 show displaced-stepping
4593 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
4594 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
4595 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
4596
4597 set debug displaced
4598 show debug displaced
4599 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
4600
4601 maint set internal-error
4602 maint show internal-error
4603 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
4604
4605 maint set internal-warning
4606 maint show internal-warning
4607 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
4608
4609 set exec-wrapper
4610 show exec-wrapper
4611 unset exec-wrapper
4612 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4613
4614 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
4615 show multiple-symbols
4616 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
4617 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
4618 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
4619
4620 set breakpoint always-inserted
4621 show breakpoint always-inserted
4622 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
4623 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
4624 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
4625
4626 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4627 show arm fallback-mode
4628 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4629 show arm force-mode
4630 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
4631 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
4632 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
4633 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
4634
4635 set disable-randomization
4636 show disable-randomization
4637 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
4638 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
4639 multiple debugging sessions.
4640
4641 set non-stop
4642 show non-stop
4643 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
4644 a breakpoint.
4645
4646 set target-async
4647 show target-async
4648 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
4649 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
4650 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
4651 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
4652
4653 set target-wide-charset
4654 show target-wide-charset
4655 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
4656 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
4657
4658 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
4659 show tcp auto-retry
4660 set tcp connect-timeout
4661 show tcp connect-timeout
4662 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
4663 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
4664 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
4665
4666 set libthread-db-search-path
4667 show libthread-db-search-path
4668 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
4669 libthread_db.
4670
4671 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
4672 show schedule-multiple
4673 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
4674 the current process.
4675
4676 set stack-cache
4677 show stack-cache
4678 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
4679 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
4680 affecting correctness.
4681
4682 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
4683 show interactive-mode
4684 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
4685 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
4686 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
4687 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
4688 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
4689
4690 * Removed commands
4691
4692 info forks
4693 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
4694 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
4695 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
4696 command.
4697
4698 fork NUM
4699 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
4700 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
4701 alias for the `fork' command.
4702
4703 process PID
4704 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
4705 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
4706 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4707
4708 delete fork NUM
4709 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4710 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4711 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4712 fork' command.
4713
4714 detach fork NUM
4715 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4716 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4717 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4718 fork' command.
4719
4720 * New native configurations
4721
4722 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4723
4724 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4725
4726 * New targets
4727
4728 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4729 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4730 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4731 S+core 3 score-*-*
4732
4733 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4734 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4735
4736 * Removed commands
4737
4738 catch load
4739 catch unload
4740 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4741
4742 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4743
4744 * New native configurations
4745
4746 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4747 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4748
4749 * New targets
4750
4751 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4752 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4753
4754 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4755
4756 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4757 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4758 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4759 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4760
4761 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4762 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4763
4764 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4765 is resolved.
4766
4767 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4768 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4769 and in inlined functions.
4770
4771 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4772 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4773 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4774
4775 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4776
4777 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4778 registers on PowerPC targets.
4779
4780 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4781 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4782
4783 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4784 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4785
4786 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4787 extended-remote mode.
4788
4789 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4790 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4791 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4792 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4793
4794 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4795 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4796 target architectures.
4797
4798 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4799 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4800 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4801 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4802
4803 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4804 breakpoints now.
4805
4806 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4807 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4808 include:
4809 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4810 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4811 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4812 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4813 of an assignment
4814 - Improved command completion in Ada
4815 - Several bug fixes
4816
4817 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4818 process.
4819
4820 * New commands
4821
4822 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4823 show print frame-arguments
4824 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
4825 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
4826
4827 remote put
4828 remote get
4829 remote delete
4830 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4831
4832 * New MI commands
4833
4834 -target-file-put
4835 -target-file-get
4836 -target-file-delete
4837 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4838
4839 * New remote packets
4840
4841 vFile:open:
4842 vFile:close:
4843 vFile:pread:
4844 vFile:pwrite:
4845 vFile:unlink:
4846 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
4847
4848 vAttach
4849 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
4850 mode.
4851
4852 vRun
4853 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
4854
4855 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
4856
4857 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
4858 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
4859 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
4860
4861 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
4862 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
4863 -Bsymbolic linker option.
4864
4865 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
4866 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
4867 is not supported.
4868
4869 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
4870 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
4871
4872 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
4873 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
4874
4875 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
4876
4877 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
4878 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
4879 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
4880
4881 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
4882 automatically displayed as character or string data.
4883
4884 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
4885 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
4886 as strings.
4887
4888 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
4889 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
4890 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
4891
4892 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
4893 iWMMXt coprocessor.
4894
4895 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
4896 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
4897 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
4898
4899 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
4900
4901 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
4902
4903 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
4904 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
4905 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
4906
4907 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
4908 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
4909
4910 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
4911 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
4912 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
4913 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
4914 Windows and SymbianOS).
4915
4916 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
4917 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
4918
4919 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
4920 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
4921
4922 * New commands
4923
4924 set remoteflow
4925 show remoteflow
4926 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
4927 when debugging using remote targets.
4928
4929 set mem inaccessible-by-default
4930 show mem inaccessible-by-default
4931 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4932 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4933 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
4934 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
4935 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
4936
4937 set breakpoint auto-hw
4938 show breakpoint auto-hw
4939 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4940 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4941 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
4942 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
4943 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
4944 including "next" and "finish".
4945
4946 catch exception
4947 catch exception unhandled
4948 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
4949
4950 catch assert
4951 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
4952
4953 set sysroot
4954 show sysroot
4955 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
4956 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
4957 an alias to "set sysroot".
4958
4959 info spu
4960 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4961 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4962 architecture.
4963
4964 * New native configurations
4965
4966 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4967
4968 set tdesc filename
4969 unset tdesc filename
4970 show tdesc filename
4971 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4972 not query the target for its built-in description.
4973
4974 * New targets
4975
4976 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4977 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4978 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4979
4980 * New remote packets
4981
4982 QPassSignals:
4983 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4984 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4985
4986 qXfer:features:read:
4987 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
4988 features.
4989
4990 qXfer:spu:read:
4991 qXfer:spu:write:
4992 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
4993 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
4994
4995 qXfer:libraries:read:
4996 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
4997 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
4998 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
4999 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
5000
5001 * Removed targets
5002
5003 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
5004
5005 alpha*-*-osf1*
5006 alpha*-*-osf2*
5007 d10v-*-*
5008 hppa*-*-hiux*
5009 i[34567]86-ncr-*
5010 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
5011 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
5012 i[34567]86-*-netware*
5013 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
5014 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
5015 i[34567]86-*-sco*
5016 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
5017 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
5018 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
5019 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
5020 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
5021 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
5022 i[34567]86-*-isc*
5023 m68*-cisco*-*
5024 m68*-tandem-*
5025 mips*-*-pe
5026 rs6000-*-lynxos*
5027 sh*-*-pe
5028
5029 * Other removed features
5030
5031 target abug
5032 target cpu32bug
5033 target est
5034 target rom68k
5035
5036 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
5037
5038 target hms
5039 target e7000
5040 target sh3
5041 target sh3e
5042
5043 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
5044 H8/300.
5045
5046 target ocd
5047
5048 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
5049 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
5050 interfaces.
5051
5052 DWARF 1 support
5053
5054 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
5055 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
5056
5057 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
5058
5059 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
5060 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
5061 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
5062 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
5063
5064 MIPS ".pdr" sections
5065
5066 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
5067 in debugging information.
5068
5069 Scheme support
5070
5071 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
5072 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
5073
5074 set mips stack-arg-size
5075 set mips saved-gpreg-size
5076
5077 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
5078
5079 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
5080
5081 * New targets
5082
5083 Xtensa xtensa-elf
5084 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
5085
5086 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
5087 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
5088 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
5089
5090 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
5091 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
5092 supported.
5093
5094 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
5095 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
5096
5097 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
5098 stub provides the required support.
5099
5100 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
5101 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
5102
5103 * New commands
5104
5105 set substitute-path
5106 unset substitute-path
5107 show substitute-path
5108 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
5109 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
5110 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
5111 between compilation and debugging.
5112
5113 set trace-commands
5114 show trace-commands
5115 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
5116 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
5117 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
5118
5119 * REMOVED features
5120
5121 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
5122
5123 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
5124 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
5125
5126 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
5127
5128 * New remote packets
5129
5130 qSupported:
5131 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
5132 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
5133 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
5134 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
5135 target.
5136
5137 qXfer:auxv:read:
5138 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
5139 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
5140
5141 qXfer:memory-map:read:
5142 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
5143 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
5144
5145 vFlashErase:
5146 vFlashWrite:
5147 vFlashDone:
5148 Erase and program a flash memory device.
5149
5150 * Removed remote packets
5151
5152 qPart:auxv:read:
5153 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
5154 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
5155
5156 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
5157
5158 * New targets
5159
5160 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
5161
5162 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5163
5164 * New commands
5165
5166 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
5167 only if it doesn't already have a value.
5168
5169 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
5170
5171 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
5172
5173 restart <n> Return the program state to a
5174 previously saved state.
5175
5176 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
5177
5178 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
5179
5180 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
5181 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
5182
5183 info forks List forks of the user program that
5184 are available to be debugged.
5185
5186 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
5187 forks of the user program that are
5188 available to be debugged.
5189
5190 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5191 that are available to be debugged (and
5192 kill the forked process).
5193
5194 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5195 that are available to be debugged (and
5196 allow the process to continue).
5197
5198 * New architecture
5199
5200 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
5201
5202 * Improved Windows host support
5203
5204 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
5205 native console support, and remote communications using either
5206 network sockets or serial ports.
5207
5208 * Improved Modula-2 language support
5209
5210 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
5211 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
5212 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
5213 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
5214 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
5215 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
5216
5217 * REMOVED features
5218
5219 The ARM rdi-share module.
5220
5221 The Netware NLM debug server.
5222
5223 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
5224
5225 * New native configurations
5226
5227 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
5228 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
5229
5230 * New targets
5231
5232 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5233
5234 * New command line options
5235
5236 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
5237 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
5238 the child (debugged) program exited with.
5239 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
5240 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
5241 specified multiple times and in conjunction
5242 with the --command (-x) option.
5243
5244 * Deprecated commands removed
5245
5246 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
5247 removed:
5248
5249 Command Replacement
5250 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
5251 othernames set arm disassembler
5252 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
5253 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
5254 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
5255 regs info registers
5256
5257 * New BSD user-level threads support
5258
5259 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
5260 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
5261 configurations are:
5262
5263 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5264 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
5265 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
5266
5267 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
5268 are not yet supported.
5269
5270 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
5271 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
5272
5273 * REMOVED configurations and files
5274
5275 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
5276 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5277 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
5278
5279 * New "set print array-indexes" command
5280
5281 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
5282 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
5283 behavior.
5284
5285 * VAX floating point support
5286
5287 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
5288
5289 * User-defined command support
5290
5291 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
5292 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
5293 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
5294
5295 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
5296
5297 * New command line option
5298
5299 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
5300 debugging.
5301
5302 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
5303
5304 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
5305 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
5306 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
5307 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
5308 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
5309
5310 * Internationalization
5311
5312 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
5313 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
5314 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
5315
5316 * Ada
5317
5318 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
5319 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
5320 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
5321
5322 * New native configurations
5323
5324 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
5325
5326 * Remote 'p' packet
5327
5328 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
5329 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
5330
5331 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
5332
5333 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5334 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
5335 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
5336 i386 application).
5337
5338 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the registers[]
5339 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
5340 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
5341 configurations:
5342
5343 hppa-*-hpux
5344 ia64-*-aix
5345 mips-*-irix*
5346 *-*-lynx
5347 mips-*-linux-gnu
5348 sds protocol
5349 xdr protocol
5350 powerpc bdm protocol
5351
5352 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5353 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
5354
5355 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5356
5357 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5358 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5359 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5360 permanently REMOVED.
5361
5362 h8300-*-*
5363 mcore-*-*
5364 mn10300-*-*
5365 ns32k-*-*
5366 sh64-*-*
5367 v850-*-*
5368
5369 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
5370
5371 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
5372
5373 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
5374 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
5375 been fixed.
5376
5377 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
5378
5379 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
5380 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
5381 IRIX long double values).
5382
5383 * VAX and "next"
5384
5385 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
5386 command. This problem has been fixed.
5387
5388 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
5389
5390 * Fix for ``many threads''
5391
5392 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
5393 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
5394 error message:
5395
5396 ptrace: No such process.
5397 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
5398
5399 This problem has been fixed.
5400
5401 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
5402
5403 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
5404 GDB to dump core).
5405
5406 * New ``start'' command.
5407
5408 This command runs the program until the beginning of the main procedure.
5409
5410 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
5411
5412 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
5413 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
5414 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
5415
5416 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5417 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
5418 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
5419 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
5420 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
5421 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5422 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
5423 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
5424 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5425
5426 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
5427
5428 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
5429 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
5430 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
5431 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
5432 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
5433
5434 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
5435 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
5436 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
5437
5438 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
5439
5440 * New native configurations
5441
5442 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
5443 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
5444 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
5445 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
5446 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
5447 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
5448 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
5449
5450 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
5451
5452 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5453 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
5454 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
5455 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
5456 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
5457 work, was also included.
5458
5459 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
5460 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
5461
5462 h8300-*-*
5463 mcore-*-*
5464 mn10300-*-*
5465 ns32k-*-*
5466 sh64-*-*
5467 v850-*-*
5468 xstormy16-*-*
5469
5470 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5471 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
5472
5473 * REMOVED configurations and files
5474
5475 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5476 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5477 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5478 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5479 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5480 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5481 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5482 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5483 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5484 sonymips mips-sony-*
5485 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5486
5487 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
5488
5489 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
5490
5491 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
5492 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
5493 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
5494 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
5495 with GDB".
5496
5497 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
5498
5499 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
5500 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
5501 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
5502 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
5503 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
5504 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
5505 are created.
5506
5507 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
5508
5509 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
5510
5511 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
5512 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
5513 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
5514
5515 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
5516
5517 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
5518 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
5519
5520 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
5521
5522 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
5523 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
5524 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
5525
5526 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
5527
5528 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
5529 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
5530
5531 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
5532
5533 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
5534 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
5535 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
5536
5537 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
5538
5539 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
5540 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
5541 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
5542
5543 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
5544
5545 * Removed --with-mmalloc
5546
5547 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
5548 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
5549
5550 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
5551
5552 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
5553 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
5554 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
5555 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
5556
5557 * Revised SPARC target
5558
5559 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
5560 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
5561 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
5562 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
5563 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
5564
5565 * New C++ demangler
5566
5567 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
5568 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
5569 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
5570 programs.
5571
5572 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5573
5574 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
5575 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
5576 encountered these.
5577
5578 * C++ nested types and namespaces
5579
5580 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
5581 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
5582 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
5583 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
5584 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
5585 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
5586 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
5587 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
5588 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
5589
5590 * New native configurations
5591
5592 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
5593 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5594 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
5595 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5596 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
5597
5598 * New debugging protocols
5599
5600 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
5601
5602 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
5603
5604 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
5605 and its very obscure effect on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
5606 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
5607
5608 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5609
5610 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5611 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5612 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5613 permanently REMOVED.
5614
5615 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5616 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5617 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5618 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5619 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5620 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5621 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5622 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5623 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5624 sonymips mips-sony-*
5625 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5626
5627 * REMOVED configurations and files
5628
5629 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5630 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5631 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5632 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5633 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5634 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5635 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5636 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5637 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5638 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
5639 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5640 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5641 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5642 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
5643 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
5644 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5645 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5646
5647 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
5648
5649 * Objective-C
5650
5651 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
5652 integrated into GDB.
5653
5654 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
5655
5656 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
5657 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
5658 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
5659 backtraces.
5660
5661 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
5662 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
5663 DWARF 2 CFI support.
5664
5665 * Hosted file I/O.
5666
5667 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
5668 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
5669 remote protocol documentation for details.
5670
5671 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
5672
5673 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
5674 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
5675 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
5676 ppc32 on ppc64).
5677
5678 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
5679
5680 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
5681 per-thread variables.
5682
5683 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
5684
5685 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
5686 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
5687
5688 * Separate debug info.
5689
5690 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
5691 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
5692 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
5693 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
5694 and optional debug files.
5695
5696 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5697
5698 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
5699 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
5700 debugger.
5701
5702 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
5703 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5704
5705 * Java
5706
5707 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5708 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5709 considered "useable".
5710
5711 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5712
5713 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5714 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5715 kernel.
5716
5717 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5718
5719 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5720 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5721
5722 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5723
5724 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5725 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5726 command.
5727
5728 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5729
5730 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5731 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5732
5733 * Profiling support
5734
5735 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5736 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5737 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5738 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5739 data, for more informative profiling results.
5740
5741 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5742
5743 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5744 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5745 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5746
5747 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5748 removed.
5749
5750 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5751 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5752 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5753 in a subsequent -var-update.
5754
5755 * New native configurations.
5756
5757 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5758
5759 * Multi-arched targets.
5760
5761 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5762 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5763
5764 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5765
5766 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5767 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5768 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5769 permanently REMOVED.
5770
5771 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5772 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5773 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5774 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5775 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5776 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5777 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5778 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5779 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5780 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5781 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5782 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5783
5784 * REMOVED configurations and files
5785
5786 V850EA ISA
5787 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5788 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5789 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5790 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5791 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5792 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5793 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
5794 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5795 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5796 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5797 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5798 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5799 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5800
5801 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5802
5803 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5804 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5805 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5806 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5807 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5808
5809 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5810
5811 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5812
5813 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5814 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5815 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5816 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5817 shared libs like mad''.
5818
5819 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5820
5821 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5822 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5823 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5824 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
5825
5826 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
5827
5828 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
5829 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
5830 they expand.
5831
5832 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
5833 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
5834
5835 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
5836 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
5837
5838 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
5839 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
5840 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
5841 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
5842
5843 * Multi-arched targets.
5844
5845 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
5846 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
5847 NEC V850 v850-*-*
5848 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
5849 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
5850 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5851
5852 * New targets.
5853
5854 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
5855
5856
5857 * New native configurations
5858
5859 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
5860 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
5861 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
5862 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
5863
5864 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5865
5866 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5867 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5868 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5869 permanently REMOVED.
5870
5871 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5872 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5873 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5874 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5875 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5876 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5877 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5878 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5879 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5880 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5881 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
5882 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5883 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5884
5885 * OBSOLETE languages
5886
5887 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
5888
5889 * REMOVED configurations and files
5890
5891 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5892 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5893 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5894 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5895 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5896
5897 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5898
5899 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
5900
5901 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
5902 commands. The default is 1024.
5903
5904 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
5905
5906 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
5907
5908 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
5909
5910 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
5911 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
5912 from a file into memory (restore).
5913
5914 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
5915
5916 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
5917 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
5918 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
5919
5920 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
5921
5922 * New targets.
5923
5924 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
5925
5926 * Bug fixes
5927
5928 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
5929 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
5930 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
5931
5932 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
5933 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
5934 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
5935
5936 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
5937 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
5938 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
5939
5940 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
5941 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
5942 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
5943
5944 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
5945
5946 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
5947
5948 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
5949 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
5950 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
5951 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
5952 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
5953 (notably embedded) targets.
5954
5955 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
5956
5957 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
5958 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
5959 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5960 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5961
5962 * New command line option
5963
5964 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5965
5966 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5967
5968 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5969 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5970 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5971 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5972 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5973 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5974 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5975 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5976 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5977 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5978
5979 * Changes in ARM configurations.
5980
5981 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5982 configuration is fully multi-arch.
5983
5984 * New native configurations
5985
5986 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
5987 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
5988 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
5989 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
5990
5991 * New targets
5992
5993 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
5994
5995 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5996
5997 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5998 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5999 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6000 permanently REMOVED.
6001
6002 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
6003 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6004 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6005 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6006 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6007
6008 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
6009
6010 * REMOVED configurations and files
6011
6012 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6013 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6014 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6015 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6016 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6017 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6018 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6019 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6020 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6021 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6022 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6023 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6024 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
6025
6026 * Changes to command line processing
6027
6028 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
6029 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
6030
6031 * Changes to key bindings
6032
6033 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
6034
6035 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
6036
6037 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
6038
6039 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
6040 corrupted.
6041
6042 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
6043
6044 Numerous documentation fixes.
6045
6046 Numerous testsuite fixes.
6047
6048 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
6049
6050 * New native configurations
6051
6052 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
6053 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
6054 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
6055 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6056 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
6057 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
6058
6059 * New targets
6060
6061 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
6062 CRIS cris-axis
6063 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
6064
6065 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6066
6067 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
6068 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6069 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6070 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6071 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6072 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6073 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6074 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6075 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6076 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6077 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6078 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6079 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6080 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
6081
6082 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
6083 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
6084
6085 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6086 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6087 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6088 permanently REMOVED.
6089
6090 * REMOVED configurations and files
6091
6092 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6093 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6094 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
6095 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6096 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
6097 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
6098
6099 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
6100
6101 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
6102 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
6103 present.
6104
6105 * Other news:
6106
6107 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
6108
6109 * The MI enabled by default.
6110
6111 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
6112 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
6113 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
6114 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
6115 which is now deprecated.
6116
6117 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
6118
6119 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
6120 main features are supported:
6121
6122 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
6123
6124 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
6125 extension;
6126
6127 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
6128
6129 - a Pascal expression parser.
6130
6131 However, some important features are not yet supported.
6132
6133 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
6134
6135 - there are some problems with boolean types;
6136
6137 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
6138 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
6139
6140 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
6141
6142 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
6143
6144 * Changes in completion.
6145
6146 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
6147 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
6148 users expect at the shell prompt.
6149
6150 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
6151 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
6152 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
6153 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
6154 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
6155 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
6156 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
6157
6158 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
6159
6160 * New platform-independent commands:
6161
6162 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
6163 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
6164 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
6165
6166 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
6167
6168 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
6169 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
6170 many threads as your system allows you to have.
6171
6172 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
6173
6174 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
6175 multi-threaded programs though.
6176
6177 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
6178
6179 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
6180
6181 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
6182 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
6183 supported.)
6184
6185 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
6186
6187 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
6188 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
6189 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
6190 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
6191 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
6192 registers.
6193
6194 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
6195 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
6196 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
6197
6198 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
6199
6200 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
6201 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
6202
6203 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
6204 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
6205 IDT.
6206
6207 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
6208 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
6209 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
6210 a given linear address.
6211
6212 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
6213 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
6214 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
6215
6216 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
6217
6218 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
6219
6220 * Changes in documentation.
6221
6222 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
6223 Documentation License.
6224
6225 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6226 manual.
6227
6228 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
6229
6230 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6231 manual.
6232
6233 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
6234 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
6235 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
6236
6237 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
6238
6239 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
6240 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
6241 contents of this file.
6242
6243 * gdba.el deleted
6244
6245 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
6246
6247 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
6248
6249 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
6250
6251 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
6252 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
6253 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
6254 greater level of detail.
6255
6256 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
6257
6258 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
6259 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
6260 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
6261 written.
6262
6263 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
6264
6265 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
6266 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
6267 machines ``out of the box''.
6268
6269 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
6270 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
6271 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
6272 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
6273 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
6274
6275 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
6276 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
6277 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
6278 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
6279 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
6280
6281 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
6282 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
6283 also works.
6284
6285 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
6286 GDB.
6287
6288 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
6289 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
6290 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
6291 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
6292
6293 * New native configurations
6294
6295 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
6296 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6297
6298 * New targets
6299
6300 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
6301 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
6302 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
6303 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6304
6305 * OBSOLETE configurations
6306
6307 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6308 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6309 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
6310 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6311 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
6312
6313 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6314 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6315 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6316 be permanently REMOVED.
6317
6318 * Gould support removed
6319
6320 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
6321
6322 * New features for SVR4
6323
6324 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
6325 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
6326 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
6327
6328 * Many C++ enhancements
6329
6330 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
6331 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
6332
6333 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
6334
6335 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
6336 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
6337 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
6338 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
6339
6340 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
6341 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
6342
6343 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
6344
6345 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
6346 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
6347 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
6348
6349 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
6350 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
6351
6352 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
6353
6354 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
6355 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
6356 include ``set remote P-packet''.
6357
6358 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
6359
6360 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
6361 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
6362 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
6363
6364 * ``apropos'' command added.
6365
6366 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
6367 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
6368 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
6369
6370 * New MI interface
6371
6372 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
6373 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
6374 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
6375 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
6376 enabled by configuring with:
6377
6378 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
6379
6380 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
6381
6382 * New native configurations
6383
6384 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
6385 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
6386 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
6387
6388 * New targets
6389
6390 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6391 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
6392 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6393
6394 * OBSOLETE configurations
6395
6396 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
6397
6398 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6399 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6400 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6401 be permanently REMOVED.
6402
6403 * ANSI/ISO C
6404
6405 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
6406 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
6407 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
6408 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
6409 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
6410 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
6411 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
6412 already.
6413
6414 * Readline 2.2
6415
6416 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
6417
6418 * set extension-language
6419
6420 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
6421 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
6422 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
6423 set extension-language .c c++
6424 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
6425 and their associated languages.
6426
6427 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
6428
6429 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
6430 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
6431 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
6432
6433 set processor NAME
6434
6435 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
6436 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
6437
6438 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
6439 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
6440 403 IBM PowerPC 403
6441 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
6442 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
6443 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
6444 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
6445 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
6446 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
6447 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
6448 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
6449
6450 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
6451 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
6452 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
6453 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
6454
6455 * HP-UX support
6456
6457 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
6458 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
6459 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
6460 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
6461 for xdb and dbx commands.
6462
6463 * Catchpoints
6464
6465 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
6466 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
6467 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
6468
6469 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
6470 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
6471 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
6472
6473 * Debugging across forks
6474
6475 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
6476 in the inferior.
6477
6478 * TUI
6479
6480 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
6481 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
6482 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
6483
6484 * GDB remote protocol additions
6485
6486 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
6487 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
6488 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
6489 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
6490
6491 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
6492 full 64-bit address. The command
6493
6494 set remoteaddresssize 32
6495
6496 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
6497 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
6498 will be discarded.
6499
6500 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
6501 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
6502
6503 maint packet heythere
6504
6505 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
6506 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
6507 time.
6508
6509 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
6510 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
6511 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
6512
6513 * Tracing can collect general expressions
6514
6515 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
6516 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
6517 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
6518
6519 * mask-address variable for Mips
6520
6521 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
6522 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
6523 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
6524
6525 * Higher serial baud rates
6526
6527 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
6528 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
6529 to achieve all of these rates.)
6530
6531 * i960 simulator
6532
6533 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
6534 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
6535
6536
6537 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
6538
6539 * New native configurations
6540
6541 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
6542 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
6543 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6544 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6545 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6546 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
6547 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
6548
6549 * New targets
6550
6551 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6552 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
6553 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6554 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
6555 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
6556 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
6557 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
6558 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
6559 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6560 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6561 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
6562
6563 * New debugging protocols
6564
6565 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
6566 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
6567 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
6568 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6569 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6570 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6571
6572 * DWARF 2
6573
6574 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
6575 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
6576 information.
6577
6578 * Java frontend
6579
6580 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
6581 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
6582
6583 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
6584
6585 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
6586 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
6587 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
6588
6589 * Live range splitting
6590
6591 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
6592 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
6593 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
6594
6595 * Hurd support
6596
6597 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
6598 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
6599
6600 * ARM Thumb support
6601
6602 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
6603 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
6604 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
6605 accordingly.
6606
6607 * MIPS16 support
6608
6609 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
6610 instruction set.
6611
6612 * Overlay support
6613
6614 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
6615 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
6616 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
6617 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
6618 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
6619 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
6620
6621 * info symbol
6622
6623 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
6624 the symbol at the specified address.
6625
6626 * Trace support
6627
6628 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
6629 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
6630 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
6631 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
6632 file tracepoint.c for more details.
6633
6634 * MIPS simulator
6635
6636 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
6637 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
6638 of most MIPS variants.
6639
6640 * Sparc simulator
6641
6642 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
6643 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
6644 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
6645
6646 * set architecture
6647
6648 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
6649 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
6650 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
6651 the possible architectures.
6652
6653 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
6654
6655 * New native configurations
6656
6657 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
6658 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
6659 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
6660 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
6661 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6662 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
6663
6664 * New targets
6665
6666 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
6667 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6668 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
6669 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
6670 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
6671 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
6672 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6673
6674 * PowerPC simulator
6675
6676 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
6677 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
6678 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
6679 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
6680 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
6681
6682 * Solaris 2.5
6683
6684 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
6685
6686 * Windows 95/NT native
6687
6688 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
6689 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
6690 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
6691 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
6692 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
6693
6694 * dont-repeat command
6695
6696 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
6697 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
6698 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
6699 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
6700
6701 * Send break instead of ^C
6702
6703 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
6704 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
6705 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6706
6707 * Remote protocol timeout
6708
6709 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6710 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6711 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6712
6713 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6714
6715 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6716 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6717 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6718 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6719 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6720
6721 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6722 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6723 automatically on hpux10.
6724
6725 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6726
6727 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6728
6729 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6730
6731 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6732 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6733 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6734 every character. The default value is 1050.
6735
6736 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6737
6738 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6739 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6740 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6741 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6742 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6743 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6744
6745 * Speedups for remote debugging
6746
6747 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6748 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6749 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6750
6751 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6752
6753 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6754 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6755
6756 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6757
6758 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6759
6760 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6761 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6762
6763 * Remote targets use caching
6764
6765 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6766 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6767 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6768 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6769 off' turns the data cache off.
6770
6771 * Remote targets may have threads
6772
6773 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6774 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6775 gdb/remote.c for details.
6776
6777 * NetROM support
6778
6779 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6780 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6781 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6782 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6783 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6784 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6785 sequence is something like
6786
6787 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6788 load <prog>
6789 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6790
6791 * Macintosh host
6792
6793 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6794 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6795 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6796 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6797 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6798 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6799 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6800 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6801
6802 * Autoconf
6803
6804 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6805 but does simplify configuration and building.
6806
6807 * hpux10
6808
6809 GDB now supports hpux10.
6810
6811 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6812
6813 * New native configurations
6814
6815 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6816 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6817 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6818 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6819
6820 * New targets
6821
6822 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6823 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6824 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
6825 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
6826 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6827
6828 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
6829
6830 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
6831 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
6832 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
6833 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
6834 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
6835
6836 * Arguments to user-defined commands
6837
6838 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
6839 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
6840 trivial example:
6841 define adder
6842 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
6843
6844 To execute the command use:
6845 adder 1 2 3
6846
6847 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
6848 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
6849 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
6850
6851 * New `if' and `while' commands
6852
6853 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
6854 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
6855 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
6856 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
6857 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
6858 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
6859 if the expression is zero.
6860
6861 * Fortran source language mode
6862
6863 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
6864 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
6865 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
6866 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
6867 Fortran compilers.
6868
6869 * Better HPUX support
6870
6871 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
6872 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
6873 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
6874 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
6875 that behavior do the following before running the program:
6876
6877 adb -w a.out
6878 __dld_flags?W 0x5
6879 control-d
6880
6881 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
6882 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
6883
6884 adb -w a.out
6885 __dld_flags?W 0x4
6886 control-d
6887
6888 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
6889 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
6890 external linkage.
6891
6892 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
6893 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
6894
6895 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
6896
6897 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
6898 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
6899 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
6900 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
6901 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
6902 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
6903
6904 * New DOS host serial code
6905
6906 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
6907 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
6908 a PC's serial port.
6909
6910 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
6911
6912 * New "complete" command
6913
6914 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
6915 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
6916
6917 * Trailing space optional in prompt
6918
6919 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
6920 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
6921
6922 * Breakpoint hit counts
6923
6924 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
6925 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
6926 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
6927 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
6928 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
6929 that breakpoint.
6930
6931 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
6932
6933 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
6934 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
6935 arrays actually contain only short strings.
6936
6937 * Shared library breakpoints
6938
6939 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
6940 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
6941
6942 * Hardware watchpoints
6943
6944 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
6945 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
6946
6947 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
6948
6949 * Annotations
6950
6951 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
6952 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
6953
6954 * Improved Irix 5 support
6955
6956 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
6957
6958 * Improved HPPA support
6959
6960 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6961
6962 * New native configurations
6963
6964 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6965 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6966 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6967 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6968
6969 * New targets
6970
6971 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6972 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6973 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
6974
6975 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6976
6977 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6978 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6979
6980 * Fixes
6981
6982 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6983 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6984
6985 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6986
6987 * Irix 5 is now supported
6988
6989 * HPPA support
6990
6991 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
6992 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
6993 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
6994 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
6995 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
6996
6997
6998 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
6999
7000 * User visible changes:
7001
7002 * Remote Debugging
7003
7004 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
7005 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
7006 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
7007 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
7008 debugging info for the mips target).
7009
7010 * DEC Alpha native support
7011
7012 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
7013 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
7014 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
7015 Alpha-specific notes.
7016
7017 * Preliminary thread implementation
7018
7019 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
7020
7021 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
7022
7023 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
7024 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
7025 for details).
7026
7027 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
7028
7029 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
7030 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
7031 call methods, ...etc.
7032
7033 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
7034
7035 * User visible changes:
7036
7037 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
7038 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
7039 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
7040 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
7041
7042 Filename completion now works.
7043
7044 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
7045 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
7046 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
7047
7048 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
7049 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
7050 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
7051 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
7052 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
7053
7054 * DEC alpha support
7055
7056 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
7057 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
7058
7059
7060 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
7061
7062 * Testsuite
7063
7064 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
7065 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
7066 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
7067
7068 * C++ demangling
7069
7070 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
7071 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
7072 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
7073 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
7074 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
7075
7076 * Simulators
7077
7078 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
7079 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
7080 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
7081
7082 * New targets supported
7083
7084 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7085 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
7086 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
7087 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
7088 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
7089
7090 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
7091 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
7092 GO32 memory extender.
7093
7094 * New remote protocols
7095
7096 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
7097
7098 * New source languages supported
7099
7100 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
7101 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
7102 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
7103
7104
7105 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
7106
7107 * HP Precision Architecture supported
7108
7109 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
7110 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
7111 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
7112 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
7113 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
7114 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
7115
7116 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
7117
7118 * Faster and better demangling
7119
7120 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
7121 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
7122 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
7123 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
7124 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
7125 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
7126 symbol lookups.
7127
7128 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
7129 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
7130 compiler does not actually implement.
7131
7132 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
7133
7134 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
7135 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
7136 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
7137 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
7138 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
7139 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
7140 fix.
7141
7142 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
7143 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
7144
7145 * Improved configure script
7146
7147 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
7148 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
7149 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
7150 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
7151
7152 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
7153 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
7154 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
7155 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
7156 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
7157 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
7158
7159 * Documentation improvements
7160
7161 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
7162 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
7163 before submitting changes.
7164
7165 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
7166 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
7167 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
7168 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
7169 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
7170
7171 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
7172 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
7173 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
7174 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
7175 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
7176 around this problem.
7177
7178 * New features
7179
7180 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
7181 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
7182 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
7183 the target program.
7184
7185 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
7186 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
7187
7188 * New native hosts supported
7189
7190 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
7191 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
7192
7193 * New targets supported
7194
7195 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
7196
7197 * New file formats supported
7198
7199 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
7200 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
7201
7202 * Major bug fixes
7203
7204 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
7205
7206 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
7207 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
7208
7209 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
7210 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
7211 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
7212
7213 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
7214 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
7215
7216 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
7217 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
7218 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
7219 libraries.
7220
7221 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
7222 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
7223 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
7224 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
7225 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
7226
7227 * Internal improvements
7228
7229 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
7230 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
7231
7232 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
7233 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
7234 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
7235 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
7236 shared code that handles any of them.
7237
7238 * New command line options
7239
7240 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
7241
7242 * Mmalloc licensing
7243
7244 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
7245 General Public License.
7246
7247 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
7248
7249 * Host/native/target split
7250
7251 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
7252 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
7253 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
7254 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
7255 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
7256
7257 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
7258 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
7259 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
7260 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
7261 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
7262 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
7263 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
7264
7265 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
7266 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
7267 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
7268
7269 * New hosts supported
7270
7271 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
7272 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
7273 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
7274
7275 * New targets supported
7276
7277 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
7278 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
7279
7280 * New native hosts supported
7281
7282 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
7283 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
7284 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
7285
7286 * New file formats supported
7287
7288 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
7289 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
7290 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
7291
7292 * New commands
7293
7294 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
7295 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
7296 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
7297
7298 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
7299
7300 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
7301 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
7302 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
7303 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
7304
7305 * C++ improvements
7306
7307 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
7308 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
7309 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
7310
7311 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
7312
7313 * Major bug fixes
7314
7315 The crash that occurred when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
7316 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
7317 by the compiler.
7318
7319 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
7320 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
7321
7322 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
7323 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
7324 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
7325 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
7326 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
7327 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
7328
7329 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
7330 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
7331 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
7332 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
7333
7334 * AMD 29k support
7335
7336 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
7337 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
7338 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
7339 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
7340 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
7341
7342 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
7343 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
7344 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
7345 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
7346
7347 * Remote interfaces
7348
7349 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
7350 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
7351 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
7352 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
7353 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
7354 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
7355 each instruction being stepped through.
7356
7357 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
7358 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
7359
7360 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
7361 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
7362 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
7363 processor with a serial port.
7364
7365 * Configuration
7366
7367 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
7368 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
7369 supported, and what files each one uses.
7370
7371 * Library changes
7372
7373 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
7374 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
7375 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
7376 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
7377
7378 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
7379 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
7380 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
7381 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
7382
7383 * Documentation
7384
7385 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
7386 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
7387 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
7388 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
7389 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
7390 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
7391
7392 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
7393
7394
7395 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
7396
7397 * Better support for C++ function names
7398
7399 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
7400 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
7401 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
7402 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
7403 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
7404
7405 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
7406 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
7407 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
7408 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
7409 for the list of formats.
7410
7411 * G++ symbol mangling problem
7412
7413 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
7414 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
7415 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
7416 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compiling gdb/symtab.c. The
7417 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
7418 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
7419 this problem.)
7420
7421 * New 'maintenance' command
7422
7423 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
7424 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
7425 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
7426
7427 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
7428 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
7429 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
7430 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
7431 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
7432 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
7433
7434 The following commands are new:
7435
7436 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
7437 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
7438 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
7439
7440 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
7441
7442 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
7443 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
7444 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
7445 read after argv processing.
7446
7447 * New hosts supported
7448
7449 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
7450
7451 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
7452
7453 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
7454 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
7455 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
7456 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
7457 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
7458 It costs extra.
7459
7460 * New targets supported
7461
7462 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7463
7464 * More smarts about finding #include files
7465
7466 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
7467 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
7468 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
7469 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
7470 the one that contains your sources.
7471
7472 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
7473 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
7474 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
7475
7476 * Interesting infernals change
7477
7478 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
7479 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
7480 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
7481 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
7482
7483 * Bug fixes (of course!)
7484
7485 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
7486 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
7487 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
7488
7489 See the ChangeLog for details.
7490
7491 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
7492
7493 * New machines supported (host and target)
7494
7495 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
7496
7497 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
7498
7499 * New malloc package
7500
7501 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
7502 Mmalloc is capable of handling multiple heaps of memory. It is also
7503 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
7504 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
7505 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
7506 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
7507
7508 * info proc
7509
7510 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
7511 'help info proc' for details.
7512
7513 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
7514
7515 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
7516 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
7517 possible.
7518
7519 * File name changes for MS-DOS
7520
7521 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
7522 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
7523 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
7524 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
7525 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
7526 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
7527
7528 * Cross byte order fixes
7529
7530 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
7531 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
7532
7533 * New -mapped and -readnow options
7534
7535 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
7536 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
7537 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
7538 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
7539 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
7540 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
7541 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
7542 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
7543 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
7544 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
7545
7546 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
7547 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
7548 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
7549 slower, but makes future operations faster.
7550
7551 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
7552 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
7553 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
7554 use is:
7555
7556 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
7557
7558 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
7559 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
7560 shared across multiple host platforms.
7561
7562 * longjmp() handling
7563
7564 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
7565 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
7566 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
7567 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
7568
7569 * Solaris 2.0
7570
7571 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
7572 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
7573 reading symbols.
7574
7575 * Bug fixes
7576
7577 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
7578 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
7579 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
7580
7581 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
7582
7583 * New machines supported (host and target)
7584
7585 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7586 (except core files)
7587 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
7588 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
7589
7590 * New machines supported (target)
7591
7592 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7593
7594 * C++ support
7595
7596 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
7597 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
7598 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
7599
7600 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
7601 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
7602 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
7603 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
7604 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
7605 released.
7606
7607 * New features for SVR4
7608
7609 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
7610 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
7611 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
7612
7613 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
7614 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
7615 it prints the address mappings of the process.
7616
7617 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
7618 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
7619
7620 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
7621
7622 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
7623 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
7624 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
7625 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
7626 same code linked statically.
7627
7628 * New Getopt
7629
7630 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
7631 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
7632 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
7633 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
7634 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
7635 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
7636
7637 * Bugs fixed
7638
7639 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7640 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7641 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7642
7643
7644 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
7645
7646 * New machines supported (host and target)
7647
7648 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
7649 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
7650 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7651
7652 * Almost SCO Unix support
7653
7654 We had hoped to support:
7655 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7656 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
7657 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
7658 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
7659
7660 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
7661
7662 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
7663 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
7664 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
7665 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
7666 reqired (if any).
7667
7668 * New Readline
7669
7670 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
7671 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
7672 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
7673
7674 * Bugs fixed
7675
7676 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7677 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7678 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7679
7680 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
7681
7682 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
7683 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
7684 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
7685
7686 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
7687 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
7688 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
7689 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
7690 version 2.
7691
7692 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
7693 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
7694 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
7695 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
7696 situation somewhat.
7697
7698 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
7699 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
7700 methods.
7701
7702 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
7703 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
7704 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7705
7706
7707 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7708
7709 * Improved configuration
7710
7711 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7712 Porting BFD is simpler.
7713
7714 * Stepping improved
7715
7716 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7717 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7718 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7719 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7720
7721 * Bug fixing
7722
7723 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7724
7725 * New host supported (not target)
7726
7727 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7728
7729
7730 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7731
7732 * Multiple source language support
7733
7734 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7735 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7736 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7737 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7738 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7739 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7740
7741 * GDB and Modula-2
7742
7743 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7744 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7745 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7746 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7747
7748 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7749 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7750 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7751
7752 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7753 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7754
7755 * set write on/off
7756
7757 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7758 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7759 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7760 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7761 effect immediately.
7762
7763 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7764
7765 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7766 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7767 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7768 examining core files.
7769
7770 * set listsize
7771
7772 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7773 The default is 10.
7774
7775 * New machines supported (host and target)
7776
7777 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7778 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7779 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7780
7781 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7782
7783 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7784
7785 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7786
7787 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7788 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7789 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7790
7791 * New remote interfaces
7792
7793 AMD 29000 Adapt
7794 AMD 29000 Minimon
7795
7796
7797 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7798
7799 * New Facilities
7800
7801 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7802
7803 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7804 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7805 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7806 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7807 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7808 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7809 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7810 stub on the target system.
7811
7812 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7813
7814 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7815 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7816 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7817
7818 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7819 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7820
7821
7822 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7823
7824 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
7825 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
7826
7827 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
7828 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
7829 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
7830
7831 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
7832 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
7833 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
7834 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
7835
7836 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
7837 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
7838 it is already running. Default is ON.
7839
7840 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
7841 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
7842 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
7843 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
7844 Default is ON.
7845
7846 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
7847 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
7848 or the value of the environment variable
7849 GDBHISTFILE.
7850
7851 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
7852 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
7853 HISTSIZE.
7854
7855 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
7856 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
7857 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
7858
7859 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
7860 history expansion will be performed on
7861 command line input. The default is OFF.
7862
7863 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
7864 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
7865 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
7866
7867 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
7868 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
7869 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7870 variable TERM.
7871
7872 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
7873 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
7874 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7875 variable TERM.
7876
7877 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
7878 ``set width'' instead.
7879
7880 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
7881 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
7882 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
7883 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
7884
7885 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
7886 is OFF.
7887
7888 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
7889 "raw" form if off.
7890
7891 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
7892 like instructions.
7893
7894 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
7895
7896
7897 * Support for Epoch Environment.
7898
7899 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
7900 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
7901 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
7902 window.
7903
7904
7905 * Support for Shared Libraries
7906
7907 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
7908 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
7909 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
7910 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
7911 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
7912 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
7913 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
7914 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
7915
7916 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
7917 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
7918 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
7919
7920 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
7921
7922
7923 * Watchpoints
7924
7925 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
7926 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
7927 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
7928 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
7929 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
7930 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
7931
7932 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
7933
7934 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
7935
7936 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7937 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7938 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7939
7940
7941 * C++ multiple inheritance
7942
7943 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
7944 for C++ programs.
7945
7946 * C++ exception handling
7947
7948 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
7949 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
7950 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
7951 handler's context).
7952
7953 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
7954 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
7955 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
7956
7957 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
7958 current stack frame.
7959
7960
7961 * Minor command changes
7962
7963 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7964 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7965 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7966
7967 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7968 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7969 frames without printing.
7970
7971 * New directory command
7972
7973 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7974 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7975 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7976 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7977 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7978
7979 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7980
7981 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7982 for more details.
7983
7984 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7985 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7986 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
7987 where the program that you are debugging will run.
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