1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.6
7 maint set|show per-command
8 maint set|show per-command space
9 maint set|show per-command time
10 maint set|show per-command symtab
11 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
15 set remote trace-status-packet
16 show remote trace-status-packet
17 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
19 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
20 buffer in Common Trace Format.
24 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
27 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
29 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
30 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
31 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
32 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
34 set|show record full insn-number-max
35 set|show record full stop-at-limit
36 set|show record full memory-query
38 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
39 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
40 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
41 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
42 This new recording method can be enabled using:
46 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
47 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
49 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
50 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
51 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
53 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
54 instruction granularity
56 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
59 * New native configurations
61 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
62 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
63 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
64 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
68 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
69 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
70 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
71 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
72 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
74 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
75 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
76 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
77 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
78 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
79 --data-directory command-line option.
81 * New command line options:
83 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
84 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
86 * Removed command line options
88 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
91 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
94 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
98 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
100 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
102 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
104 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
106 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
107 of architecture in the Python API.
109 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
110 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
112 * New Python-based convenience functions:
114 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
115 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
117 ** $_regex(str, regex)
119 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
122 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
123 default for GCC since November 2000.
125 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
127 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
128 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
130 * New configure options
132 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
133 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
134 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
135 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
136 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
137 options allow the user to override that default.
139 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
142 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
143 conditions to be attached.
146 List the BFDs known to GDB.
148 python-interactive [command]
150 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
151 and print the result of expressions.
154 "py" is a new alias for "python".
156 enable type-printer [name]...
157 disable type-printer [name]...
158 Enable or disable type printers.
162 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
163 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
168 set print type methods (on|off)
169 show print type methods
170 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
171 The default is to show them.
173 set print type typedefs (on|off)
174 show print type typedefs
175 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
176 The default is to show them.
178 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
179 show filename-display
180 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
181 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
183 set trace-buffer-size
184 show trace-buffer-size
185 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
187 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
188 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
189 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
193 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
196 set debug coff-pe-read
197 show debug coff-pe-read
198 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
203 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
206 set debug notification
207 show debug notification
208 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
212 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
213 "=cmd-param-changed".
214 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
215 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
216 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
217 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
218 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
219 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
220 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
221 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
223 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
224 containing the absolute file name when GDB can determine it and source
226 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
227 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
228 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
229 library load/unload events.
230 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
231 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
232 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
233 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
234 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
235 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
237 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
238 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
239 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
240 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
245 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
246 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
248 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
250 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
251 for more x32 ABI info.
253 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
255 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
257 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
258 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
259 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
260 "info os files" lists file descriptors
261 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
262 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
263 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
264 "info os msg" lists message queues
265 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
267 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
268 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
269 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
270 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
271 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
272 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
274 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
275 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
276 record/replay support.
278 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
282 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
285 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
287 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
288 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
290 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
292 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
293 the source at which the symbol was defined.
295 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
296 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
297 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
300 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
301 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
303 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
304 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
305 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
307 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
308 object associated with a PC value.
310 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
311 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
313 * Go language support.
314 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
317 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
318 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
320 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
321 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
323 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
324 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
325 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
326 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
327 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
330 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
331 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
332 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
335 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
336 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
338 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
341 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
342 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
343 command does. For instance:
345 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
347 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
348 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
349 created, using the "condition" command.
351 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
352 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
354 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
356 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
357 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
358 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
359 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
360 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
361 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
362 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
363 files with older .gdb_index sections.
365 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
366 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
367 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
368 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
369 the .gdb_index section.
371 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
373 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
378 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
380 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
384 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
385 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
386 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
388 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
389 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
391 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
394 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
395 C++ and Java objects.
397 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
398 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
399 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
400 configured with '--with-python'.
402 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
403 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
404 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
405 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
406 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
407 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
408 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
410 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
411 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
412 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
413 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
415 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
416 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
417 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
418 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
420 ** "set print symbol"
422 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
423 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
424 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
426 * Deprecated commands
428 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
429 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
433 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
434 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
436 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
437 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
438 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
439 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
445 show mips compression
446 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
447 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
450 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
452 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
453 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
454 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
455 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
457 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
461 Disable auto-loading globally.
464 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
466 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
467 show auto-load gdb-scripts
468 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
470 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
471 show auto-load python-scripts
472 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
474 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
475 show auto-load local-gdbinit
476 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
478 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
479 show auto-load libthread-db
480 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
482 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
483 show auto-load scripts-directory
484 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
485 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
486 of the directories listed by this option.
487 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
489 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
490 show auto-load safe-path
491 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
492 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
494 set debug auto-load on|off
496 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
498 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
500 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
501 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
502 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
503 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
505 set dprintf-function <expr>
506 show dprintf-function
507 set dprintf-channel <expr>
509 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
510 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
512 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
513 show disconnected-dprintf
514 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
515 after GDB disconnects.
517 * New configure options
520 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
521 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
522 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
523 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
524 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
526 --with-auto-load-safe-path
527 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
528 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
530 --without-auto-load-safe-path
531 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
536 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
538 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
539 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
540 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
541 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
545 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
546 program without GDB involvement.
548 * New command line options
550 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
551 before loading inferior.
552 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
553 execute it before loading inferior.
555 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
557 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
558 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
559 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
560 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
563 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
564 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
566 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
567 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
568 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
569 target hardware watchpoint.
571 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
572 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
573 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
574 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
578 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
579 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
582 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
583 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
584 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
585 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
586 now "message", which just prints the error message without
589 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
592 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
593 modules library. This module provides functionality for
594 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
595 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
598 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
599 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
600 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
603 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
604 static_block will return the global and static blocks
605 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
606 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
608 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
610 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
613 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
614 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
615 available in the CLI.
617 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
618 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
619 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
622 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
625 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
626 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
627 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
628 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
629 any anonymous fields.
633 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
636 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
637 "=breakpoint-modified".
639 ** New command -ada-task-info.
641 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
642 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
643 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
646 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
647 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
648 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
649 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
650 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
652 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
653 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
655 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
656 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
657 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
658 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
659 use this option to specify where to find it.
661 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
662 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
663 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
664 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
665 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
666 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
667 section in the user manual for more details.
669 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
670 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
671 become available after that.
673 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
675 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
676 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
682 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
683 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
687 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
688 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
689 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
691 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
692 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
693 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
695 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
696 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
697 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
698 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
699 name starts with a hyphen.
701 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
702 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
703 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
704 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
705 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
706 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
707 number of bytes that will be collected.
710 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
711 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
712 setting the variable trace-notes.
715 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
716 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
717 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
720 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
721 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
722 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
723 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
724 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
727 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
728 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
729 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
733 set debug dwarf2-read
734 show debug dwarf2-read
735 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
736 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
738 set debug symtab-create
739 show debug symtab-create
740 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
741 creation. The default is off.
745 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
746 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
747 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
748 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
751 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
752 show print entry-values
753 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
754 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
755 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
757 set debug entry-values
758 show debug entry-values
759 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
760 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
762 set basenames-may-differ
763 show basenames-may-differ
764 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
765 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
766 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
767 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
768 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
769 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
770 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
771 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
777 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
778 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
779 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
780 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
783 show trace-stop-notes
784 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
785 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
786 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
787 started by someone else.
793 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
797 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
801 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
805 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
809 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
812 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
813 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
817 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
821 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
823 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
825 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
827 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
829 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
830 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
831 matches the given regular expression.
833 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
835 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
836 dumping the instruction opcodes.
838 * New command line options
840 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
841 This is mostly for testing purposes.
843 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
844 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
846 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
847 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
848 source path list instead of augmenting it.
850 * GDB now understands thread names.
852 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
853 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
855 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
856 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
859 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
860 has been integrated into GDB.
864 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
865 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
866 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
868 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
869 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
870 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
871 and allows for more dynamic content.
873 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
874 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
875 have an is_valid method.
877 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
878 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
879 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
881 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
883 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
884 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
885 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
886 that function like so:
888 result = some_value (10,20)
890 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
891 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
892 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
894 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
895 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
896 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
897 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
898 New function: register_pretty_printer.
900 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
901 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
903 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
905 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
908 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
909 holds the thread's name.
911 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
912 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
913 occurring in the process being debugged.
914 The following events are currently supported:
915 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
916 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
917 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
921 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
922 instantiation. For example, if you have:
924 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
926 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
927 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
928 was added to GCC 4.5.
930 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
931 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
932 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
933 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
934 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
935 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
937 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
938 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
939 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
940 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
941 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
943 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
944 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
945 execution to a label.
947 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
948 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
949 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
950 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
952 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
953 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
954 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
957 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
959 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
960 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
961 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
962 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
963 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
964 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
967 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
969 While now you see this:
972 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
974 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
977 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
978 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
979 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
980 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
982 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
983 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
984 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
985 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
986 section in the user manual for more details.
988 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
990 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
991 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
993 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
995 * New native configurations
997 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1001 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1003 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1004 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1005 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1006 in the GDB user manual.
1008 * Guile support was removed.
1010 * New features in the GNU simulator
1012 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1014 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1016 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
1018 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
1020 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1021 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1022 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1023 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1024 was always disabled for such configurations.
1028 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1030 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1031 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1041 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1042 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1043 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1045 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1047 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1048 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1049 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1050 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1052 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1053 mentioned flavors of operators.
1055 ** static const class members
1057 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1058 class definition has been fixed.
1060 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
1062 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1063 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1064 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1065 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1066 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1067 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1069 * Static tracepoints
1071 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1072 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1073 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1074 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1075 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1076 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1077 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1078 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1079 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1080 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1081 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1082 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1083 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1084 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1085 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1086 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1087 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1088 the "New remote packets" section below.
1090 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1092 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1093 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1094 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1095 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1099 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1100 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1101 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1102 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1103 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1104 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1105 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1107 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1110 * New remote packets
1114 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1118 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1119 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1120 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1121 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1122 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1123 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1127 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1131 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1134 qXfer:statictrace:read
1136 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1137 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1138 to gdb's qSupported query.
1142 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1146 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1147 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1149 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1150 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1153 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1155 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1156 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1157 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1158 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1160 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1161 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1162 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1163 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1164 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1165 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1166 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1168 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1169 for static tracepoints support.
1171 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1173 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1174 it understands register description.
1176 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1178 * X86 general purpose registers
1180 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1181 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1182 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1183 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1184 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1186 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
1187 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1188 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1189 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1190 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1191 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
1193 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1194 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1195 in the specified file.
1197 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1198 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1199 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1200 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1201 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1202 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1203 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1204 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1205 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1206 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1210 eval template, expressions...
1211 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1212 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1214 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1215 show target-file-system-kind
1216 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1219 save breakpoints <filename>
1220 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1221 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1222 definitions, use the `source' command.
1224 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1227 info static-tracepoint-markers
1228 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1230 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1231 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1232 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1236 Enable and disable observer mode.
1238 set may-write-registers on|off
1239 set may-write-memory on|off
1240 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1241 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1242 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1243 set may-interrupt on|off
1244 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1245 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1246 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1247 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1248 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1249 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1250 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1252 set record memory-query on|off
1253 show record memory-query
1254 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1255 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1260 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1264 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1265 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1266 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1267 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1268 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1270 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
1271 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1272 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1273 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
1275 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
1276 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1278 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
1280 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
1282 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1284 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1285 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1286 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1288 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1289 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1290 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1291 regular breakpoints.
1295 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1297 * D language support.
1298 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1301 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1302 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1303 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1304 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1305 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1307 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1308 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1309 conditions of the form:
1311 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1313 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1314 interface mentioned above.
1316 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
1320 ** Namespace Support
1322 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1323 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1324 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1325 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1326 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1330 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1331 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1336 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1337 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1341 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
1346 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
1349 * Multi-program debugging.
1351 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1352 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1353 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1354 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1355 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1356 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1357 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1358 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1360 * New tracing features
1362 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1364 ** Trace state variables
1366 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1367 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1368 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1369 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1370 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1371 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1372 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1373 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1374 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1375 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
1379 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1380 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1381 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1382 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1383 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1384 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1385 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1386 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1387 the regular trace command.
1389 ** Disconnected tracing
1391 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1392 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1393 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1394 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1395 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1399 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1400 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1401 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1402 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1403 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1404 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1407 ** Circular trace buffer
1409 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1410 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1411 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1412 not be available for all target agents.
1417 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1418 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1421 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1422 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1425 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1426 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1429 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1430 "set script-extension" (see below).
1432 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1434 record save [<FILENAME>]
1435 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1436 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1438 record restore <FILENAME>
1439 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1440 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1442 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1445 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1446 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1447 inferior has loaded.
1452 maint info program-spaces
1453 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1455 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1456 show remote interrupt-sequence
1457 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1458 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1459 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1460 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1461 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1463 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1464 show remote interrupt-on-connect
1465 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1466 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1469 set remotebreak [on | off]
1471 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1473 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1474 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1477 List trace state variables and their values.
1479 delete tvariable $NAME ...
1480 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1483 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1484 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1486 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1487 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1489 * New expression syntax
1491 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1492 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1496 set follow-exec-mode new|same
1497 show follow-exec-mode
1498 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1499 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1500 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1502 set default-collect EXPR, ...
1503 show default-collect
1504 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1505 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1506 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1508 set disconnected-tracing
1509 show disconnected-tracing
1510 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1511 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1514 set circular-trace-buffer
1515 show circular-trace-buffer
1516 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1517 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1518 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1519 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1521 set script-extension off|soft|strict
1522 show script-extension
1523 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1524 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1525 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1526 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1528 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1530 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1531 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1532 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1533 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1534 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1535 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1536 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1539 * Python API Improvements
1541 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1542 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1543 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1545 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1546 `is_base_class' attribute.
1548 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1550 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1551 evaluate an expression.
1553 * New remote packets
1556 Define a trace state variable.
1559 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1562 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1565 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1568 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1572 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1574 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1575 much more reliable. In particular:
1576 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1577 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1578 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1579 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1580 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1581 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1582 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1583 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1584 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1585 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1586 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1587 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1588 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1589 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1590 non-threaded programs.
1592 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1593 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1594 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1597 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1599 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1600 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1601 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1602 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1603 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1605 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1606 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1607 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1608 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1609 for tracepoint actions.
1611 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1612 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1613 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1615 * Process record and replay
1617 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1618 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1619 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1622 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1623 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1624 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1627 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1628 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1631 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1632 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1633 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1634 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1635 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1636 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1637 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1638 the installation instructions for more information.
1640 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1641 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1642 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1643 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1645 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1646 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1648 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1649 now complete on file names.
1651 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1652 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1653 For instance, consider:
1655 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1656 # struct example variable;
1659 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1660 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1662 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1663 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1665 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1666 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1669 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1670 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1671 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1673 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1674 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1675 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1676 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1678 * New remote packets
1681 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1684 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1685 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1686 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1689 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1690 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1693 Obtains additional operating system information
1697 Read or write additional signal information.
1699 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1701 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1702 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1703 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1705 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1706 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1708 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1709 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1710 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1712 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1713 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1715 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1717 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1719 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1720 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1722 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1723 list of section offsets.
1725 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1726 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1727 have also been fixed.
1729 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1730 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1731 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1733 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1736 template<typename T> class C { };
1739 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1741 ptype C<char const *>
1742 ptype C<char const*>
1743 ptype C<const char *>
1744 ptype C<const char*>
1746 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1748 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1749 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1751 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1752 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1753 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1755 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1756 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1758 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1761 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1762 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1764 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1765 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1770 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1771 available is determined at configure time.
1773 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1775 * Ada tasking support
1777 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1781 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1783 Print detailed information about task number N.
1785 Print the task number of the current task.
1787 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1789 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1790 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1792 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1794 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1795 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1796 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1797 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1798 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1799 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1802 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1803 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1806 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1807 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1808 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1809 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1812 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1814 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1815 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1816 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1817 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1818 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1820 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1821 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1822 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1823 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1824 --enable-targets configure option.
1826 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1828 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1829 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1830 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1831 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1832 section in the user manual for more information.
1834 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1835 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1836 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1837 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1838 extensions on linux targets.
1840 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1842 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1843 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1844 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1845 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1846 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1847 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1848 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1849 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1850 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1852 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1854 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1856 maint set python print-stack
1857 maint show python print-stack
1858 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1861 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1866 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1870 Show operating system information about processes.
1873 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1876 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1879 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1882 Kill inferior number NUM.
1886 set spu stop-on-load
1887 show spu stop-on-load
1888 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1890 set spu auto-flush-cache
1891 show spu auto-flush-cache
1892 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1893 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1895 set sh calling-convention
1896 show sh calling-convention
1897 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1900 show debug timestamp
1901 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1903 set disassemble-next-line
1904 show disassemble-next-line
1905 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1908 set remote noack-packet
1909 show remote noack-packet
1910 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1911 under "New remote packets."
1913 set remote query-attached-packet
1914 show remote query-attached-packet
1915 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1917 set remote read-siginfo-object
1918 show remote read-siginfo-object
1919 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1922 set remote write-siginfo-object
1923 show remote write-siginfo-object
1924 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1927 set remote reverse-continue
1928 show remote reverse-continue
1929 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1931 set remote reverse-step
1932 show remote reverse-step
1933 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1935 set displaced-stepping
1936 show displaced-stepping
1937 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1938 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1939 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1942 show debug displaced
1943 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1945 maint set internal-error
1946 maint show internal-error
1947 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1949 maint set internal-warning
1950 maint show internal-warning
1951 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1956 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1958 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1959 show multiple-symbols
1960 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1961 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1962 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1964 set breakpoint always-inserted
1965 show breakpoint always-inserted
1966 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1967 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1968 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1970 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1971 show arm fallback-mode
1972 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1974 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1975 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1976 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1977 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1979 set disable-randomization
1980 show disable-randomization
1981 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1982 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1983 multiple debugging sessions.
1987 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1992 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1993 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1994 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1995 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1997 set target-wide-charset
1998 show target-wide-charset
1999 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2000 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2002 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2004 set tcp connect-timeout
2005 show tcp connect-timeout
2006 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2007 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2008 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2010 set libthread-db-search-path
2011 show libthread-db-search-path
2012 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2015 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2016 show schedule-multiple
2017 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2018 the current process.
2022 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2023 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2024 affecting correctness.
2026 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2027 show interactive-mode
2028 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2029 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2030 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2031 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2032 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2037 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2038 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2039 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2043 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2044 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2045 alias for the `fork' command.
2048 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2049 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2050 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2053 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2054 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2055 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2059 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2060 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2061 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2064 * New native configurations
2066 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2068 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2072 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
2073 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
2074 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
2077 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2078 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2084 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2086 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
2088 * New native configurations
2090 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
2091 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
2095 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
2096 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
2098 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2100 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2101 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2102 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2103 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2105 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2106 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2108 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
2111 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
2112 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2113 and in inlined functions.
2115 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2116 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2117 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2119 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2121 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2122 registers on PowerPC targets.
2124 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2125 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2127 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2128 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2130 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2131 extended-remote mode.
2133 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
2134 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2135 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2136 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
2138 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2139 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2140 target architectures.
2142 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2143 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2144 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2145 stored in two consecutive float registers.
2147 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2150 * Improved support for debugging Ada
2151 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2153 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2154 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2155 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2156 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2158 - Improved command completion in Ada
2161 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2166 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2167 show print frame-arguments
2168 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2169 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2174 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2181 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2183 * New remote packets
2190 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
2193 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2197 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2199 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
2201 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2202 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2203 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2205 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2206 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2207 -Bsymbolic linker option.
2209 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2210 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2213 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2214 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2216 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
2217 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
2219 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2221 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2222 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2223 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2225 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2226 automatically displayed as character or string data.
2228 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2229 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2232 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2233 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
2234 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
2236 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2239 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2240 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2241 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2243 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2245 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2247 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2248 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2249 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2251 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2252 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2254 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2255 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2256 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2257 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2258 Windows and SymbianOS).
2260 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2261 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
2263 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2264 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
2270 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2271 when debugging using remote targets.
2273 set mem inaccessible-by-default
2274 show mem inaccessible-by-default
2275 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2276 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2277 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2278 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2279 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2281 set breakpoint auto-hw
2282 show breakpoint auto-hw
2283 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2284 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2285 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2286 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2287 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2288 including "next" and "finish".
2291 catch exception unhandled
2292 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2295 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2299 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2300 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2301 an alias to "set sysroot".
2304 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2305 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2308 * New native configurations
2310 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2313 unset tdesc filename
2315 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2316 not query the target for its built-in description.
2320 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
2321 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
2322 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
2324 * New remote packets
2327 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2328 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2330 qXfer:features:read:
2331 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2336 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2337 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2339 qXfer:libraries:read:
2340 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2341 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2342 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2343 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2347 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2355 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2356 i[34567]86-*-netware*
2357 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2358 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2360 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2363 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2364 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2373 * Other removed features
2380 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2387 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2392 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2393 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2398 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2399 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2401 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2403 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2404 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2405 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2406 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2408 MIPS ".pdr" sections
2410 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2411 in debugging information.
2415 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2416 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2418 set mips stack-arg-size
2419 set mips saved-gpreg-size
2421 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2423 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
2428 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
2430 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2431 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2432 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2434 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2435 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2438 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2439 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2441 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2442 stub provides the required support.
2444 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2445 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2450 unset substitute-path
2451 show substitute-path
2452 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2453 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2454 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2455 between compilation and debugging.
2459 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2460 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2461 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2465 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2467 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2468 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2470 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2472 * New remote packets
2475 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2476 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2477 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2478 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2482 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2483 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2485 qXfer:memory-map:read:
2486 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2487 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2492 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2494 * Removed remote packets
2497 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2498 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2500 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
2504 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2506 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2510 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2511 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2513 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2515 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2517 restart <n> Return the program state to a
2518 previously saved state.
2520 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2522 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2524 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2525 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2527 info forks List forks of the user program that
2528 are available to be debugged.
2530 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2531 forks of the user program that are
2532 available to be debugged.
2534 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2535 that are available to be debugged (and
2536 kill the forked process).
2538 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2539 that are available to be debugged (and
2540 allow the process to continue).
2544 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2546 * Improved Windows host support
2548 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2549 native console support, and remote communications using either
2550 network sockets or serial ports.
2552 * Improved Modula-2 language support
2554 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2555 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2556 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2557 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2558 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2559 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2563 The ARM rdi-share module.
2565 The Netware NLM debug server.
2567 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2569 * New native configurations
2571 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2572 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2576 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2578 * New command line options
2580 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2581 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2582 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2583 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2584 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2585 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2586 with the --command (-x) option.
2588 * Deprecated commands removed
2590 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2594 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2595 othernames set arm disassembler
2596 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2597 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2598 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2601 * New BSD user-level threads support
2603 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2604 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2607 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2608 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2609 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2611 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2612 are not yet supported.
2614 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2615 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2617 * REMOVED configurations and files
2619 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2620 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2621 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2623 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2625 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2626 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2629 * VAX floating point support
2631 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2633 * User-defined command support
2635 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2636 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2637 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2639 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2641 * New command line option
2643 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2646 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2648 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2649 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2650 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2651 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2652 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
2654 * Internationalization
2656 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2657 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2658 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2662 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2663 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2664 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2666 * New native configurations
2668 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2672 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2673 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2675 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2677 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2678 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2679 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2682 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2683 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2684 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2694 powerpc bdm protocol
2696 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2697 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2699 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2701 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2702 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2703 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2704 permanently REMOVED.
2713 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2715 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2717 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2718 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2721 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2723 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2724 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2725 IRIX long double values).
2729 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2730 command. This problem has been fixed.
2732 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2734 * Fix for ``many threads''
2736 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2737 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2740 ptrace: No such process.
2741 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2743 This problem has been fixed.
2745 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2747 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2750 * New ``start'' command.
2752 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2754 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2756 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2757 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2758 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2760 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2761 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2762 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2763 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2764 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2765 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2766 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2767 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2768 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2770 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2772 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2773 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2774 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2775 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2776 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2778 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2779 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2780 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2782 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2784 * New native configurations
2786 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2787 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2788 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2789 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2790 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2791 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2792 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2794 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2796 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2797 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2798 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2799 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2800 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2801 work, was also included.
2803 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2804 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2814 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2815 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2817 * REMOVED configurations and files
2819 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2820 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2821 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2822 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2823 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2824 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2825 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2826 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2827 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2828 sonymips mips-sony-*
2829 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2831 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2833 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2835 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2836 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2837 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2838 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2841 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2843 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2844 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2845 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2846 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2847 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2848 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2851 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2853 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2855 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2856 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2857 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2859 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2861 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2862 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2864 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2866 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2867 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2868 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2870 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2872 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2873 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2875 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2877 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2878 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2879 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2881 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2883 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2884 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2885 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2887 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2889 * Removed --with-mmalloc
2891 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2892 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2894 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
2896 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2897 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2898 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2899 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2901 * Revised SPARC target
2903 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2904 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2905 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2906 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2907 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2911 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2912 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2913 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2916 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2918 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2919 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2922 * C++ nested types and namespaces
2924 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2925 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2926 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2927 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2928 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2929 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2930 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2931 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2932 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2934 * New native configurations
2936 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2937 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2938 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2939 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2940 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2942 * New debugging protocols
2944 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2946 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2948 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2949 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2950 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2952 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2954 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2955 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2956 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2957 permanently REMOVED.
2959 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2960 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2961 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2962 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2963 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2964 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2965 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2966 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2967 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2968 sonymips mips-sony-*
2969 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2971 * REMOVED configurations and files
2973 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2974 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2975 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2976 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2977 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2978 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2979 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2980 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2981 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2982 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2983 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2984 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2985 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2986 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2987 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2988 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2989 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2991 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2995 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2996 integrated into GDB.
2998 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3000 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3001 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3002 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3005 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3006 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3007 DWARF 2 CFI support.
3011 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3012 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3013 remote protocol documentation for details.
3015 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
3017 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3018 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3019 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3022 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3024 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3025 per-thread variables.
3027 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3029 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3030 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3032 * Separate debug info.
3034 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3035 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3036 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3037 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3038 and optional debug files.
3040 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3042 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3043 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3046 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3047 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3051 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3052 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3053 considered "useable".
3055 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3057 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3058 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3061 * GDB supports logging output to a file
3063 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3064 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
3066 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3068 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3069 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3072 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
3074 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3075 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3079 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3080 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3081 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3082 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3083 data, for more informative profiling results.
3085 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3087 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3088 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
3089 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
3091 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3094 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3095 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3096 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3097 in a subsequent -var-update.
3099 * New native configurations.
3101 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3103 * Multi-arched targets.
3105 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
3106 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3108 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3110 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3111 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3112 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3113 permanently REMOVED.
3115 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3116 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3117 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3118 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3119 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3120 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3121 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3122 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3123 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3124 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3125 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3126 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3128 * REMOVED configurations and files
3131 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3132 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3133 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3134 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3135 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3136 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3138 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3139 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3140 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3141 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3142 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3143 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3145 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
3147 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3148 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3149 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3150 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3151 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3153 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
3155 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3157 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3158 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3159 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3160 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3161 shared libs like mad''.
3163 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
3165 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3166 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3167 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3168 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
3170 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3172 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3173 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3176 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3177 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3179 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3180 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3182 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3183 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3184 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3185 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3187 * Multi-arched targets.
3189 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3190 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
3192 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
3193 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3194 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3198 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3201 * New native configurations
3203 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
3204 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
3205 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
3206 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
3208 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3210 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3211 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3212 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3213 permanently REMOVED.
3215 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3216 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3217 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3218 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3219 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3220 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3221 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3222 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3223 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3224 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3226 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3227 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3229 * OBSOLETE languages
3231 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3233 * REMOVED configurations and files
3235 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3236 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3237 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3238 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3239 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3241 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3243 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3245 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3246 commands. The default is 1024.
3248 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3250 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3252 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3254 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3255 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3256 from a file into memory (restore).
3258 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3260 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3261 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3262 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3264 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3272 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3273 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3274 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3276 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3277 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3278 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3280 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3281 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3282 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3284 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3285 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3286 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3288 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
3290 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3292 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3293 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3294 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3295 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3296 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3297 (notably embedded) targets.
3299 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3301 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3302 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3303 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3304 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
3306 * New command line option
3308 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3310 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3312 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3313 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3314 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3315 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3316 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3317 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3318 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3319 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3320 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3321 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3323 * Changes in ARM configurations.
3325 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3326 configuration is fully multi-arch.
3328 * New native configurations
3330 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
3331 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
3332 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
3333 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
3337 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3339 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3341 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3342 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3343 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3344 permanently REMOVED.
3346 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3347 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3348 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3349 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3350 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3352 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3354 * REMOVED configurations and files
3356 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3358 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3359 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3360 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3361 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3362 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3363 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3364 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3365 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3366 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3367 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3368 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
3370 * Changes to command line processing
3372 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3373 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3375 * Changes to key bindings
3377 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3379 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3381 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3383 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3386 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3388 Numerous documentation fixes.
3390 Numerous testsuite fixes.
3392 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
3394 * New native configurations
3396 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3397 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
3398 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
3399 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3400 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
3401 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
3405 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
3407 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
3409 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3411 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
3412 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3413 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3414 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3415 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3417 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3418 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3419 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3420 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3421 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3422 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3423 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3424 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
3426 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3427 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3429 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3430 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3431 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3432 permanently REMOVED.
3434 * REMOVED configurations and files
3436 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3437 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3439 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3443 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
3445 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
3446 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3451 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3453 * The MI enabled by default.
3455 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3456 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3457 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3458 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3459 which is now deprecated.
3461 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3463 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3464 main features are supported:
3466 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3468 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3471 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3473 - a Pascal expression parser.
3475 However, some important features are not yet supported.
3477 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3479 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3481 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3482 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3484 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3486 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3488 * Changes in completion.
3490 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3491 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3492 users expect at the shell prompt.
3494 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3495 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3496 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3497 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3498 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3499 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3500 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3502 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3504 * New platform-independent commands:
3506 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3507 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3508 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3510 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3512 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3513 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3514 many threads as your system allows you to have.
3516 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3518 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3519 multi-threaded programs though.
3521 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
3523 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3525 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3526 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3529 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3531 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3532 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3533 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3534 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3535 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3538 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3539 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3540 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3542 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3544 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3545 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3547 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3548 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3551 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3552 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3553 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3554 a given linear address.
3556 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3557 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3558 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3560 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3562 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3564 * Changes in documentation.
3566 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3567 Documentation License.
3569 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3572 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3574 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3577 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3578 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3579 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3581 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3583 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3584 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3585 contents of this file.
3589 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3591 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3593 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3595 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3596 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3597 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3598 greater level of detail.
3600 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3602 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3603 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3604 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3607 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3609 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3610 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3611 machines ``out of the box''.
3613 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3614 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3615 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3616 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3617 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3619 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3620 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3621 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3622 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3623 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3625 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3626 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3629 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3632 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3633 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3634 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3635 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3637 * New native configurations
3639 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3640 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3644 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3645 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3646 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
3647 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3649 * OBSOLETE configurations
3651 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3652 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3654 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3657 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3658 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3659 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3660 be permanently REMOVED.
3662 * Gould support removed
3664 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3666 * New features for SVR4
3668 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3669 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3670 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3672 * Many C++ enhancements
3674 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3675 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3677 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3679 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3680 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3681 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3682 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3684 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3685 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3687 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3689 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3690 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3691 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3693 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3694 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3696 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3698 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3699 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3700 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3702 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3704 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3705 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3706 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3708 * ``apropos'' command added.
3710 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3711 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3712 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3716 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3717 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3718 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3719 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3720 enabled by configuring with:
3722 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3724 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3726 * New native configurations
3728 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3729 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3730 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3734 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3735 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3736 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3738 * OBSOLETE configurations
3740 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3742 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3743 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3744 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3745 be permanently REMOVED.
3749 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3750 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3751 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3752 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3753 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3754 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3755 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3760 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3762 * set extension-language
3764 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3765 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3766 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3767 set extension-language .c c++
3768 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3769 and their associated languages.
3771 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3773 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3774 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3775 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3779 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3780 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3782 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3783 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3785 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3786 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3787 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3788 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3789 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3790 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3791 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3792 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3794 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3795 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3796 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3797 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3801 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3802 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3803 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3804 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3805 for xdb and dbx commands.
3809 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3810 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3811 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3813 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3814 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3815 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3817 * Debugging across forks
3819 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3824 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3825 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3826 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3828 * GDB remote protocol additions
3830 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3831 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3832 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3833 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3835 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3836 full 64-bit address. The command
3838 set remoteaddresssize 32
3840 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3841 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3844 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3845 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3847 maint packet heythere
3849 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3850 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3853 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3854 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3855 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3857 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3859 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3860 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3861 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3863 * mask-address variable for Mips
3865 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3866 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3867 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3869 * Higher serial baud rates
3871 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3872 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3873 to achieve all of these rates.)
3877 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3878 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3881 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3883 * New native configurations
3885 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3886 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3887 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3888 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3889 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3890 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3891 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3895 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3896 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3897 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3898 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3899 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3900 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3901 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3902 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3903 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3904 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3905 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3907 * New debugging protocols
3909 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3910 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3911 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3912 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3913 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3914 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3918 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3919 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3924 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3925 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3927 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3929 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3930 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3931 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3933 * Live range splitting
3935 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3936 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3937 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3941 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3942 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3946 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3947 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3948 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3953 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3958 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3959 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3960 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3961 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3962 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3963 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3967 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3968 the symbol at the specified address.
3972 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3973 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3974 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3975 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3976 file tracepoint.c for more details.
3980 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3981 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3982 of most MIPS variants.
3986 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3987 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3988 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3992 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3993 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3994 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3995 the possible architectures.
3997 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3999 * New native configurations
4001 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4002 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4003 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4004 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4005 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4006 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4010 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4011 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4012 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4013 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4014 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4016 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4020 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4021 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4022 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4023 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4024 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4028 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4030 * Windows 95/NT native
4032 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4033 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4034 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4035 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4036 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4038 * dont-repeat command
4040 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4041 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4042 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4043 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4045 * Send break instead of ^C
4047 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4048 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4049 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4051 * Remote protocol timeout
4053 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4054 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4055 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4057 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4059 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4060 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4061 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4062 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4063 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4065 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4066 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4067 automatically on hpux10.
4069 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4071 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4073 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4075 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4076 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4077 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4078 every character. The default value is 1050.
4080 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4082 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4083 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4084 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4085 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4086 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4087 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4089 * Speedups for remote debugging
4091 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4092 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4093 and more efficient S-record downloading.
4095 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4097 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4098 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4100 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4102 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
4104 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4105 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4107 * Remote targets use caching
4109 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4110 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4111 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4112 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4113 off' turns the the data cache off.
4115 * Remote targets may have threads
4117 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4118 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4119 gdb/remote.c for details.
4123 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4124 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4125 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4126 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4127 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4128 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4129 sequence is something like
4131 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4133 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4137 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4138 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4139 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4140 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4141 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4142 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4143 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4144 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4148 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4149 but does simplify configuration and building.
4153 GDB now supports hpux10.
4155 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4157 * New native configurations
4159 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4160 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4161 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4162 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4166 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4167 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4168 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4169 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4172 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4174 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4175 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4176 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4177 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4178 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4180 * Arguments to user-defined commands
4182 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4183 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4186 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4188 To execute the command use:
4191 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4192 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4193 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4195 * New `if' and `while' commands
4197 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4198 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4199 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4200 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4201 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4202 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4203 if the expression is zero.
4205 * Fortran source language mode
4207 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4208 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4209 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4210 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4213 * Better HPUX support
4215 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4216 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4217 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4218 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4219 that behavior do the following before running the program:
4225 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4226 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4232 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4233 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4236 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4237 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4239 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4241 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4242 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4243 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4244 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4245 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4246 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4248 * New DOS host serial code
4250 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4251 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4254 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4256 * New "complete" command
4258 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4259 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4261 * Trailing space optional in prompt
4263 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4264 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4266 * Breakpoint hit counts
4268 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4269 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4270 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4271 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4272 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4275 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4277 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4278 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4279 arrays actually contain only short strings.
4281 * Shared library breakpoints
4283 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4284 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4286 * Hardware watchpoints
4288 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4289 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4291 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
4295 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4296 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4298 * Improved Irix 5 support
4300 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4302 * Improved HPPA support
4304 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4306 * New native configurations
4308 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4309 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4310 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4311 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4315 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4316 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4319 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4321 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4322 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4326 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4327 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4329 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4331 * Irix 5 is now supported
4335 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4336 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4337 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4338 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4339 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4342 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4344 * User visible changes:
4348 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4349 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4350 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4351 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4352 debugging info for the mips target).
4354 * DEC Alpha native support
4356 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4357 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4358 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4359 Alpha-specific notes.
4361 * Preliminary thread implementation
4363 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4365 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
4367 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4368 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4371 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4373 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4374 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4375 call methods, ...etc.
4377 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4379 * User visible changes:
4381 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4382 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4383 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4384 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4386 Filename completion now works.
4388 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4389 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4390 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4392 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4393 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4394 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4395 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4396 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4400 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4401 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4404 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4408 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4409 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4410 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4414 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4415 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4416 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4417 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4418 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4422 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4423 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4424 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4426 * New targets supported
4428 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4429 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4430 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4431 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4432 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4434 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4435 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4436 GO32 memory extender.
4438 * New remote protocols
4440 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4442 * New source languages supported
4444 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4445 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4446 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4449 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4451 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4453 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4454 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4455 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4456 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4457 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4458 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4460 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4462 * Faster and better demangling
4464 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4465 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4466 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4467 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4468 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4469 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4472 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4473 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4474 compiler does not actually implement.
4476 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4478 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4479 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4480 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4481 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4482 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4483 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4486 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4487 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4489 * Improved configure script
4491 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4492 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4493 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4494 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4496 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4497 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4498 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4499 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4500 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4501 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4503 * Documentation improvements
4505 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4506 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4507 before submitting changes.
4509 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4510 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4511 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4512 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4513 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4515 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4516 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4517 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4518 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4519 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4520 around this problem.
4524 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4525 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4526 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4529 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4530 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4532 * New native hosts supported
4534 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4535 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4537 * New targets supported
4539 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4541 * New file formats supported
4543 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4544 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4548 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4550 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4551 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4553 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4554 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4555 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4557 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4558 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4560 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4561 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4562 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4565 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4566 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4567 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4568 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4569 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4571 * Internal improvements
4573 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4574 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4576 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4577 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4578 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4579 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4580 shared code that handles any of them.
4582 * New command line options
4584 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4588 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4589 General Public License.
4591 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4593 * Host/native/target split
4595 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4596 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4597 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4598 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4599 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4601 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4602 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4603 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4604 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4605 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4606 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4607 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4609 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4610 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4611 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4613 * New hosts supported
4615 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4616 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4617 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4619 * New targets supported
4621 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4622 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4624 * New native hosts supported
4626 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4627 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4628 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4630 * New file formats supported
4632 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4633 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4634 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4638 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4639 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4640 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4642 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4644 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4645 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4646 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4647 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4651 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4652 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4653 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4655 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4659 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4660 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4663 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4664 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4666 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4667 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4668 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4669 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4670 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4671 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4673 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4674 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4675 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4676 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4680 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4681 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4682 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4683 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4684 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4686 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4687 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4688 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4689 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4693 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4694 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4695 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4696 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4697 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4698 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4699 each instruction being stepped through.
4701 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4702 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4704 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4705 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4706 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4707 processor with a serial port.
4711 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4712 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4713 supported, and what files each one uses.
4717 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4718 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4719 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4720 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4722 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4723 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4724 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4725 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4729 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4730 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4731 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4732 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4733 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4734 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4736 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4739 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4741 * Better support for C++ function names
4743 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4744 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4745 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4746 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4747 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4749 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4750 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4751 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4752 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4753 for the list of formats.
4755 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4757 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4758 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4759 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4760 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4761 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4762 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4765 * New 'maintenance' command
4767 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4768 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4769 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4771 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4772 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4773 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4774 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4775 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4776 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4778 The following commands are new:
4780 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4781 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4782 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4784 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4786 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4787 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4788 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4789 read after argv processing.
4791 * New hosts supported
4793 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4795 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4797 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4798 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4799 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4800 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4801 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4804 * New targets supported
4806 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4808 * More smarts about finding #include files
4810 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4811 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4812 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4813 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4814 the one that contains your sources.
4816 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4817 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4818 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4820 * Interesting infernals change
4822 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4823 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4824 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4825 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4827 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4829 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4830 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4831 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4833 See the ChangeLog for details.
4835 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4837 * New machines supported (host and target)
4839 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4841 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4843 * New malloc package
4845 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4846 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4847 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4848 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4849 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4850 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4854 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4855 'help info proc' for details.
4857 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4859 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4860 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4863 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4865 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4866 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4867 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4868 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4869 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4870 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4872 * Cross byte order fixes
4874 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4875 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4877 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4879 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4880 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4881 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4882 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4883 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4884 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4885 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4886 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4887 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4888 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4890 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4891 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4892 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4893 slower, but makes future operations faster.
4895 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4896 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4897 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4900 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4902 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4903 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4904 shared across multiple host platforms.
4906 * longjmp() handling
4908 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4909 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4910 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4911 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4915 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4916 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4921 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4922 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4923 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4925 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4927 * New machines supported (host and target)
4929 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4931 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4932 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4934 * New machines supported (target)
4936 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4940 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4941 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4942 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4944 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4945 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4946 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4947 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4948 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4951 * New features for SVR4
4953 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4954 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4955 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4957 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4958 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4959 it prints the address mappings of the process.
4961 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4962 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4964 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4966 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4967 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4968 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4969 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4970 same code linked statically.
4974 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4975 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4976 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4977 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4978 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4979 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4983 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4984 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4985 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4988 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4990 * New machines supported (host and target)
4992 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4993 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4994 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4996 * Almost SCO Unix support
4998 We had hoped to support:
4999 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5000 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5001 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5002 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5004 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5006 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5007 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5008 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5009 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5014 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5015 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5016 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5020 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5021 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5022 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5024 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5026 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5027 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5028 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5030 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5031 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5032 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5033 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5036 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5037 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5038 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5039 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5042 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5043 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5046 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5047 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5048 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5051 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5053 * Improved configuration
5055 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5056 Porting BFD is simpler.
5060 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5061 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5062 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5063 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5067 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5069 * New host supported (not target)
5071 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5074 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5076 * Multiple source language support
5078 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5079 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5080 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5081 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5082 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5083 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5087 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5088 currently under development at the State University of New York at
5089 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5090 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5092 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5093 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5094 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5096 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5097 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5101 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5102 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5103 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5104 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5107 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5109 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5110 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5111 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5112 examining core files.
5116 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5119 * New machines supported (host and target)
5121 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5122 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5123 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5125 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5127 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5129 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5131 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5132 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5133 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5135 * New remote interfaces
5141 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5145 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5147 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5148 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5149 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5150 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5151 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5152 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5153 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5154 stub on the target system.
5156 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5158 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5159 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5160 object file types such as a.out and coff.
5162 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5163 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5166 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5168 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5169 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5171 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5172 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5173 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5175 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5176 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5177 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5178 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5180 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5181 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5182 it is already running. Default is ON.
5184 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5185 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5186 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5187 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5190 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5191 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5192 or the value of the environment variable
5195 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5196 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5199 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5200 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5201 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5203 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5204 history expansion will be performed on
5205 command line input. The default is OFF.
5207 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5208 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5209 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5211 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5212 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5213 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5216 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5217 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5218 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5221 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5222 ``set width'' instead.
5224 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5225 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5226 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5227 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5229 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5232 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5235 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5238 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5241 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5243 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5244 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5245 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5249 * Support for Shared Libraries
5251 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5252 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5253 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5254 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5255 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5256 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5257 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5258 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5260 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5261 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5262 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5264 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5269 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5270 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5271 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5272 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5273 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5274 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5276 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5278 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5280 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5281 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5282 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5285 * C++ multiple inheritance
5287 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5290 * C++ exception handling
5292 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5293 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5294 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5297 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5298 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5299 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5301 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5302 current stack frame.
5305 * Minor command changes
5307 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5308 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5309 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5311 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5312 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5313 frames without printing.
5315 * New directory command
5317 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5318 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5319 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5320 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5321 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5323 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5325 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5328 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5329 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5330 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5331 where the program that you are debugging will run.