New aarch32-linux-nat.c
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.10
5
6 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
7
8 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
9 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
10 including advance SIMD instructions.
11
12 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
13
14 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
15 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
16 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
17 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
18 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
19 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
20 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
21
22 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
23 cpu information :
24 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
25
26 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
27 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
28 remote serial I/O.
29
30 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
31 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
32 and may include things like its command line arguments.
33
34 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
35 is now available on all platforms.
36
37 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
38 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
39 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
40 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
41 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
42 backward compatibility.
43
44 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
45 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
46 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
47 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
48
49 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
50 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
51 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
52 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
53 packets" below.
54
55 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
56
57 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
58
59 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
60 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
61 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
62 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
63 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
64 See "New remote packets" below.
65
66 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
67 available register groups, including target specific groups.
68
69 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
70 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
71 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
72 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
73 are ignored.
74
75 * Guile Scripting
76
77 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
78
79 * Python Scripting
80
81 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
82 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
83 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
84 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
85 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
86 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
87 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
88 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
89 "const" version of the value respectively.
90
91 * New commands
92
93 maint print symbol-cache
94 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
95
96 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
97 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
98
99 maint flush-symbol-cache
100 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
101
102 record btrace bts
103 record bts
104 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
105
106 compile print
107 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
108
109 tui enable
110 tui disable
111 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
112
113 show mpx bound
114 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
115 Support for bound table investigation on Intel(R) MPX enabled applications.
116
117 record btrace pt
118 record pt
119 Start branch trace recording using Intel(R) Processor Trace format.
120
121 maint info btrace
122 Print information about branch tracing internals.
123
124 maint btrace packet-history
125 Print the raw branch tracing data.
126
127 maint btrace clear-packet-history
128 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
129
130 maint btrace clear
131 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
132 anew by the next "record" command.
133
134 * New options
135
136 set debug dwarf-die
137 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
138 show debug dwarf-die
139 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
140
141 set debug dwarf-read
142 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
143 show debug dwarf-read
144 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
145
146 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
147 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
148 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
149 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
150
151 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
152 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
153 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
154 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
155
156 set debug dwarf-line
157 show debug dwarf-line
158 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
159
160 set max-completions
161 show max-completions
162 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
163 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
164 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
165 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
166
167 set history remove-duplicates
168 show history remove-duplicates
169 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
170
171 maint set symbol-cache-size
172 maint show symbol-cache-size
173 Control the size of the symbol cache.
174
175 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
176 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
177 BTS format.
178 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
179 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
180
181 set debug linux-namespaces
182 show debug linux-namespaces
183 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
184
185 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
186 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
187 Intel(R) Processor Trace format.
188 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
189 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
190
191 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
192 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
193 packet history.
194
195 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
196 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
197
198 * Python/Guile scripting
199
200 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
201 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
202
203 * New remote packets
204
205 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
206 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
207
208 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
209 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
210
211 Qbtrace:pt
212 Enable Intel(R) Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
213 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
214 qSupported query.
215
216 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
217 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel(R) Processor
218 Trace format.
219
220 swbreak stop reason
221 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
222 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
223 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
224 mode operation.
225
226 hwbreak stop reason
227 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
228 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
229
230 vFile:fstat:
231 Return information about files on the remote system.
232
233 qXfer:exec-file:read
234 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
235 create a process running on the remote system.
236
237 vFile:setfs:
238 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
239 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
240 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
241 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
242
243 fork stop reason
244 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
245
246 vfork stop reason
247 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
248
249 vforkdone stop reason
250 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
251 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
252
253 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
254 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
255 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
256 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
257 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
258 whether these features are enabled.
259
260 * Extended-remote fork events
261
262 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
263 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
264 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
265 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
266
267 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
268 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
269 the btrace record target.
270 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
271
272 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
273 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
274
275 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
276 targets.
277
278 * Removed command line options
279
280 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
281
282 * Removed targets and native configurations
283
284 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
285 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
286
287 * New configure options
288
289 --with-intel-pt
290 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
291 Intel(R) Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
292
293 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
294 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
295 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
296 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
297
298 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
299
300 * Python Scripting
301
302 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
303
304 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
305
306 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
307
308 * Python Scripting
309
310 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
311 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
312 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
313 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
314 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
315 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
316 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
317 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
318 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
319 selecting a new file to debug.
320 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
321 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
322
323 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
324 inferior.
325
326 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
327 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
328 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
329 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
330
331 * New Python-based convenience functions:
332
333 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
334 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
335 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
336 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
337
338 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
339 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
340 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
341 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
342 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
343 interface with this new feature are:
344
345 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
346 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
347
348 * New commands
349
350 demangle [-l language] [--] name
351 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
352 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
353 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
354 as "maint demangler-warning".
355
356 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
357 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
358
359 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
360 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
361 scripts.
362
363 maint print user-registers
364 List all currently available "user" registers.
365
366 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
367 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
368 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
369
370 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
371 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
372 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
373 provided.
374
375 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
376 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
377 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
378 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
379 at resume time.
380
381 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
382 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
383 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
384 switched threads meanwhile.
385
386 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
387
388 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
389 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
390 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
391 is now the default mode.
392
393 * New options
394
395 set debug symbol-lookup
396 show debug symbol-lookup
397 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
398
399 * MI changes
400
401 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
402 inferiors that have exited.
403
404 * New targets
405
406 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
407
408 * Removed targets
409
410 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
411
412 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
413 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
414 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
415 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
416 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
417
418 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
419 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
420 its alias "share", instead.
421
422 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
423
424 * New command line options
425
426 -D data-directory
427 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
428
429 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
430 as specified in ISO C99.
431
432 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
433 with or without disassembly.
434
435 * Guile scripting
436
437 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
438 available is determined at configure time.
439 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
440 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
441
442 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
443
444 guile [code]
445 gu [code]
446 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
447
448 guile-repl
449 gr
450 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
451
452 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
453 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
454
455 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
456 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
457
458 * New options
459
460 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
461 show print symbol-loading
462 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
463 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
464 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
465 becomes less useful.
466
467 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
468 show guile print-stack
469 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
470
471 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
472 show auto-load guile-scripts
473 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
474
475 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
476 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
477 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
478 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
479 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
480 usage of this option.
481
482 set auto-connect-native-target
483
484 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
485 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
486 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
487
488 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
489 show record btrace replay-memory-access
490 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
491
492 maint set target-async (on|off)
493 maint show target-async
494 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
495 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
496 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
497 occurring only in synchronous mode.
498
499 set mi-async (on|off)
500 show mi-async
501 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
502 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
503
504 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
505 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
506
507 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
508 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
509 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
510 "set target-async on" command.
511
512 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
513
514 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
515 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
516 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
517 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
518 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
519
520 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
521 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
522 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
523
524 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
525 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
526 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
527 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
528 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
529 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
530 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
531
532 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
533 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
534
535 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
536 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
537 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
538
539 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
540 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
541 memory or registers.
542
543 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
544
545 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
546 remote. It now works with all targets.
547
548 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
549 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
550 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
551 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
552 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
553 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
554 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
555 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
556 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
557 target-stack".
558
559 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
560 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
561 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
562
563 * GDB now supports access to Intel(R) MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
564
565 * Support for Intel(R) AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
566 Support displaying and modifying Intel(R) AVX-512 registers
567 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
568
569 * New remote packets
570
571 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
572 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
573 branch trace incrementally.
574
575 * Python Scripting
576
577 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
578 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
579 available.
580 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
581 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
582 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
583 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
584 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
585
586 * New targets
587 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
588
589 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
590 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
591 its alias "share", instead.
592
593 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
594 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
595 instead.
596
597 * MI changes
598
599 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
600 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
601 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
602 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
603 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
604 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
605 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
606 commands and CLI execution commands.
607
608 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
609
610 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
611 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
612 recording has been added.
613
614 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
615
616 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
617 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
618
619 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
620 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
621 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
622 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
623 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
624 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
625 "void".
626
627 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
628
629 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
630
631 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
632 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
633 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
634 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
635
636 (gdb) p $rax
637 $1 = <not saved>
638
639 (gdb) info registers rax
640 rax <not saved>
641
642 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
643 "*value not available*".
644
645 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
646 to binaries.
647
648 * Python scripting
649
650 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
651 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
652 ** Line tables representation has been added.
653 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
654 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
655 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
656
657 * New targets
658
659 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
660 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
661 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
662
663 * Removed native configurations
664
665 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
666 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
667
668 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
669 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
670 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
671 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
672 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
673 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
674 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
675
676 * New commands:
677 catch rethrow
678 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
679 maint check-psymtabs
680 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
681 maint check-symtabs
682 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
683 maint expand-symtabs
684 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
685
686 show configuration
687 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
688
689 maint set|show per-command
690 maint set|show per-command space
691 maint set|show per-command time
692 maint set|show per-command symtab
693 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
694
695 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
696 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
697 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
698 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
699 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
700
701 info exceptions
702 info exceptions REGEXP
703 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
704 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
705 are listed.
706
707 * New options
708
709 set debug symfile off|on
710 show debug symfile
711 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
712 symbol tables within those files
713
714 set print raw frame-arguments
715 show print raw frame-arguments
716 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
717 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
718
719 set remote trace-status-packet
720 show remote trace-status-packet
721 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
722
723 set debug nios2
724 show debug nios2
725 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
726
727 set range-stepping
728 show range-stepping
729 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
730
731 set startup-with-shell
732 show startup-with-shell
733 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
734 directly.
735
736 set code-cache
737 show code-cache
738 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
739 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
740
741 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
742 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
743 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
744 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
745 "set height 0".
746
747 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
748 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
749 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
750
751 * New command-line options
752 --configuration
753 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
754
755 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
756 buffer in Common Trace Format.
757
758 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
759 GDB command gcore.
760
761 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
762
763 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
764 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
765
766 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
767 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
768
769 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
770 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
771 due to an uncaught signal.
772
773 * MI changes
774
775 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
776 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
777 command, which should contain "language-option".
778
779 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
780 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
781
782 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
783 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
784 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
785 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
786 "undefined-command-error-code".
787
788 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
789 Trace Format now.
790
791 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
792
793 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
794 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
795 are displayed.
796
797 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
798 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
799
800 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
801 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
802 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
803
804 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
805 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
806 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
807 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
808 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
809 "exec-run-start-option".
810
811 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
812 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
813
814 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
815 the new "info exceptions" command.
816
817 * New system-wide configuration scripts
818 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
819 configuration scripts for the following systems:
820 ** ElinOS
821 ** Wind River Linux
822
823 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
824 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
825 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
826 below.
827
828 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
829 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
830
831 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
832 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
833 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
834
835 * New remote packets
836
837 vCont;r
838
839 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
840 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
841 involvemement at each single-step.
842
843 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
844 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
845 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
846 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
847 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
848 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
849 speedup.
850
851 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
852
853 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
854 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
855
856 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
857 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
858 trace state variables.
859
860 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
861 target.
862
863 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
864 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
865
866 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
867
868 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
869 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
870 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
871 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
872
873 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
874
875 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
876 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
877 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
878 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
879
880 set|show record full insn-number-max
881 set|show record full stop-at-limit
882 set|show record full memory-query
883
884 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
885 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
886 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
887 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
888 This new recording method can be enabled using:
889
890 record btrace
891
892 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
893 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
894
895 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
896 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
897 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
898
899 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
900 instruction granularity
901
902 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
903 function granularity
904
905 * New native configurations
906
907 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
908 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
909 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
910 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
911
912 * New targets
913
914 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
915 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
916 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
917 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
918 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
919
920 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
921 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
922 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
923 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
924 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
925 --data-directory command-line option.
926
927 * New command line options:
928
929 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
930 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
931
932 * Removed command line options
933
934 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
935 Emacs.
936
937 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
938 type formatting.
939
940 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
941
942 * Python scripting
943
944 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
945
946 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
947
948 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
949
950 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
951
952 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
953 of architecture in the Python API.
954
955 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
956 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
957
958 * New Python-based convenience functions:
959
960 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
961 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
962 ** $_strlen(str)
963 ** $_regex(str, regex)
964
965 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
966 given an argument.
967
968 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
969 default for GCC since November 2000.
970
971 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
972
973 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
974 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
975
976 * New configure options
977
978 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
979 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
980 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
981 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
982 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
983 options allow the user to override that default.
984 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
985 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
986 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
987
988 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
989
990 catch signal
991 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
992 conditions to be attached.
993
994 maint info bfds
995 List the BFDs known to GDB.
996
997 python-interactive [command]
998 pi [command]
999 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
1000 and print the result of expressions.
1001
1002 py [command]
1003 "py" is a new alias for "python".
1004
1005 enable type-printer [name]...
1006 disable type-printer [name]...
1007 Enable or disable type printers.
1008
1009 * Removed commands
1010
1011 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
1012 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
1013 instead.
1014
1015 * New options
1016
1017 set print type methods (on|off)
1018 show print type methods
1019 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
1020 The default is to show them.
1021
1022 set print type typedefs (on|off)
1023 show print type typedefs
1024 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
1025 The default is to show them.
1026
1027 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
1028 show filename-display
1029 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
1030 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
1031
1032 set trace-buffer-size
1033 show trace-buffer-size
1034 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
1035
1036 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
1037 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
1038 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
1039
1040 set debug aarch64
1041 show debug aarch64
1042 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
1043 The default is off.
1044
1045 set debug coff-pe-read
1046 show debug coff-pe-read
1047 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
1048 exported symbols.
1049
1050 set debug mach-o
1051 show debug mach-o
1052 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
1053 processing.
1054
1055 set debug notification
1056 show debug notification
1057 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
1058
1059 * MI changes
1060
1061 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
1062 "=cmd-param-changed".
1063 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
1064 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
1065 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
1066 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
1067 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
1068 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
1069 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
1070 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
1071 "=memory-changed".
1072 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
1073 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
1074 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
1075 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
1076 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
1077 library load/unload events.
1078 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
1079 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
1080 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
1081 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
1082 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
1083 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
1084 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
1085 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
1086
1087 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
1088 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
1089 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
1090 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
1091
1092 * New remote packets
1093
1094 QTBuffer:size
1095 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
1096 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1097
1098 Qbtrace:bts
1099 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
1100 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
1101 qSupported query.
1102
1103 Qbtrace:off
1104 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
1105 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1106
1107 qXfer:btrace:read
1108 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
1109 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1110
1111 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
1112
1113 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
1114 for more x32 ABI info.
1115
1116 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
1117
1118 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
1119
1120 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1121 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
1122 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
1123 "info os files" lists file descriptors
1124 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
1125 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
1126 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
1127 "info os msg" lists message queues
1128 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
1129
1130 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
1131 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
1132 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
1133 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
1134 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
1135 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
1136
1137 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
1138 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
1139 record/replay support.
1140
1141 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
1142
1143 * Python scripting
1144
1145 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
1146 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
1147
1148 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
1149
1150 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
1151 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
1152
1153 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
1154
1155 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
1156 the source at which the symbol was defined.
1157
1158 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
1159 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
1160 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
1161 symbol's value.
1162
1163 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
1164 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
1165
1166 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
1167 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
1168 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
1169
1170 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
1171 object associated with a PC value.
1172
1173 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
1174 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
1175
1176 * Go language support.
1177 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
1178 language.
1179
1180 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
1181 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
1182
1183 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
1184 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
1185
1186 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
1187 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
1188 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
1189 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
1190 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
1191 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
1192
1193 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
1194 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
1195 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
1196 build/libcpp/expr.c.
1197
1198 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
1199 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
1200
1201 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
1202 since December 2007.
1203
1204 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
1205 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
1206 command does. For instance:
1207
1208 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
1209
1210 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
1211 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
1212 created, using the "condition" command.
1213
1214 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
1215 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
1216
1217 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
1218
1219 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
1220 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
1221 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
1222 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
1223 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
1224 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
1225 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
1226 files with older .gdb_index sections.
1227
1228 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
1229 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
1230 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
1231 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
1232 the .gdb_index section.
1233
1234 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
1235
1236 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
1237 target.
1238
1239 * MI changes
1240
1241 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
1242
1243 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
1244
1245 * New commands
1246
1247 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1248 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1249 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
1250
1251 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
1252 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
1253
1254 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
1255 several hits.
1256
1257 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
1258 C++ and Java objects.
1259
1260 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
1261 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
1262 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
1263 configured with '--with-python'.
1264
1265 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
1266 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
1267 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
1268 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
1269 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
1270 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
1271 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
1272
1273 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
1274 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
1275 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
1276 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
1277
1278 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
1279 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
1280 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
1281 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
1282
1283 ** "set print symbol"
1284 "show print symbol"
1285 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
1286 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
1287 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
1288
1289 * Deprecated commands
1290
1291 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
1292 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
1293
1294 * New targets
1295
1296 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1297 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
1298
1299 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
1300 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
1301 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
1302 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
1303 evaluates to true.
1304
1305 * New options
1306
1307 set mips compression
1308 show mips compression
1309 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
1310 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
1311 mips16
1312 micromips
1313 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
1314
1315 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
1316 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
1317 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
1318 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
1319 available mode.
1320 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
1321 target.
1322
1323 set auto-load off
1324 Disable auto-loading globally.
1325
1326 show auto-load
1327 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
1328
1329 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
1330 show auto-load gdb-scripts
1331 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
1332
1333 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
1334 show auto-load python-scripts
1335 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
1336
1337 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
1338 show auto-load local-gdbinit
1339 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
1340
1341 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
1342 show auto-load libthread-db
1343 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
1344
1345 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
1346 show auto-load scripts-directory
1347 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
1348 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
1349 of the directories listed by this option.
1350 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1351
1352 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
1353 show auto-load safe-path
1354 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
1355 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1356
1357 set debug auto-load on|off
1358 show debug auto-load
1359 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
1360
1361 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
1362 show dprintf-style
1363 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
1364 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
1365 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
1366 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
1367
1368 set dprintf-function <expr>
1369 show dprintf-function
1370 set dprintf-channel <expr>
1371 show dprintf-channel
1372 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
1373 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
1374
1375 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
1376 show disconnected-dprintf
1377 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
1378 after GDB disconnects.
1379
1380 * New configure options
1381
1382 --with-auto-load-dir
1383 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
1384 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
1385 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
1386 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
1387 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
1388
1389 --with-auto-load-safe-path
1390 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
1391 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
1392
1393 --without-auto-load-safe-path
1394 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
1395 security feature.
1396
1397 * New remote packets
1398
1399 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
1400
1401 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
1402 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
1403 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
1404 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
1405
1406 QProgramSignals:
1407
1408 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
1409 program without GDB involvement.
1410
1411 * New command line options
1412
1413 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
1414 before loading inferior.
1415 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
1416 execute it before loading inferior.
1417
1418 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
1419
1420 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
1421 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
1422 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
1423 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
1424 inferior changes.
1425
1426 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
1427 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
1428
1429 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
1430 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
1431 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
1432 target hardware watchpoint.
1433
1434 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
1435 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
1436 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
1437 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
1438
1439 * Python scripting
1440
1441 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
1442 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
1443 existing one.
1444
1445 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
1446 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
1447 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
1448 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
1449 now "message", which just prints the error message without
1450 the stack trace.
1451
1452 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
1453 Python API.
1454
1455 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
1456 modules library. This module provides functionality for
1457 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
1458 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
1459 corresponding value.
1460
1461 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
1462 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
1463 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
1464 on GDB start-up.
1465
1466 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
1467 static_block will return the global and static blocks
1468 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
1469 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
1470
1471 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
1472
1473 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
1474 "gdb.breakpoints".
1475
1476 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
1477 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
1478 available in the CLI.
1479
1480 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
1481 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
1482 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
1483 "some_type.items()".
1484
1485 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
1486 new object file.
1487
1488 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
1489 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
1490 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
1491 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
1492 any anonymous fields.
1493
1494 * MI changes
1495
1496 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
1497 "solib-event".
1498
1499 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
1500 "=breakpoint-modified".
1501
1502 ** New command -ada-task-info.
1503
1504 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
1505 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
1506 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
1507 lives.
1508
1509 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
1510 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
1511 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
1512 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
1513 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
1514
1515 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
1516 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
1517
1518 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
1519 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
1520 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
1521 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
1522 use this option to specify where to find it.
1523
1524 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1525 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
1526 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
1527 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
1528 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
1529 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1530 section in the user manual for more details.
1531
1532 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
1533 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
1534 become available after that.
1535
1536 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
1537
1538 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
1539 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
1540 gcc version 4.7.
1541
1542 * New commands
1543
1544 !SHELL COMMAND
1545 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
1546 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
1547
1548 * Changed commands
1549
1550 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
1551 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
1552 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
1553
1554 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
1555 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
1556 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
1557
1558 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
1559 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
1560 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
1561 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
1562 name starts with a hyphen.
1563
1564 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
1565 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
1566 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
1567 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
1568 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
1569 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
1570 number of bytes that will be collected.
1571
1572 tstart [NOTES]
1573 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
1574 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
1575 setting the variable trace-notes.
1576
1577 tstop [NOTES]
1578 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
1579 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
1580 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
1581 trace-stop-notes.
1582
1583 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
1584 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
1585 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
1586 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
1587 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
1588 is running.
1589
1590 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
1591 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
1592 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
1593
1594 * New options
1595
1596 set debug dwarf2-read
1597 show debug dwarf2-read
1598 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
1599 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
1600
1601 set debug symtab-create
1602 show debug symtab-create
1603 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
1604 creation. The default is off.
1605
1606 set extended-prompt
1607 show extended-prompt
1608 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
1609 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
1610 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
1611 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
1612 prompt is displayed.
1613
1614 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
1615 show print entry-values
1616 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
1617 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
1618 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
1619
1620 set debug entry-values
1621 show debug entry-values
1622 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
1623 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
1624
1625 set basenames-may-differ
1626 show basenames-may-differ
1627 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
1628 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
1629 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
1630 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
1631 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
1632 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
1633 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
1634 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
1635
1636 set trace-user
1637 show trace-user
1638 set trace-notes
1639 show trace-notes
1640 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
1641 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
1642 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
1643 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
1644
1645 set trace-stop-notes
1646 show trace-stop-notes
1647 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
1648 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
1649 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
1650 started by someone else.
1651
1652 * New remote packets
1653
1654 QTEnable
1655
1656 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1657
1658 QTDisable
1659
1660 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1661
1662 QTNotes
1663
1664 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
1665
1666 qTP
1667
1668 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
1669
1670 qTMinFTPILen
1671
1672 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
1673 be placed.
1674
1675 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
1676 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
1677
1678 * New targets
1679
1680 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
1681
1682 * New Simulators
1683
1684 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1685
1686 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
1687
1688 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
1689
1690 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
1691
1692 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
1693 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
1694 matches the given regular expression.
1695
1696 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1697
1698 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1699 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1700
1701 * New command line options
1702
1703 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1704 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1705
1706 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1707 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1708
1709 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1710 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1711 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1712
1713 * GDB now understands thread names.
1714
1715 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1716 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1717
1718 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1719 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1720
1721 * OpenCL C
1722 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1723 has been integrated into GDB.
1724
1725 * Python scripting
1726
1727 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1728 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1729 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1730
1731 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1732 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1733 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1734 and allows for more dynamic content.
1735
1736 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1737 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1738 have an is_valid method.
1739
1740 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1741 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1742 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1743
1744 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1745
1746 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1747 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1748 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1749 that function like so:
1750
1751 result = some_value (10,20)
1752
1753 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1754 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1755 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1756
1757 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1758 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1759 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1760 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1761 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1762
1763 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1764 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1765
1766 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1767
1768 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1769 selected thread.
1770
1771 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1772 holds the thread's name.
1773
1774 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1775 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
1776 occurring in the process being debugged.
1777 The following events are currently supported:
1778 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1779 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1780 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1781
1782 * C++ Improvements:
1783
1784 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1785 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1786
1787 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1788
1789 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1790 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1791 was added to GCC 4.5.
1792
1793 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1794 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1795 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1796 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1797 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1798 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1799
1800 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1801 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1802 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1803 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1804 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1805
1806 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1807 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1808 execution to a label.
1809
1810 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1811 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1812 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1813 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1814
1815 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
1816 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
1817 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1818 of scope.
1819
1820 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1821
1822 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1823 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1824 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1825 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1826 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1827 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1828
1829 (gdb) info threads
1830 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1831
1832 While now you see this:
1833
1834 (gdb) info threads
1835 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1836
1837 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1838 dumps.
1839
1840 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1841 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1842 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1843 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1844
1845 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1846 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1847 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1848 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1849 section in the user manual for more details.
1850
1851 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1852
1853 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1854 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
1855
1856 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1857
1858 * New native configurations
1859
1860 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1861
1862 * New targets:
1863
1864 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1865
1866 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1867 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1868 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1869 in the GDB user manual.
1870
1871 * Guile support was removed.
1872
1873 * New features in the GNU simulator
1874
1875 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1876
1877 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1878
1879 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
1880
1881 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
1882
1883 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1884 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1885 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1886 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1887 was always disabled for such configurations.
1888
1889 * C++ Improvements:
1890
1891 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1892
1893 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1894 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1895 For example:
1896 namespace A
1897 {
1898 class B { };
1899 void foo (B) { }
1900 }
1901 ...
1902 A::B b
1903 foo(b)
1904 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1905 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1906 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1907
1908 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1909
1910 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1911 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1912 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1913 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1914 entry.
1915 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1916 mentioned flavors of operators.
1917
1918 ** static const class members
1919
1920 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1921 class definition has been fixed.
1922
1923 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
1924
1925 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1926 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1927 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1928 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1929 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1930 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1931
1932 * Static tracepoints
1933
1934 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1935 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1936 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1937 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1938 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1939 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1940 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1941 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1942 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1943 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1944 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1945 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1946 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1947 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1948 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1949 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1950 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1951 the "New remote packets" section below.
1952
1953 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1954
1955 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1956 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1957 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1958 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1959
1960 * Observer mode
1961
1962 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1963 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1964 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1965 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1966 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1967 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1968 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1969
1970 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1971 current thread.
1972
1973 * New remote packets
1974
1975 qGetTIBAddr
1976
1977 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1978
1979 qRelocInsn
1980
1981 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1982 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1983 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1984 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1985 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1986 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1987
1988 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1989
1990 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1991
1992 qTSTMat
1993
1994 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1995 program.
1996
1997 qXfer:statictrace:read
1998
1999 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
2000 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
2001 to gdb's qSupported query.
2002
2003 QAllow
2004
2005 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
2006
2007 QTDPsrc
2008
2009 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
2010 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
2011
2012 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
2013 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
2014 a directory.
2015
2016 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2017
2018 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
2019 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
2020 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
2021 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
2022
2023 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
2024 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
2025 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
2026 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
2027 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
2028 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
2029 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
2030
2031 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
2032 for static tracepoints support.
2033
2034 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
2035
2036 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
2037 it understands register description.
2038
2039 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
2040
2041 * X86 general purpose registers
2042
2043 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
2044 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
2045 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
2046 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
2047 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
2048
2049 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
2050 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
2051 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
2052 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
2053 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
2054 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
2055
2056 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
2057 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
2058 in the specified file.
2059
2060 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
2061 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
2062 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
2063 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
2064 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
2065 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
2066 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
2067 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
2068 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
2069 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
2070
2071 * New commands
2072
2073 eval template, expressions...
2074 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
2075 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
2076
2077 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
2078 show target-file-system-kind
2079 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
2080 names.
2081
2082 save breakpoints <filename>
2083 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
2084 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
2085 definitions, use the `source' command.
2086
2087 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
2088 is now deprecated.
2089
2090 info static-tracepoint-markers
2091 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
2092
2093 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
2094 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
2095 function, line, address, or marker ID.
2096
2097 set observer on|off
2098 show observer
2099 Enable and disable observer mode.
2100
2101 set may-write-registers on|off
2102 set may-write-memory on|off
2103 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
2104 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
2105 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
2106 set may-interrupt on|off
2107 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
2108 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
2109 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
2110 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
2111 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
2112 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
2113 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
2114
2115 set record memory-query on|off
2116 show record memory-query
2117 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
2118 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
2119
2120 * Changed commands
2121
2122 disassemble
2123 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
2124
2125 * Python scripting
2126
2127 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
2128 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
2129 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
2130 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
2131 GDB using Python' in the manual.
2132
2133 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
2134 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
2135 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
2136 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
2137
2138 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
2139 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
2140
2141 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
2142
2143 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
2144
2145 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
2146
2147 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
2148 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
2149 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
2150
2151 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
2152 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
2153 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
2154 regular breakpoints.
2155
2156 * New targets
2157
2158 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
2159
2160 * D language support.
2161 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
2162 language.
2163
2164 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
2165 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
2166 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
2167 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
2168 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
2169
2170 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
2171 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
2172 conditions of the form:
2173
2174 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
2175
2176 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
2177 interface mentioned above.
2178
2179 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
2180
2181 * C++ Improvements
2182
2183 ** Namespace Support
2184
2185 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
2186 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
2187 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
2188 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
2189 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
2190
2191 ** Bug Fixes
2192
2193 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
2194 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
2195 qualified name.
2196
2197 ** Cast Operators
2198
2199 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
2200 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
2201
2202 * New targets
2203
2204 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
2205 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2206
2207 * New Simulators
2208
2209 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
2210 Renesas RX rx
2211
2212 * Multi-program debugging.
2213
2214 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
2215 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
2216 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
2217 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
2218 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
2219 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
2220 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
2221 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
2222
2223 * New tracing features
2224
2225 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
2226
2227 ** Trace state variables
2228
2229 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
2230 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
2231 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
2232 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
2233 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
2234 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
2235 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
2236 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
2237 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
2238 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
2239
2240 ** Fast tracepoints
2241
2242 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
2243 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
2244 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
2245 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
2246 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
2247 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
2248 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
2249 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
2250 the regular trace command.
2251
2252 ** Disconnected tracing
2253
2254 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
2255 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
2256 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
2257 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
2258 connection is lost unexpectedly.
2259
2260 ** Trace files
2261
2262 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
2263 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
2264 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
2265 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
2266 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
2267 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
2268 <name>".
2269
2270 ** Circular trace buffer
2271
2272 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
2273 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
2274 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
2275 not be available for all target agents.
2276
2277 * Changed commands
2278
2279 disassemble
2280 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
2281 the arguments to be comma-separated.
2282
2283 info variables
2284 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
2285 which only declare a variable are not shown.
2286
2287 source
2288 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
2289 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
2290 support.
2291
2292 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
2293 "set script-extension" (see below).
2294
2295 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2296
2297 record save [<FILENAME>]
2298 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
2299 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
2300
2301 record restore <FILENAME>
2302 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
2303 earlier time, for replay debugging.
2304
2305 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
2306 Add a new inferior.
2307
2308 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
2309 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
2310 inferior has loaded.
2311
2312 remove-inferior ID
2313 Remove an inferior.
2314
2315 maint info program-spaces
2316 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
2317
2318 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
2319 show remote interrupt-sequence
2320 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
2321 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
2322 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
2323 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
2324 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
2325
2326 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
2327 show remote interrupt-on-connect
2328 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
2329 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
2330 Linux kernel.
2331
2332 set remotebreak [on | off]
2333 show remotebreak
2334 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
2335
2336 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
2337 Create or modify a trace state variable.
2338
2339 info tvariables
2340 List trace state variables and their values.
2341
2342 delete tvariable $NAME ...
2343 Delete one or more trace state variables.
2344
2345 teval EXPR, ...
2346 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
2347 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
2348
2349 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
2350 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
2351
2352 * New expression syntax
2353
2354 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
2355 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
2356
2357 * New options
2358
2359 set follow-exec-mode new|same
2360 show follow-exec-mode
2361 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
2362 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
2363 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
2364
2365 set default-collect EXPR, ...
2366 show default-collect
2367 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
2368 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
2369 such as registers or a critical global variable.
2370
2371 set disconnected-tracing
2372 show disconnected-tracing
2373 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
2374 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
2375 upon disconnection.
2376
2377 set circular-trace-buffer
2378 show circular-trace-buffer
2379 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
2380 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
2381 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
2382 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
2383
2384 set script-extension off|soft|strict
2385 show script-extension
2386 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
2387 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
2388 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
2389 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
2390 evaluation failed.
2391 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
2392
2393 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
2394 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
2395 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
2396 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
2397 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
2398 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
2399 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
2400 is on.
2401
2402 * Python API Improvements
2403
2404 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
2405 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
2406 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
2407
2408 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
2409 `is_base_class' attribute.
2410
2411 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
2412
2413 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
2414 evaluate an expression.
2415
2416 * New remote packets
2417
2418 QTDV
2419 Define a trace state variable.
2420
2421 qTV
2422 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
2423
2424 QTDisconnected
2425 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
2426
2427 QTBuffer:circular
2428 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
2429
2430 qTfP, qTsP
2431 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
2432
2433 * Bug fixes
2434
2435 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
2436
2437 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
2438 much more reliable. In particular:
2439 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
2440 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
2441 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
2442 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
2443 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
2444 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
2445 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
2446 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
2447 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
2448 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
2449 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
2450 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
2451 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
2452 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
2453 non-threaded programs.
2454
2455 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
2456 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
2457 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
2458 executable program.
2459
2460 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
2461
2462 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
2463 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
2464 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
2465 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
2466 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
2467
2468 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
2469 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
2470 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
2471 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
2472 for tracepoint actions.
2473
2474 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
2475 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
2476 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
2477
2478 * Process record and replay
2479
2480 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
2481 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
2482 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
2483 execute commands.
2484
2485 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
2486 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
2487 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
2488 reverse execution.
2489
2490 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
2491 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
2492 2.6.28 or later.
2493
2494 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
2495 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
2496 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
2497 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
2498 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
2499 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
2500 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
2501 the installation instructions for more information.
2502
2503 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
2504 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
2505 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
2506 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
2507
2508 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
2509 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
2510
2511 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
2512 now complete on file names.
2513
2514 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
2515 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
2516 For instance, consider:
2517
2518 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
2519 # struct example variable;
2520 (gdb) p variable.
2521
2522 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
2523 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
2524
2525 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
2526 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
2527
2528 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
2529 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
2530 macros.
2531
2532 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
2533 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
2534 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
2535
2536 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
2537 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
2538 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
2539 and simulator targets may also provide them.
2540
2541 * New remote packets
2542
2543 qSearch:memory:
2544 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2545
2546 QStartNoAckMode
2547 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
2548 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
2549 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
2550
2551 vKill
2552 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
2553 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
2554
2555 qXfer:osdata:read
2556 Obtains additional operating system information
2557
2558 qXfer:siginfo:read
2559 qXfer:siginfo:write
2560 Read or write additional signal information.
2561
2562 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
2563
2564 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
2565 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
2566 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
2567
2568 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
2569 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
2570
2571 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
2572 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
2573 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
2574
2575 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
2576 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
2577
2578 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
2579
2580 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
2581
2582 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
2583 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
2584
2585 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
2586 list of section offsets.
2587
2588 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
2589 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
2590 have also been fixed.
2591
2592 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
2593 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
2594 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
2595
2596 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
2597 example, given:
2598
2599 template<typename T> class C { };
2600 C<char const *> c;
2601
2602 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
2603
2604 ptype C<char const *>
2605 ptype C<char const*>
2606 ptype C<const char *>
2607 ptype C<const char*>
2608
2609 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
2610
2611 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
2612 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2613
2614 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
2615 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2616 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
2617
2618 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
2619 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
2620
2621 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
2622 gdbserver.
2623
2624 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
2625 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2626
2627 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
2628 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
2629 as appropriate.
2630
2631 * Python scripting
2632
2633 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
2634 available is determined at configure time.
2635
2636 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
2637
2638 * Ada tasking support
2639
2640 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
2641 been introduced:
2642
2643 info tasks
2644 Print the list of Ada tasks.
2645 info task N
2646 Print detailed information about task number N.
2647 task
2648 Print the task number of the current task.
2649 task N
2650 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
2651
2652 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
2653 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
2654
2655 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
2656
2657 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
2658 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
2659 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
2660 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
2661 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
2662 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
2663 below.
2664
2665 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
2666 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
2667 information.
2668
2669 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
2670 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
2671 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
2672 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
2673 more information.
2674
2675 * Multi-architecture debugging.
2676
2677 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
2678 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
2679 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
2680 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
2681 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
2682
2683 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
2684 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
2685 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
2686 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
2687 --enable-targets configure option.
2688
2689 * Non-stop mode debugging.
2690
2691 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
2692 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
2693 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
2694 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
2695 section in the user manual for more information.
2696
2697 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2698 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2699 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2700 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2701 extensions on linux targets.
2702
2703 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2704
2705 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2706 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2707 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2708 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2709 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2710 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2711 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2712 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2713 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2714
2715 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2716 val1 [, val2, ...]
2717 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2718
2719 maint set python print-stack
2720 maint show python print-stack
2721 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2722
2723 python [CODE]
2724 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2725
2726 macro define
2727 macro list
2728 macro undef
2729 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2730 interactively.
2731
2732 info os processes
2733 Show operating system information about processes.
2734
2735 info inferiors
2736 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2737
2738 inferior NUM
2739 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2740
2741 detach inferior NUM
2742 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2743
2744 kill inferior NUM
2745 Kill inferior number NUM.
2746
2747 * New options
2748
2749 set spu stop-on-load
2750 show spu stop-on-load
2751 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2752
2753 set spu auto-flush-cache
2754 show spu auto-flush-cache
2755 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2756 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2757
2758 set sh calling-convention
2759 show sh calling-convention
2760 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2761
2762 set debug timestamp
2763 show debug timestamp
2764 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2765
2766 set disassemble-next-line
2767 show disassemble-next-line
2768 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2769 the debuggee stops.
2770
2771 set remote noack-packet
2772 show remote noack-packet
2773 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2774 under "New remote packets."
2775
2776 set remote query-attached-packet
2777 show remote query-attached-packet
2778 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2779
2780 set remote read-siginfo-object
2781 show remote read-siginfo-object
2782 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2783 packet.
2784
2785 set remote write-siginfo-object
2786 show remote write-siginfo-object
2787 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2788 packet.
2789
2790 set remote reverse-continue
2791 show remote reverse-continue
2792 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2793
2794 set remote reverse-step
2795 show remote reverse-step
2796 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2797
2798 set displaced-stepping
2799 show displaced-stepping
2800 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2801 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2802 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2803
2804 set debug displaced
2805 show debug displaced
2806 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2807
2808 maint set internal-error
2809 maint show internal-error
2810 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2811
2812 maint set internal-warning
2813 maint show internal-warning
2814 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
2815
2816 set exec-wrapper
2817 show exec-wrapper
2818 unset exec-wrapper
2819 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2820
2821 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2822 show multiple-symbols
2823 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2824 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2825 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2826
2827 set breakpoint always-inserted
2828 show breakpoint always-inserted
2829 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2830 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2831 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2832
2833 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2834 show arm fallback-mode
2835 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2836 show arm force-mode
2837 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2838 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2839 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2840 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2841
2842 set disable-randomization
2843 show disable-randomization
2844 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2845 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2846 multiple debugging sessions.
2847
2848 set non-stop
2849 show non-stop
2850 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2851 a breakpoint.
2852
2853 set target-async
2854 show target-async
2855 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2856 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2857 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2858 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2859
2860 set target-wide-charset
2861 show target-wide-charset
2862 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2863 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2864
2865 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2866 show tcp auto-retry
2867 set tcp connect-timeout
2868 show tcp connect-timeout
2869 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2870 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2871 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2872
2873 set libthread-db-search-path
2874 show libthread-db-search-path
2875 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2876 libthread_db.
2877
2878 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2879 show schedule-multiple
2880 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2881 the current process.
2882
2883 set stack-cache
2884 show stack-cache
2885 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2886 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2887 affecting correctness.
2888
2889 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2890 show interactive-mode
2891 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2892 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2893 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2894 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2895 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2896
2897 * Removed commands
2898
2899 info forks
2900 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2901 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2902 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2903 command.
2904
2905 fork NUM
2906 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2907 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2908 alias for the `fork' command.
2909
2910 process PID
2911 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2912 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2913 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2914
2915 delete fork NUM
2916 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2917 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2918 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2919 fork' command.
2920
2921 detach fork NUM
2922 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2923 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2924 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2925 fork' command.
2926
2927 * New native configurations
2928
2929 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2930
2931 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2932
2933 * New targets
2934
2935 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
2936 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
2937 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
2938 S+core 3 score-*-*
2939
2940 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2941 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2942
2943 * Removed commands
2944
2945 catch load
2946 catch unload
2947 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2948
2949 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
2950
2951 * New native configurations
2952
2953 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
2954 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
2955
2956 * New targets
2957
2958 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
2959 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
2960
2961 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2962
2963 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2964 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2965 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2966 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2967
2968 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2969 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2970
2971 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
2972 is resolved.
2973
2974 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
2975 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2976 and in inlined functions.
2977
2978 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2979 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2980 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2981
2982 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2983
2984 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2985 registers on PowerPC targets.
2986
2987 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2988 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2989
2990 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2991 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2992
2993 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2994 extended-remote mode.
2995
2996 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
2997 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2998 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2999 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
3000
3001 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
3002 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
3003 target architectures.
3004
3005 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
3006 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
3007 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
3008 stored in two consecutive float registers.
3009
3010 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
3011 breakpoints now.
3012
3013 * Improved support for debugging Ada
3014 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
3015 include:
3016 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
3017 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
3018 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
3019 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
3020 of an assignment
3021 - Improved command completion in Ada
3022 - Several bug fixes
3023
3024 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
3025 process.
3026
3027 * New commands
3028
3029 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
3030 show print frame-arguments
3031 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
3032 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
3033
3034 remote put
3035 remote get
3036 remote delete
3037 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
3038
3039 * New MI commands
3040
3041 -target-file-put
3042 -target-file-get
3043 -target-file-delete
3044 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
3045
3046 * New remote packets
3047
3048 vFile:open:
3049 vFile:close:
3050 vFile:pread:
3051 vFile:pwrite:
3052 vFile:unlink:
3053 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
3054
3055 vAttach
3056 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
3057 mode.
3058
3059 vRun
3060 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
3061
3062 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
3063
3064 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
3065 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
3066 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
3067
3068 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
3069 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
3070 -Bsymbolic linker option.
3071
3072 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
3073 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
3074 is not supported.
3075
3076 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
3077 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
3078
3079 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
3080 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
3081
3082 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
3083
3084 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
3085 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
3086 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
3087
3088 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
3089 automatically displayed as character or string data.
3090
3091 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
3092 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
3093 as strings.
3094
3095 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
3096 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
3097 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
3098
3099 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
3100 iWMMXt coprocessor.
3101
3102 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
3103 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
3104 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
3105
3106 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
3107
3108 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
3109
3110 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
3111 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
3112 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
3113
3114 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
3115 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
3116
3117 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
3118 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
3119 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
3120 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
3121 Windows and SymbianOS).
3122
3123 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
3124 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
3125
3126 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
3127 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
3128
3129 * New commands
3130
3131 set remoteflow
3132 show remoteflow
3133 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
3134 when debugging using remote targets.
3135
3136 set mem inaccessible-by-default
3137 show mem inaccessible-by-default
3138 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
3139 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
3140 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
3141 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
3142 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
3143
3144 set breakpoint auto-hw
3145 show breakpoint auto-hw
3146 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
3147 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
3148 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
3149 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
3150 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
3151 including "next" and "finish".
3152
3153 catch exception
3154 catch exception unhandled
3155 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
3156
3157 catch assert
3158 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
3159
3160 set sysroot
3161 show sysroot
3162 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
3163 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
3164 an alias to "set sysroot".
3165
3166 info spu
3167 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
3168 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
3169 architecture.
3170
3171 * New native configurations
3172
3173 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
3174
3175 set tdesc filename
3176 unset tdesc filename
3177 show tdesc filename
3178 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
3179 not query the target for its built-in description.
3180
3181 * New targets
3182
3183 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
3184 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
3185 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
3186
3187 * New remote packets
3188
3189 QPassSignals:
3190 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
3191 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
3192
3193 qXfer:features:read:
3194 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
3195 features.
3196
3197 qXfer:spu:read:
3198 qXfer:spu:write:
3199 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
3200 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
3201
3202 qXfer:libraries:read:
3203 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
3204 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
3205 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
3206 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
3207
3208 * Removed targets
3209
3210 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
3211
3212 alpha*-*-osf1*
3213 alpha*-*-osf2*
3214 d10v-*-*
3215 hppa*-*-hiux*
3216 i[34567]86-ncr-*
3217 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
3218 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
3219 i[34567]86-*-netware*
3220 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
3221 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
3222 i[34567]86-*-sco*
3223 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
3224 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
3225 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
3226 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
3227 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
3228 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
3229 i[34567]86-*-isc*
3230 m68*-cisco*-*
3231 m68*-tandem-*
3232 mips*-*-pe
3233 rs6000-*-lynxos*
3234 sh*-*-pe
3235
3236 * Other removed features
3237
3238 target abug
3239 target cpu32bug
3240 target est
3241 target rom68k
3242
3243 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
3244
3245 target hms
3246 target e7000
3247 target sh3
3248 target sh3e
3249
3250 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
3251 H8/300.
3252
3253 target ocd
3254
3255 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
3256 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
3257 interfaces.
3258
3259 DWARF 1 support
3260
3261 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
3262 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
3263
3264 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
3265
3266 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
3267 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
3268 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
3269 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
3270
3271 MIPS ".pdr" sections
3272
3273 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
3274 in debugging information.
3275
3276 Scheme support
3277
3278 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
3279 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
3280
3281 set mips stack-arg-size
3282 set mips saved-gpreg-size
3283
3284 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
3285
3286 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
3287
3288 * New targets
3289
3290 Xtensa xtensa-elf
3291 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
3292
3293 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
3294 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
3295 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
3296
3297 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
3298 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
3299 supported.
3300
3301 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
3302 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
3303
3304 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
3305 stub provides the required support.
3306
3307 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
3308 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
3309
3310 * New commands
3311
3312 set substitute-path
3313 unset substitute-path
3314 show substitute-path
3315 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
3316 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
3317 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
3318 between compilation and debugging.
3319
3320 set trace-commands
3321 show trace-commands
3322 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
3323 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
3324 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
3325
3326 * REMOVED features
3327
3328 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
3329
3330 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
3331 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
3332
3333 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
3334
3335 * New remote packets
3336
3337 qSupported:
3338 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
3339 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
3340 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
3341 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
3342 target.
3343
3344 qXfer:auxv:read:
3345 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
3346 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
3347
3348 qXfer:memory-map:read:
3349 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
3350 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
3351
3352 vFlashErase:
3353 vFlashWrite:
3354 vFlashDone:
3355 Erase and program a flash memory device.
3356
3357 * Removed remote packets
3358
3359 qPart:auxv:read:
3360 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
3361 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
3362
3363 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
3364
3365 * New targets
3366
3367 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
3368
3369 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3370
3371 * New commands
3372
3373 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
3374 only if it doesn't already have a value.
3375
3376 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
3377
3378 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
3379
3380 restart <n> Return the program state to a
3381 previously saved state.
3382
3383 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
3384
3385 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
3386
3387 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
3388 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
3389
3390 info forks List forks of the user program that
3391 are available to be debugged.
3392
3393 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
3394 forks of the user program that are
3395 available to be debugged.
3396
3397 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3398 that are available to be debugged (and
3399 kill the forked process).
3400
3401 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3402 that are available to be debugged (and
3403 allow the process to continue).
3404
3405 * New architecture
3406
3407 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
3408
3409 * Improved Windows host support
3410
3411 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
3412 native console support, and remote communications using either
3413 network sockets or serial ports.
3414
3415 * Improved Modula-2 language support
3416
3417 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
3418 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
3419 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
3420 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
3421 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
3422 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
3423
3424 * REMOVED features
3425
3426 The ARM rdi-share module.
3427
3428 The Netware NLM debug server.
3429
3430 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
3431
3432 * New native configurations
3433
3434 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
3435 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
3436
3437 * New targets
3438
3439 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3440
3441 * New command line options
3442
3443 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
3444 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
3445 the child (debugged) program exited with.
3446 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
3447 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
3448 specified multiple times and in conjunction
3449 with the --command (-x) option.
3450
3451 * Deprecated commands removed
3452
3453 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
3454 removed:
3455
3456 Command Replacement
3457 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
3458 othernames set arm disassembler
3459 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
3460 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
3461 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
3462 regs info registers
3463
3464 * New BSD user-level threads support
3465
3466 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
3467 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
3468 configurations are:
3469
3470 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3471 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
3472 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
3473
3474 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
3475 are not yet supported.
3476
3477 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
3478 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
3479
3480 * REMOVED configurations and files
3481
3482 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
3483 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3484 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
3485
3486 * New "set print array-indexes" command
3487
3488 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
3489 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
3490 behavior.
3491
3492 * VAX floating point support
3493
3494 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
3495
3496 * User-defined command support
3497
3498 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
3499 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
3500 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
3501
3502 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
3503
3504 * New command line option
3505
3506 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
3507 debugging.
3508
3509 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
3510
3511 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
3512 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
3513 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
3514 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
3515 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
3516
3517 * Internationalization
3518
3519 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
3520 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
3521 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
3522
3523 * Ada
3524
3525 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
3526 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
3527 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
3528
3529 * New native configurations
3530
3531 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
3532
3533 * Remote 'p' packet
3534
3535 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
3536 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
3537
3538 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
3539
3540 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3541 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
3542 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
3543 i386 application).
3544
3545 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
3546 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
3547 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
3548 configurations:
3549
3550 hppa-*-hpux
3551 ia64-*-aix
3552 mips-*-irix*
3553 *-*-lynx
3554 mips-*-linux-gnu
3555 sds protocol
3556 xdr protocol
3557 powerpc bdm protocol
3558
3559 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3560 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
3561
3562 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3563
3564 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3565 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3566 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3567 permanently REMOVED.
3568
3569 h8300-*-*
3570 mcore-*-*
3571 mn10300-*-*
3572 ns32k-*-*
3573 sh64-*-*
3574 v850-*-*
3575
3576 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
3577
3578 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
3579
3580 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
3581 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
3582 been fixed.
3583
3584 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
3585
3586 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
3587 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
3588 IRIX long double values).
3589
3590 * VAX and "next"
3591
3592 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
3593 command. This problem has been fixed.
3594
3595 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
3596
3597 * Fix for ``many threads''
3598
3599 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
3600 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
3601 error message:
3602
3603 ptrace: No such process.
3604 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
3605
3606 This problem has been fixed.
3607
3608 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
3609
3610 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
3611 GDB to dump core).
3612
3613 * New ``start'' command.
3614
3615 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
3616
3617 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
3618
3619 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
3620 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
3621 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
3622
3623 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3624 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
3625 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
3626 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
3627 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
3628 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3629 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
3630 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
3631 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3632
3633 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
3634
3635 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
3636 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
3637 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
3638 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
3639 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
3640
3641 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
3642 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
3643 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3644
3645 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
3646
3647 * New native configurations
3648
3649 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
3650 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
3651 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
3652 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
3653 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
3654 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
3655 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
3656
3657 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
3658
3659 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3660 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
3661 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
3662 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
3663 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
3664 work, was also included.
3665
3666 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
3667 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
3668
3669 h8300-*-*
3670 mcore-*-*
3671 mn10300-*-*
3672 ns32k-*-*
3673 sh64-*-*
3674 v850-*-*
3675 xstormy16-*-*
3676
3677 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3678 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
3679
3680 * REMOVED configurations and files
3681
3682 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3683 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3684 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3685 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3686 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3687 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3688 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3689 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3690 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3691 sonymips mips-sony-*
3692 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3693
3694 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3695
3696 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3697
3698 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3699 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3700 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3701 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3702 with GDB".
3703
3704 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3705
3706 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3707 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3708 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3709 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3710 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3711 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3712 are created.
3713
3714 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3715
3716 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
3717
3718 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3719 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3720 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3721
3722 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3723
3724 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3725 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3726
3727 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3728
3729 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3730 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3731 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3732
3733 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3734
3735 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3736 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3737
3738 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3739
3740 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3741 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3742 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3743
3744 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3745
3746 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3747 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3748 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3749
3750 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
3751
3752 * Removed --with-mmalloc
3753
3754 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3755 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3756
3757 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
3758
3759 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3760 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3761 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3762 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3763
3764 * Revised SPARC target
3765
3766 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3767 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
3768 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3769 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3770 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
3771
3772 * New C++ demangler
3773
3774 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3775 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3776 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3777 programs.
3778
3779 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3780
3781 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3782 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3783 encountered these.
3784
3785 * C++ nested types and namespaces
3786
3787 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3788 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3789 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3790 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3791 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3792 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3793 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3794 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3795 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3796
3797 * New native configurations
3798
3799 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
3800 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3801 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
3802 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3803 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
3804
3805 * New debugging protocols
3806
3807 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3808
3809 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3810
3811 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3812 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3813 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3814
3815 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3816
3817 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3818 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3819 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3820 permanently REMOVED.
3821
3822 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3823 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3824 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3825 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3826 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3827 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3828 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3829 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3830 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3831 sonymips mips-sony-*
3832 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3833
3834 * REMOVED configurations and files
3835
3836 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3837 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3838 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3839 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3840 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3841 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3842 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3843 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3844 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3845 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
3846 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3847 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3848 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3849 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3850 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
3851 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3852 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3853
3854 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3855
3856 * Objective-C
3857
3858 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3859 integrated into GDB.
3860
3861 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3862
3863 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3864 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3865 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3866 backtraces.
3867
3868 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3869 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3870 DWARF 2 CFI support.
3871
3872 * Hosted file I/O.
3873
3874 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3875 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3876 remote protocol documentation for details.
3877
3878 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
3879
3880 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3881 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3882 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3883 ppc32 on ppc64).
3884
3885 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3886
3887 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3888 per-thread variables.
3889
3890 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3891
3892 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3893 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3894
3895 * Separate debug info.
3896
3897 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3898 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3899 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3900 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3901 and optional debug files.
3902
3903 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3904
3905 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3906 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3907 debugger.
3908
3909 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3910 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3911
3912 * Java
3913
3914 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3915 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3916 considered "useable".
3917
3918 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3919
3920 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3921 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3922 kernel.
3923
3924 * GDB supports logging output to a file
3925
3926 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3927 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
3928
3929 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3930
3931 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3932 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3933 command.
3934
3935 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
3936
3937 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3938 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3939
3940 * Profiling support
3941
3942 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3943 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3944 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3945 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3946 data, for more informative profiling results.
3947
3948 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3949
3950 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3951 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
3952 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
3953
3954 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3955 removed.
3956
3957 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3958 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3959 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3960 in a subsequent -var-update.
3961
3962 * New native configurations.
3963
3964 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3965
3966 * Multi-arched targets.
3967
3968 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
3969 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3970
3971 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3972
3973 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3974 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3975 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3976 permanently REMOVED.
3977
3978 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3979 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3980 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3981 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3982 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3983 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3984 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3985 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3986 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3987 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3988 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3989 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3990
3991 * REMOVED configurations and files
3992
3993 V850EA ISA
3994 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3995 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3996 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3997 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3998 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3999 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
4000 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
4001 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4002 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4003 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4004 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4005 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4006 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4007
4008 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
4009
4010 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
4011 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
4012 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
4013 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
4014 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
4015
4016 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
4017
4018 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
4019
4020 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
4021 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
4022 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
4023 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
4024 shared libs like mad''.
4025
4026 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
4027
4028 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
4029 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
4030 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
4031 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
4032
4033 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
4034
4035 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
4036 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
4037 they expand.
4038
4039 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
4040 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
4041
4042 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
4043 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
4044
4045 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
4046 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
4047 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
4048 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
4049
4050 * Multi-arched targets.
4051
4052 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
4053 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
4054 NEC V850 v850-*-*
4055 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
4056 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
4057 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4058
4059 * New targets.
4060
4061 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
4062
4063
4064 * New native configurations
4065
4066 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
4067 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
4068 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
4069 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
4070
4071 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4072
4073 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4074 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4075 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4076 permanently REMOVED.
4077
4078 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4079 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4080 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
4081 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4082 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4083 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4084 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
4085 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
4086 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
4087 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
4088 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
4089 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4090 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4091
4092 * OBSOLETE languages
4093
4094 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
4095
4096 * REMOVED configurations and files
4097
4098 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
4099 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4100 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4101 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4102 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4103
4104 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
4105
4106 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
4107
4108 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
4109 commands. The default is 1024.
4110
4111 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
4112
4113 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
4114
4115 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
4116
4117 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
4118 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
4119 from a file into memory (restore).
4120
4121 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
4122
4123 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
4124 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
4125 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
4126
4127 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
4128
4129 * New targets.
4130
4131 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
4132
4133 * Bug fixes
4134
4135 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
4136 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
4137 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
4138
4139 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
4140 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
4141 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
4142
4143 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
4144 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
4145 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
4146
4147 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
4148 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
4149 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
4150
4151 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
4152
4153 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
4154
4155 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
4156 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
4157 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
4158 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
4159 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
4160 (notably embedded) targets.
4161
4162 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
4163
4164 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
4165 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
4166 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
4167 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
4168
4169 * New command line option
4170
4171 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
4172
4173 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4174
4175 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
4176 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
4177 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
4178 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
4179 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
4180 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
4181 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
4182 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
4183 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
4184 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
4185
4186 * Changes in ARM configurations.
4187
4188 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
4189 configuration is fully multi-arch.
4190
4191 * New native configurations
4192
4193 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
4194 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
4195 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
4196 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
4197
4198 * New targets
4199
4200 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
4201
4202 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4203
4204 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4205 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4206 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4207 permanently REMOVED.
4208
4209 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
4210 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4211 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4212 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4213 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4214
4215 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
4216
4217 * REMOVED configurations and files
4218
4219 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4220 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4221 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4222 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4223 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
4224 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
4225 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4226 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
4227 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
4228 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
4229 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4230 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
4231 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
4232
4233 * Changes to command line processing
4234
4235 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
4236 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
4237
4238 * Changes to key bindings
4239
4240 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
4241
4242 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
4243
4244 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
4245
4246 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
4247 corrupted.
4248
4249 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
4250
4251 Numerous documentation fixes.
4252
4253 Numerous testsuite fixes.
4254
4255 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
4256
4257 * New native configurations
4258
4259 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
4260 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
4261 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
4262 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4263 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
4264 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
4265
4266 * New targets
4267
4268 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
4269 CRIS cris-axis
4270 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
4271
4272 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4273
4274 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
4275 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
4276 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4277 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
4278 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4279 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4280 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
4281 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4282 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4283 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
4284 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
4285 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4286 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
4287 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
4288
4289 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
4290 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
4291
4292 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4293 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4294 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4295 permanently REMOVED.
4296
4297 * REMOVED configurations and files
4298
4299 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4300 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4301 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
4302 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4303 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
4304 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
4305
4306 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
4307
4308 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
4309 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
4310 present.
4311
4312 * Other news:
4313
4314 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
4315
4316 * The MI enabled by default.
4317
4318 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
4319 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
4320 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
4321 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
4322 which is now deprecated.
4323
4324 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
4325
4326 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
4327 main features are supported:
4328
4329 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
4330
4331 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
4332 extension;
4333
4334 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
4335
4336 - a Pascal expression parser.
4337
4338 However, some important features are not yet supported.
4339
4340 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
4341
4342 - there are some problems with boolean types;
4343
4344 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
4345 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
4346
4347 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
4348
4349 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
4350
4351 * Changes in completion.
4352
4353 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
4354 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
4355 users expect at the shell prompt.
4356
4357 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
4358 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
4359 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
4360 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
4361 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
4362 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
4363 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
4364
4365 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
4366
4367 * New platform-independent commands:
4368
4369 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
4370 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
4371 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
4372
4373 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
4374
4375 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
4376 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
4377 many threads as your system allows you to have.
4378
4379 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
4380
4381 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
4382 multi-threaded programs though.
4383
4384 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
4385
4386 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
4387
4388 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
4389 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
4390 supported.)
4391
4392 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
4393
4394 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
4395 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
4396 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
4397 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
4398 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
4399 registers.
4400
4401 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
4402 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
4403 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
4404
4405 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
4406
4407 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
4408 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
4409
4410 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
4411 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
4412 IDT.
4413
4414 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
4415 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
4416 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
4417 a given linear address.
4418
4419 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
4420 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
4421 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
4422
4423 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
4424
4425 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
4426
4427 * Changes in documentation.
4428
4429 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
4430 Documentation License.
4431
4432 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4433 manual.
4434
4435 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
4436
4437 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4438 manual.
4439
4440 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
4441 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
4442 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
4443
4444 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
4445
4446 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
4447 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
4448 contents of this file.
4449
4450 * gdba.el deleted
4451
4452 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
4453
4454 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
4455
4456 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
4457
4458 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
4459 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
4460 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
4461 greater level of detail.
4462
4463 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
4464
4465 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
4466 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
4467 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
4468 written.
4469
4470 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
4471
4472 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
4473 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
4474 machines ``out of the box''.
4475
4476 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
4477 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
4478 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
4479 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
4480 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
4481
4482 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
4483 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
4484 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
4485 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
4486 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
4487
4488 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
4489 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
4490 also works.
4491
4492 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
4493 GDB.
4494
4495 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
4496 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
4497 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
4498 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
4499
4500 * New native configurations
4501
4502 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
4503 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4504
4505 * New targets
4506
4507 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
4508 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
4509 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
4510 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4511
4512 * OBSOLETE configurations
4513
4514 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4515 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4516 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
4517 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4518 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
4519
4520 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4521 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4522 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4523 be permanently REMOVED.
4524
4525 * Gould support removed
4526
4527 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
4528
4529 * New features for SVR4
4530
4531 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
4532 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
4533 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
4534
4535 * Many C++ enhancements
4536
4537 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
4538 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
4539
4540 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
4541
4542 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
4543 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
4544 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
4545 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
4546
4547 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
4548 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
4549
4550 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
4551
4552 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
4553 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
4554 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
4555
4556 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
4557 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
4558
4559 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
4560
4561 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
4562 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
4563 include ``set remote P-packet''.
4564
4565 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
4566
4567 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
4568 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
4569 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
4570
4571 * ``apropos'' command added.
4572
4573 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
4574 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
4575 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
4576
4577 * New MI interface
4578
4579 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
4580 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
4581 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
4582 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
4583 enabled by configuring with:
4584
4585 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
4586
4587 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
4588
4589 * New native configurations
4590
4591 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
4592 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
4593 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
4594
4595 * New targets
4596
4597 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4598 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
4599 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4600
4601 * OBSOLETE configurations
4602
4603 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
4604
4605 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4606 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4607 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4608 be permanently REMOVED.
4609
4610 * ANSI/ISO C
4611
4612 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
4613 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
4614 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
4615 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
4616 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
4617 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
4618 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
4619 already.
4620
4621 * Readline 2.2
4622
4623 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
4624
4625 * set extension-language
4626
4627 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
4628 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
4629 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
4630 set extension-language .c c++
4631 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
4632 and their associated languages.
4633
4634 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
4635
4636 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
4637 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
4638 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
4639
4640 set processor NAME
4641
4642 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
4643 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
4644
4645 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
4646 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
4647 403 IBM PowerPC 403
4648 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
4649 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
4650 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
4651 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
4652 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
4653 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
4654 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
4655 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
4656
4657 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
4658 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
4659 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
4660 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
4661
4662 * HP-UX support
4663
4664 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
4665 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
4666 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
4667 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
4668 for xdb and dbx commands.
4669
4670 * Catchpoints
4671
4672 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
4673 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
4674 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
4675
4676 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
4677 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
4678 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
4679
4680 * Debugging across forks
4681
4682 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
4683 in the inferior.
4684
4685 * TUI
4686
4687 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
4688 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
4689 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
4690
4691 * GDB remote protocol additions
4692
4693 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
4694 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
4695 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4696 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4697
4698 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4699 full 64-bit address. The command
4700
4701 set remoteaddresssize 32
4702
4703 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4704 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4705 will be discarded.
4706
4707 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4708 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4709
4710 maint packet heythere
4711
4712 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4713 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4714 time.
4715
4716 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4717 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4718 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4719
4720 * Tracing can collect general expressions
4721
4722 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4723 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4724 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4725
4726 * mask-address variable for Mips
4727
4728 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4729 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4730 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4731
4732 * Higher serial baud rates
4733
4734 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4735 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4736 to achieve all of these rates.)
4737
4738 * i960 simulator
4739
4740 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4741 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4742
4743
4744 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4745
4746 * New native configurations
4747
4748 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4749 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4750 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4751 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4752 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4753 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4754 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4755
4756 * New targets
4757
4758 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4759 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4760 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4761 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4762 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4763 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4764 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4765 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4766 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4767 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4768 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4769
4770 * New debugging protocols
4771
4772 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4773 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4774 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4775 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4776 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4777 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4778
4779 * DWARF 2
4780
4781 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4782 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4783 information.
4784
4785 * Java frontend
4786
4787 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4788 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4789
4790 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4791
4792 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4793 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4794 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4795
4796 * Live range splitting
4797
4798 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4799 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4800 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4801
4802 * Hurd support
4803
4804 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4805 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4806
4807 * ARM Thumb support
4808
4809 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4810 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4811 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4812 accordingly.
4813
4814 * MIPS16 support
4815
4816 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4817 instruction set.
4818
4819 * Overlay support
4820
4821 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4822 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4823 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4824 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4825 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4826 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4827
4828 * info symbol
4829
4830 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4831 the symbol at the specified address.
4832
4833 * Trace support
4834
4835 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4836 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4837 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4838 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4839 file tracepoint.c for more details.
4840
4841 * MIPS simulator
4842
4843 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4844 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4845 of most MIPS variants.
4846
4847 * Sparc simulator
4848
4849 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4850 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4851 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4852
4853 * set architecture
4854
4855 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4856 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4857 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4858 the possible architectures.
4859
4860 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4861
4862 * New native configurations
4863
4864 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4865 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4866 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4867 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4868 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4869 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4870
4871 * New targets
4872
4873 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4874 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4875 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4876 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4877 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4878 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4879 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4880
4881 * PowerPC simulator
4882
4883 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4884 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4885 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4886 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4887 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4888
4889 * Solaris 2.5
4890
4891 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4892
4893 * Windows 95/NT native
4894
4895 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4896 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4897 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4898 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4899 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4900
4901 * dont-repeat command
4902
4903 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4904 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4905 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4906 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4907
4908 * Send break instead of ^C
4909
4910 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4911 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4912 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4913
4914 * Remote protocol timeout
4915
4916 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4917 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4918 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4919
4920 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4921
4922 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4923 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4924 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4925 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4926 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4927
4928 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4929 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4930 automatically on hpux10.
4931
4932 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4933
4934 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4935
4936 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4937
4938 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4939 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4940 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4941 every character. The default value is 1050.
4942
4943 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4944
4945 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4946 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4947 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4948 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4949 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4950 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4951
4952 * Speedups for remote debugging
4953
4954 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4955 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4956 and more efficient S-record downloading.
4957
4958 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4959
4960 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4961 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4962
4963 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4964
4965 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
4966
4967 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4968 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4969
4970 * Remote targets use caching
4971
4972 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4973 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4974 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4975 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4976 off' turns the the data cache off.
4977
4978 * Remote targets may have threads
4979
4980 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4981 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4982 gdb/remote.c for details.
4983
4984 * NetROM support
4985
4986 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4987 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4988 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4989 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4990 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4991 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4992 sequence is something like
4993
4994 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4995 load <prog>
4996 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4997
4998 * Macintosh host
4999
5000 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
5001 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
5002 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
5003 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
5004 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
5005 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
5006 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
5007 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
5008
5009 * Autoconf
5010
5011 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
5012 but does simplify configuration and building.
5013
5014 * hpux10
5015
5016 GDB now supports hpux10.
5017
5018 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
5019
5020 * New native configurations
5021
5022 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
5023 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
5024 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
5025 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
5026
5027 * New targets
5028
5029 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5030 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
5031 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
5032 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
5033 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5034
5035 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
5036
5037 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
5038 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
5039 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
5040 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
5041 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
5042
5043 * Arguments to user-defined commands
5044
5045 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
5046 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
5047 trivial example:
5048 define adder
5049 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
5050
5051 To execute the command use:
5052 adder 1 2 3
5053
5054 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
5055 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
5056 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
5057
5058 * New `if' and `while' commands
5059
5060 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
5061 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
5062 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
5063 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
5064 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
5065 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
5066 if the expression is zero.
5067
5068 * Fortran source language mode
5069
5070 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
5071 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
5072 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
5073 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
5074 Fortran compilers.
5075
5076 * Better HPUX support
5077
5078 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
5079 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
5080 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
5081 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
5082 that behavior do the following before running the program:
5083
5084 adb -w a.out
5085 __dld_flags?W 0x5
5086 control-d
5087
5088 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
5089 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
5090
5091 adb -w a.out
5092 __dld_flags?W 0x4
5093 control-d
5094
5095 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
5096 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
5097 external linkage.
5098
5099 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
5100 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
5101
5102 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
5103
5104 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
5105 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
5106 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
5107 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
5108 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
5109 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
5110
5111 * New DOS host serial code
5112
5113 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
5114 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
5115 a PC's serial port.
5116
5117 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
5118
5119 * New "complete" command
5120
5121 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
5122 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
5123
5124 * Trailing space optional in prompt
5125
5126 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
5127 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
5128
5129 * Breakpoint hit counts
5130
5131 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
5132 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
5133 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
5134 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
5135 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
5136 that breakpoint.
5137
5138 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
5139
5140 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
5141 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
5142 arrays actually contain only short strings.
5143
5144 * Shared library breakpoints
5145
5146 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
5147 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
5148
5149 * Hardware watchpoints
5150
5151 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
5152 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
5153
5154 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
5155
5156 * Annotations
5157
5158 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
5159 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
5160
5161 * Improved Irix 5 support
5162
5163 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
5164
5165 * Improved HPPA support
5166
5167 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
5168
5169 * New native configurations
5170
5171 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
5172 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5173 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
5174 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
5175
5176 * New targets
5177
5178 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5179 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
5180 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
5181
5182 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
5183
5184 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
5185 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
5186
5187 * Fixes
5188
5189 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
5190 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
5191
5192 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
5193
5194 * Irix 5 is now supported
5195
5196 * HPPA support
5197
5198 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
5199 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
5200 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
5201 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
5202 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
5203
5204
5205 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
5206
5207 * User visible changes:
5208
5209 * Remote Debugging
5210
5211 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
5212 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
5213 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
5214 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
5215 debugging info for the mips target).
5216
5217 * DEC Alpha native support
5218
5219 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
5220 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
5221 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
5222 Alpha-specific notes.
5223
5224 * Preliminary thread implementation
5225
5226 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
5227
5228 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
5229
5230 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
5231 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
5232 for details).
5233
5234 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
5235
5236 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
5237 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
5238 call methods, ...etc.
5239
5240 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
5241
5242 * User visible changes:
5243
5244 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
5245 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
5246 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
5247 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
5248
5249 Filename completion now works.
5250
5251 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
5252 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
5253 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
5254
5255 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
5256 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
5257 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
5258 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
5259 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
5260
5261 * DEC alpha support
5262
5263 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
5264 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
5265
5266
5267 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
5268
5269 * Testsuite
5270
5271 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
5272 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
5273 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
5274
5275 * C++ demangling
5276
5277 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
5278 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
5279 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
5280 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
5281 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
5282
5283 * Simulators
5284
5285 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
5286 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
5287 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
5288
5289 * New targets supported
5290
5291 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5292 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5293 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
5294 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5295 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
5296
5297 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
5298 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
5299 GO32 memory extender.
5300
5301 * New remote protocols
5302
5303 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
5304
5305 * New source languages supported
5306
5307 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
5308 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
5309 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
5310
5311
5312 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
5313
5314 * HP Precision Architecture supported
5315
5316 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
5317 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
5318 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
5319 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
5320 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
5321 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
5322
5323 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
5324
5325 * Faster and better demangling
5326
5327 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
5328 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
5329 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
5330 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
5331 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
5332 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
5333 symbol lookups.
5334
5335 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
5336 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
5337 compiler does not actually implement.
5338
5339 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
5340
5341 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
5342 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
5343 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
5344 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
5345 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
5346 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
5347 fix.
5348
5349 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
5350 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
5351
5352 * Improved configure script
5353
5354 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
5355 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
5356 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
5357 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
5358
5359 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
5360 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
5361 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
5362 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
5363 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
5364 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
5365
5366 * Documentation improvements
5367
5368 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
5369 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
5370 before submitting changes.
5371
5372 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
5373 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
5374 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
5375 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
5376 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
5377
5378 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
5379 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
5380 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
5381 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
5382 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
5383 around this problem.
5384
5385 * New features
5386
5387 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
5388 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
5389 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
5390 the target program.
5391
5392 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
5393 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
5394
5395 * New native hosts supported
5396
5397 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
5398 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
5399
5400 * New targets supported
5401
5402 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
5403
5404 * New file formats supported
5405
5406 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
5407 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
5408
5409 * Major bug fixes
5410
5411 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
5412
5413 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
5414 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
5415
5416 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
5417 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
5418 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
5419
5420 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
5421 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
5422
5423 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
5424 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
5425 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
5426 libraries.
5427
5428 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
5429 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
5430 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
5431 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
5432 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
5433
5434 * Internal improvements
5435
5436 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
5437 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
5438
5439 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
5440 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
5441 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
5442 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
5443 shared code that handles any of them.
5444
5445 * New command line options
5446
5447 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
5448
5449 * Mmalloc licensing
5450
5451 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
5452 General Public License.
5453
5454 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
5455
5456 * Host/native/target split
5457
5458 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
5459 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
5460 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
5461 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
5462 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
5463
5464 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
5465 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
5466 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
5467 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
5468 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
5469 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
5470 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
5471
5472 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
5473 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
5474 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
5475
5476 * New hosts supported
5477
5478 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
5479 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5480 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
5481
5482 * New targets supported
5483
5484 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5485 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
5486
5487 * New native hosts supported
5488
5489 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5490 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
5491 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
5492
5493 * New file formats supported
5494
5495 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
5496 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
5497 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
5498
5499 * New commands
5500
5501 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
5502 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
5503 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
5504
5505 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
5506
5507 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
5508 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
5509 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
5510 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
5511
5512 * C++ improvements
5513
5514 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
5515 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
5516 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
5517
5518 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
5519
5520 * Major bug fixes
5521
5522 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
5523 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
5524 by the compiler.
5525
5526 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
5527 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
5528
5529 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
5530 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
5531 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
5532 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
5533 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
5534 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
5535
5536 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
5537 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
5538 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
5539 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
5540
5541 * AMD 29k support
5542
5543 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
5544 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
5545 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
5546 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
5547 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
5548
5549 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
5550 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
5551 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
5552 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
5553
5554 * Remote interfaces
5555
5556 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
5557 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
5558 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
5559 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
5560 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
5561 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
5562 each instruction being stepped through.
5563
5564 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
5565 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
5566
5567 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
5568 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
5569 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
5570 processor with a serial port.
5571
5572 * Configuration
5573
5574 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
5575 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
5576 supported, and what files each one uses.
5577
5578 * Library changes
5579
5580 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
5581 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
5582 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
5583 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
5584
5585 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
5586 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
5587 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
5588 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
5589
5590 * Documentation
5591
5592 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
5593 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
5594 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
5595 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
5596 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
5597 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
5598
5599 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
5600
5601
5602 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
5603
5604 * Better support for C++ function names
5605
5606 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
5607 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
5608 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
5609 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
5610 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
5611
5612 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
5613 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
5614 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
5615 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
5616 for the list of formats.
5617
5618 * G++ symbol mangling problem
5619
5620 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
5621 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
5622 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
5623 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
5624 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
5625 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
5626 this problem.)
5627
5628 * New 'maintenance' command
5629
5630 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
5631 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
5632 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
5633
5634 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
5635 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
5636 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
5637 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
5638 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
5639 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
5640
5641 The following commands are new:
5642
5643 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
5644 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
5645 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
5646
5647 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
5648
5649 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
5650 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
5651 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
5652 read after argv processing.
5653
5654 * New hosts supported
5655
5656 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
5657
5658 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
5659
5660 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
5661 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
5662 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
5663 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
5664 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
5665 It costs extra.
5666
5667 * New targets supported
5668
5669 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5670
5671 * More smarts about finding #include files
5672
5673 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
5674 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
5675 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
5676 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
5677 the one that contains your sources.
5678
5679 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
5680 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
5681 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
5682
5683 * Interesting infernals change
5684
5685 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
5686 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
5687 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
5688 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
5689
5690 * Bug fixes (of course!)
5691
5692 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
5693 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
5694 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5695
5696 See the ChangeLog for details.
5697
5698 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5699
5700 * New machines supported (host and target)
5701
5702 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5703
5704 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5705
5706 * New malloc package
5707
5708 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5709 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5710 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5711 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5712 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5713 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5714
5715 * info proc
5716
5717 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5718 'help info proc' for details.
5719
5720 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5721
5722 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5723 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5724 possible.
5725
5726 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5727
5728 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5729 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5730 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5731 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5732 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5733 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5734
5735 * Cross byte order fixes
5736
5737 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5738 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5739
5740 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5741
5742 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5743 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5744 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5745 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5746 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5747 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5748 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5749 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5750 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5751 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5752
5753 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5754 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5755 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5756 slower, but makes future operations faster.
5757
5758 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5759 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5760 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5761 use is:
5762
5763 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5764
5765 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5766 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5767 shared across multiple host platforms.
5768
5769 * longjmp() handling
5770
5771 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5772 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5773 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5774 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5775
5776 * Solaris 2.0
5777
5778 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5779 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5780 reading symbols.
5781
5782 * Bug fixes
5783
5784 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5785 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5786 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5787
5788 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5789
5790 * New machines supported (host and target)
5791
5792 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5793 (except core files)
5794 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5795 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5796
5797 * New machines supported (target)
5798
5799 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5800
5801 * C++ support
5802
5803 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5804 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5805 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5806
5807 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5808 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5809 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5810 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5811 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5812 released.
5813
5814 * New features for SVR4
5815
5816 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5817 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5818 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5819
5820 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5821 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5822 it prints the address mappings of the process.
5823
5824 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5825 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5826
5827 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5828
5829 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5830 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5831 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5832 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5833 same code linked statically.
5834
5835 * New Getopt
5836
5837 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5838 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5839 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5840 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5841 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5842 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5843
5844 * Bugs fixed
5845
5846 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5847 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5848 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5849
5850
5851 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5852
5853 * New machines supported (host and target)
5854
5855 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5856 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5857 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5858
5859 * Almost SCO Unix support
5860
5861 We had hoped to support:
5862 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5863 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5864 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5865 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5866
5867 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5868
5869 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5870 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5871 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5872 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5873 reqired (if any).
5874
5875 * New Readline
5876
5877 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5878 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5879 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5880
5881 * Bugs fixed
5882
5883 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5884 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5885 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5886
5887 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5888
5889 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5890 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5891 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5892
5893 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5894 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5895 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5896 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5897 version 2.
5898
5899 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5900 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5901 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5902 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5903 situation somewhat.
5904
5905 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5906 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5907 methods.
5908
5909 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5910 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5911 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5912
5913
5914 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5915
5916 * Improved configuration
5917
5918 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5919 Porting BFD is simpler.
5920
5921 * Stepping improved
5922
5923 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5924 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5925 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5926 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5927
5928 * Bug fixing
5929
5930 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5931
5932 * New host supported (not target)
5933
5934 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5935
5936
5937 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5938
5939 * Multiple source language support
5940
5941 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5942 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5943 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5944 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5945 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5946 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5947
5948 * GDB and Modula-2
5949
5950 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5951 currently under development at the State University of New York at
5952 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5953 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5954
5955 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5956 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5957 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5958
5959 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5960 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5961
5962 * set write on/off
5963
5964 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5965 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5966 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5967 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5968 effect immediately.
5969
5970 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5971
5972 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5973 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5974 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5975 examining core files.
5976
5977 * set listsize
5978
5979 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5980 The default is 10.
5981
5982 * New machines supported (host and target)
5983
5984 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5985 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5986 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5987
5988 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5989
5990 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5991
5992 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5993
5994 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5995 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5996 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5997
5998 * New remote interfaces
5999
6000 AMD 29000 Adapt
6001 AMD 29000 Minimon
6002
6003
6004 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
6005
6006 * New Facilities
6007
6008 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
6009
6010 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
6011 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
6012 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
6013 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
6014 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
6015 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
6016 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
6017 stub on the target system.
6018
6019 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
6020
6021 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
6022 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
6023 object file types such as a.out and coff.
6024
6025 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
6026 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
6027
6028
6029 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
6030
6031 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
6032 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
6033
6034 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
6035 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
6036 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
6037
6038 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
6039 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
6040 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
6041 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
6042
6043 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
6044 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
6045 it is already running. Default is ON.
6046
6047 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
6048 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
6049 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
6050 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
6051 Default is ON.
6052
6053 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
6054 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
6055 or the value of the environment variable
6056 GDBHISTFILE.
6057
6058 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
6059 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
6060 HISTSIZE.
6061
6062 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
6063 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
6064 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
6065
6066 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
6067 history expansion will be performed on
6068 command line input. The default is OFF.
6069
6070 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
6071 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
6072 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
6073
6074 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
6075 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
6076 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
6077 variable TERM.
6078
6079 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
6080 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
6081 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
6082 variable TERM.
6083
6084 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
6085 ``set width'' instead.
6086
6087 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
6088 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
6089 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
6090 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
6091
6092 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
6093 is OFF.
6094
6095 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
6096 "raw" form if off.
6097
6098 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
6099 like instructions.
6100
6101 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
6102
6103
6104 * Support for Epoch Environment.
6105
6106 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
6107 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
6108 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
6109 window.
6110
6111
6112 * Support for Shared Libraries
6113
6114 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
6115 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
6116 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
6117 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
6118 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
6119 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
6120 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
6121 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
6122
6123 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
6124 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
6125 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
6126
6127 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
6128
6129
6130 * Watchpoints
6131
6132 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
6133 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
6134 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
6135 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
6136 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
6137 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
6138
6139 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
6140
6141 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
6142
6143 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6144 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6145 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6146
6147
6148 * C++ multiple inheritance
6149
6150 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
6151 for C++ programs.
6152
6153 * C++ exception handling
6154
6155 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
6156 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
6157 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
6158 handler's context).
6159
6160 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
6161 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
6162 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
6163
6164 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
6165 current stack frame.
6166
6167
6168 * Minor command changes
6169
6170 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
6171 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
6172 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
6173
6174 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
6175 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
6176 frames without printing.
6177
6178 * New directory command
6179
6180 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
6181 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
6182 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
6183 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
6184 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
6185
6186 * Configuring GDB for compilation
6187
6188 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
6189 for more details.
6190
6191 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
6192 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
6193 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
6194 where the program that you are debugging will run.
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