gdb/fortran: Add support for Fortran array slices at the GDB prompt
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 10
5
6 * MI changes
7
8 ** '-break-insert --qualified' and '-dprintf-insert --qualified'
9
10 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
11 new "--qualified" option that makes GDB interpret a specified
12 function name as a complete fully-qualified name. This is the
13 equivalent of the CLI's "break -qualified" and "dprintf
14 -qualified".
15
16 * GDB now supports core file debugging for x86_64 Cygwin programs.
17
18 * GDB will now look for the .gdbinit file in a config directory before
19 looking for ~/.gdbinit. The file is searched for in the following
20 locations: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.config/gdb/gdbinit,
21 $HOME/.gdbinit. On Apple hosts the search order is instead:
22 $HOME/Library/Preferences/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.gdbinit.
23
24 * New commands
25
26 set debug event-loop
27 show debug event-loop
28 Control the display of debug output about GDB's event loop.
29
30 * Changed commands
31
32 break [PROBE_MODIFIER] [LOCATION] [thread THREADNUM]
33 [-force-condition] [if CONDITION]
34 This command would previously refuse setting a breakpoint if the
35 CONDITION expression is invalid at a location. It now accepts and
36 defines the breakpoint if there is at least one location at which
37 the CONDITION is valid. The locations for which the CONDITION is
38 invalid, are automatically disabled. If CONDITION is invalid at all
39 of the locations, setting the breakpoint is still rejected. However,
40 the '-force-condition' flag can be used in this case for forcing GDB to
41 define the breakpoint, making all the current locations automatically
42 disabled. This may be useful if the user knows the condition will
43 become meaningful at a future location, e.g. due to a shared library
44 load.
45
46 condition [-force] N COND
47 The behavior of this command is changed the same way for the 'break'
48 command as explained above. The '-force' flag can be used to force
49 GDB into defining the condition even when COND is invalid for all the
50 current locations of breakpoint N.
51
52 *** Changes in GDB 10
53
54 * There are new feature names for ARC targets: "org.gnu.gdb.arc.core"
55 and "org.gnu.gdb.arc.aux". The old names are still supported but
56 must be considered obsolete. They will be deprecated after some
57 grace period.
58
59 * Help and apropos commands will now show the documentation of a
60 command only once, even if that command has one or more aliases.
61 These commands now show the command name, then all of its aliases,
62 and finally the description of the command.
63
64 * 'help aliases' now shows only the user defined aliases. GDB predefined
65 aliases are shown together with their aliased command.
66
67 * GDB now supports debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF
68 debugging information as well as source code.
69
70 When built with debuginfod, GDB can automatically query debuginfod
71 servers for the separate debug files and source code of the executable
72 being debugged.
73
74 To build GDB with debuginfod, pass --with-debuginfod to configure (this
75 requires libdebuginfod, the debuginfod client library).
76
77 debuginfod is distributed with elfutils, starting with version 0.178.
78
79 You can get the latest version from https://sourceware.org/elfutils.
80
81 * Multi-target debugging support
82
83 GDB now supports debugging multiple target connections
84 simultaneously. For example, you can now have each inferior
85 connected to different remote servers running in different machines,
86 or have one inferior debugging a local native process, an inferior
87 debugging a core dump, etc.
88
89 This support is experimental and comes with some limitations -- you
90 can only resume multiple targets simultaneously if all targets
91 support non-stop mode, and all remote stubs or servers must support
92 the same set of remote protocol features exactly. See also "info
93 connections" and "add-inferior -no-connection" below, and "maint set
94 target-non-stop" in the user manual.
95
96 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
97
98 ** GDBserver is now supported on ARC GNU/Linux.
99
100 ** GDBserver is now supported on RISC-V GNU/Linux.
101
102 ** GDBserver no longer supports these host triplets:
103
104 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
105 powerpc-*-lynxos*
106 i[34567]86-*-nto*
107 bfin-*-*linux*
108 crisv32-*-linux*
109 cris-*-linux*
110 m32r*-*-linux*
111 tilegx-*-linux*
112 arm*-*-mingw32ce*
113 i[34567]86-*-mingw32ce*
114
115 * Debugging MS-Windows processes now sets $_exitsignal when the
116 inferior is terminated by a signal, instead of setting $_exitcode.
117
118 * Multithreaded symbol loading has now been enabled by default on systems
119 that support it (see entry for GDB 9, below), providing faster
120 performance for programs with many symbols.
121
122 * The $_siginfo convenience variable now also works on Windows targets,
123 and will display the EXCEPTION_RECORD of the last handled exception.
124
125 * TUI windows can now be arranged horizontally.
126
127 * The command history filename can now be set to the empty string
128 either using 'set history filename' or by setting 'GDBHISTFILE=' in
129 the environment. The effect of setting this filename to the empty
130 string is that GDB will not try to load any previous command
131 history.
132
133 * On Windows targets, it is now possible to debug 32-bit programs with a
134 64-bit GDB.
135
136 * New commands
137
138 set exec-file-mismatch -- Set exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
139 show exec-file-mismatch -- Show exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
140 Set or show the option 'exec-file-mismatch'. When GDB attaches to a
141 running process, this new option indicates whether to detect
142 a mismatch between the current executable file loaded by GDB and the
143 executable file used to start the process. If 'ask', the default,
144 display a warning and ask the user whether to load the process
145 executable file; if 'warn', just display a warning; if 'off', don't
146 attempt to detect a mismatch.
147
148 tui new-layout NAME WINDOW WEIGHT [WINDOW WEIGHT]...
149 Define a new TUI layout, specifying its name and the windows that
150 will be displayed.
151
152 maintenance print xml-tdesc [FILE]
153 Prints the current target description as an XML document. If the
154 optional FILE is provided (which is an XML target description) then
155 the target description is read from FILE into GDB, and then
156 reprinted.
157
158 maintenance print core-file-backed-mappings
159 Prints file-backed mappings loaded from a core file's note section.
160 Output is expected to be similar to that of "info proc mappings".
161
162 set debug fortran-array-slicing on|off
163 show debug fortran-array-slicing
164 Print debugging when taking slices of Fortran arrays.
165
166 set fortran repack-array-slices on|off
167 show fortran repack-array-slices
168 When taking slices from Fortran arrays and strings, if the slice is
169 non-contiguous within the original value then, when this option is
170 on, the new value will be repacked into a single contiguous value.
171 When this option is off, then the value returned will consist of a
172 descriptor that describes the slice within the memory of the
173 original parent value.
174
175 * Changed commands
176
177 alias [-a] [--] ALIAS = COMMAND [DEFAULT-ARGS...]
178 The alias command can now specify default args for an alias.
179 GDB automatically prepends the alias default args to the argument list
180 provided explicitly by the user.
181 For example, to have a backtrace with full details, you can define
182 an alias 'bt_ALL' as
183 'alias bt_ALL = backtrace -entry-values both -frame-arg all
184 -past-main -past-entry -full'.
185 Alias default arguments can also use a set of nested 'with' commands,
186 e.g. 'alias pp10 = with print pretty -- with print elem 10 -- print'
187 defines the alias pp10 that will pretty print a maximum of 10 elements
188 of the given expression (if the expression is an array).
189
190 * New targets
191
192 GNU/Linux/RISC-V (gdbserver) riscv*-*-linux*
193 BPF bpf-unknown-none
194
195 * Python API
196
197 ** gdb.register_window_type can be used to implement new TUI windows
198 in Python.
199
200 ** Dynamic types can now be queried. gdb.Type has a new attribute,
201 "dynamic", and gdb.Type.sizeof can be None for a dynamic type. A
202 field of a dynamic type may have None for its "bitpos" attribute
203 as well.
204
205 ** Commands written in Python can be in the "TUI" help class by
206 registering with the new constant gdb.COMMAND_TUI.
207
208 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.architecture () to retrieve the
209 architecture of the pending frame.
210
211 ** New gdb.Architecture.registers method that returns a
212 gdb.RegisterDescriptorIterator object, an iterator that returns
213 gdb.RegisterDescriptor objects. The new RegisterDescriptor is a
214 way to query the registers available for an architecture.
215
216 ** New gdb.Architecture.register_groups method that returns a
217 gdb.RegisterGroupIterator object, an iterator that returns
218 gdb.RegisterGroup objects. The new RegisterGroup is a way to
219 discover the available register groups.
220
221 * Guile API
222
223 ** GDB can now be built with GNU Guile 3.0 and 2.2 in addition to 2.0.
224
225 ** Procedures 'memory-port-read-buffer-size',
226 'set-memory-port-read-buffer-size!', 'memory-port-write-buffer-size',
227 and 'set-memory-port-write-buffer-size!' are deprecated. When
228 using Guile 2.2 and later, users who need to control the size of
229 a memory port's internal buffer can use the 'setvbuf' procedure.
230
231 *** Changes in GDB 9
232
233 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
234
235 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
236 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
237 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
238 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
239 such as in system-wide init files.
240
241 * New built-in convenience functions $_gdb_setting, $_gdb_setting_str,
242 $_gdb_maint_setting and $_gdb_maint_setting_str provide access to values
243 of the GDB settings and the GDB maintenance settings. They are handy
244 for changing the logic of user defined commands depending on the
245 current GDB settings.
246
247 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
248 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
249 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
250 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
251
252 * Support for Pointer Authentication (PAC) on AArch64 Linux. Return
253 addresses that required unmasking are shown in the backtrace with the
254 postfix [PAC].
255
256 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
257 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
258
259 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
260 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
261 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
262
263 * The command define-prefix can now define user defined prefix commands.
264 User defined commands can now be defined using these user defined prefix
265 commands.
266
267 * Command names can now use the . character.
268
269 * The RX port now supports XML target descriptions.
270
271 * GDB now shows the Ada task names at more places, e.g. in task switching
272 messages.
273
274 * GDB can now be compiled with Python 3 on Windows.
275
276 * New convenience variable $_ada_exception holds the address of the
277 Ada exception being thrown. This is set by Ada-related catchpoints.
278
279 * GDB can now place breakpoints on nested functions and subroutines in
280 Fortran code. The '::' operator can be used between parent and
281 child scopes when placing breakpoints, for example:
282
283 (gdb) break outer_function::inner_function
284
285 The 'outer_function::' prefix is only needed if 'inner_function' is
286 not visible in the current scope.
287
288 * In addition to the system-wide gdbinit file, if configured with
289 --with-system-gdbinit-dir, GDB will now also load files in that directory
290 as system gdbinit files, unless the -nx or -n flag is provided. Files
291 with extensions .gdb, .py and .scm are supported as long as GDB was
292 compiled with support for that language.
293
294 * GDB now supports multithreaded symbol loading for higher performance.
295 This feature is still in testing, so it is disabled by default. You
296 can turn it on using 'maint set worker-threads unlimited'.
297
298 * Python API
299
300 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
301 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
302 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
303 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
304 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
305
306 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
307 type was defined in.
308
309 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
310 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
311 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
312 is given.
313
314 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
315 symbols with static linkage.
316
317 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbols can be used to look up
318 all static symbols with static linkage.
319
320 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
321 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
322
323 ** gdb.Block now supports the dictionary syntax for accessing symbols in
324 this block (e.g. block['local_variable']).
325
326 * New commands
327
328 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
329 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
330 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
331 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
332 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
333 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
334 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
335
336 define-prefix COMMAND
337 Define or mark a command as a user-defined prefix command.
338
339 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
340 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
341 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
342 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
343 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
344 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
345 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
346 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
347 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
348 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
349 of array elements to print.
350
351 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
352 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
353
354 set may-call-functions [on|off]
355 show may-call-functions
356 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
357 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
358 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
359 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
360 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
361 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
362 in the program.
363
364 set print finish [on|off]
365 show print finish
366 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
367 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
368 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
369 default is `on'.
370
371 set print max-depth
372 show print max-depth
373 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
374 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
375 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
376 the old behavior back.
377
378 set print raw-values [on|off]
379 show print raw-values
380 By default, GDB applies the enabled pretty printers when printing a
381 value. This allows to ignore the enabled pretty printers for a series
382 of commands. The default is 'off'.
383
384 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
385 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
386 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
387
388 set style title foreground COLOR
389 set style title background COLOR
390 set style title intensity VALUE
391 Control the styling of titles.
392
393 set style highlight foreground COLOR
394 set style highlight background COLOR
395 set style highlight intensity VALUE
396 Control the styling of highlightings.
397
398 maint set worker-threads
399 maint show worker-threads
400 Control the number of worker threads that can be used by GDB. The
401 default is 0. "unlimited" lets GDB choose a number that is
402 reasonable. Currently worker threads are only used when demangling
403 the names of linker symbols.
404
405 set style tui-border foreground COLOR
406 set style tui-border background COLOR
407 Control the styling of TUI borders.
408
409 set style tui-active-border foreground COLOR
410 set style tui-active-border background COLOR
411 Control the styling of the active TUI border.
412
413 maint set test-settings KIND
414 maint show test-settings KIND
415 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
416 infrastructure.
417
418 maint set tui-resize-message [on|off]
419 maint show tui-resize-message
420 Control whether GDB prints a message each time the terminal is
421 resized when in TUI mode. This is primarily useful for testing the
422 TUI.
423
424 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
425 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
426 show print frame-info
427 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
428 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
429 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
430 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
431
432 set tui compact-source
433 show tui compact-source
434
435 Enable the "compact" display mode for the TUI source window. The
436 compact display uses only as much space as is needed for the line
437 numbers in the current file, and only a single space to separate the
438 line numbers from the source.
439
440 info modules [-q] [REGEXP]
441 Return a list of Fortran modules matching REGEXP, or all modules if
442 no REGEXP is given.
443
444 info module functions [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
445 Return a list of functions within all modules, grouped by module.
446 The list of functions can be restricted with the optional regular
447 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
448 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the function type signature, and REGEXP
449 matches against the function name.
450
451 info module variables [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
452 Return a list of variables within all modules, grouped by module.
453 The list of variables can be restricted with the optional regular
454 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
455 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the variable type, and REGEXP matches
456 against the variable name.
457
458 set debug remote-packet-max-chars
459 show debug remote-packet-max-chars
460 Controls the number of characters to output in a remote packet when using
461 "set debug remote".
462 The default is 512 bytes.
463
464 info connections
465 Lists the target connections currently in use.
466
467 * Changed commands
468
469 help
470 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
471 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
472 command names.
473
474 apropos [-v] REGEXP
475 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
476 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
477 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
478 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
479 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
480
481 printf
482 eval
483 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
484 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
485 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
486 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
487
488 info sources [-dirname | -basename] [--] [REGEXP]
489 This command has now optional arguments to only print the files
490 whose names match REGEXP. The arguments -dirname and -basename
491 allow to restrict matching respectively to the dirname and basename
492 parts of the files.
493
494 show style
495 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
496 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
497 the user visualize the different styles.
498
499 set print frame-arguments
500 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
501 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
502
503 set print raw-frame-arguments
504 show print raw-frame-arguments
505
506 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
507 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
508 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
509 release.
510
511 add-inferior [-no-connection]
512 The add-inferior command now supports a "-no-connection" flag that
513 makes the new inferior start with no target connection associated.
514 By default, the new inferior inherits the target connection of the
515 current inferior. See also "info connections".
516
517 info inferior
518 This command's output now includes a new "Connection" column
519 indicating which target connection an inferior is bound to. See
520 "info connections" above.
521
522 maint test-options require-delimiter
523 maint test-options unknown-is-error
524 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
525 maint show test-options-completion-result
526 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
527 framework.
528
529 focus, winheight, +, -, >, <
530 These commands are now case-sensitive.
531
532 * New command options, command completion
533
534 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
535 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
536 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
537 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
538 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
539 number of commands got support for new command options in this
540 release:
541
542 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
543 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
544 set by "set print" subcommands:
545
546 -address [on|off]
547 -array [on|off]
548 -array-indexes [on|off]
549 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
550 -null-stop [on|off]
551 -object [on|off]
552 -pretty [on|off]
553 -raw-values [on|off]
554 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
555 -static-members [on|off]
556 -symbol [on|off]
557 -union [on|off]
558 -vtbl [on|off]
559
560 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
561 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
562 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
563 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
564
565 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
566 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
567 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
568
569 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
570 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
571 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
572 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
573 |location-and-address|short-location
574 -past-main [on|off]
575 -past-entry [on|off]
576
577 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
578 exposed as command options too:
579
580 -full
581 -no-filters
582 -hide
583
584 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
585 support the following options:
586
587 -past-main [on|off]
588 -past-entry [on|off]
589
590 ** The new "info sources" options -dirname and -basename options
591 are using the standard '-OPT' infrastructure.
592
593 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
594 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
595 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
596 like for example:
597
598 (gdb) p -ra -p -o 0 -- *myptr
599
600 The above is equivalent to:
601
602 (gdb) print -raw-values -pretty -object off -- *myptr
603
604 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
605 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
606 variables" and "info functions".
607
608 ** The "info variables", "info functions", and "whereis" commands
609 now take a '-n' flag that excludes non-debug symbols (symbols
610 from the symbol table, not from the debug info such as DWARF)
611 from the results.
612
613 * Completion improvements
614
615 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
616 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
617 abbreviated.
618
619 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
620 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
621 commands.
622
623 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
624 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
625 completes on filenames.
626
627 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
628 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
629
630 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
631
632 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
633 elements unlimited".
634
635 * New MI commands
636
637 -complete
638 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
639 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
640 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
641
642 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
643 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
644 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
645
646 -symbol-info-functions, -symbol-info-types, and -symbol-info-variables
647 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
648 functions', 'info types', and 'info variables' respectively.
649
650 -symbol-info-modules, this is the MI equivalent of the CLI 'info
651 modules' command.
652
653 -symbol-info-module-functions and -symbol-info-module-variables.
654 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
655 module functions' and 'info module variables'.
656
657 * Other MI changes
658
659 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
660
661 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
662 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
663 the following commands and events:
664
665 - -break-insert
666 - -break-info
667 - =breakpoint-created
668 - =breakpoint-modified
669
670 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
671 this behavior with previous MI versions.
672
673 ** Backtraces and frames include a new optional field addr_flags which is
674 given after the addr field. On AArch64 this contains PAC if the address
675 has been masked in the frame. On all other targets the field is not
676 present.
677
678 * Testsuite
679
680 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
681 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
682 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
683 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
684
685 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.82.
686
687 Using another implementation of the make program or an earlier version of
688 GNU make to build GDB or GDBserver is not supported.
689
690 * Building GDB now requires GNU readline >= 7.0.
691
692 GDB now bundles GNU readline 8.0, but if you choose to use
693 --with-system-readline, only readline >= 7.0 can be used.
694
695 * The TUI SingleKey keymap is now named "SingleKey". This can be used
696 from .inputrc to bind keys in this keymap. This feature is only
697 available when gdb is built against GNU readline 8.0 or later.
698
699 * Removed targets and native configurations
700
701 GDB no longer supports debugging the Cell Broadband Engine. This includes
702 both debugging standalone Cell/B.E. SPU applications and integrated debugging
703 of Cell/B.E. applications that use both the PPU and SPU architectures.
704
705 * New Simulators
706
707 TI PRU pru-*-elf
708
709 * Removed targets and native configurations
710
711 Solaris 10 i?86-*-solaris2.10, x86_64-*-solaris2.10,
712 sparc*-*-solaris2.10
713
714 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
715
716 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
717 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
718 HTM registers.
719
720 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
721 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
722 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
723 and operators.
724
725 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
726 (the C++ plug-in).
727
728 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
729 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
730 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
731
732 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
733 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
734
735 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
736 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
737 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
738 in the GDB user manual.
739
740 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
741 executed failed.
742
743 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
744
745 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
746 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
747 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
748 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
749 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
750 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
751 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
752 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
753 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
754 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
755 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
756 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
757
758 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
759 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
760 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
761 information.
762
763 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
764 lucid.
765
766 * New commands
767
768 set debug compile-cplus-types
769 show debug compile-cplus-types
770 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
771 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiling
772 for other languages.
773
774 set debug skip
775 show debug skip
776 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
777 displayed.
778
779 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
780 Apply a command to some frames.
781 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
782 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
783
784 taas COMMAND
785 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
786 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
787
788 faas COMMAND
789 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
790 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
791
792 tfaas COMMAND
793 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
794 output).
795 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
796
797 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
798 maint show dwarf unwinders
799 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
800
801 info proc files
802 Display a list of open files for a process.
803
804 * Changed commands
805
806 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
807 These commands all now take a frame specification which
808 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
809 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
810 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
811 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
812 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
813
814 target remote FILENAME
815 target extended-remote FILENAME
816 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
817 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
818
819 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
820 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
821 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
822 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
823 These commands can now print only the searched entities
824 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
825 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
826 printing headers or informations messages.
827
828 info functions
829 info types
830 info variables
831 rbreak
832 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
833 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
834 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
835 the shown entities.
836
837 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
838 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
839 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
840 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
841
842 set tui tab-width NCHARS
843 show tui tab-width NCHARS
844 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
845
846 set style enabled [on|off]
847 show style enabled
848 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
849 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
850
851 set style sources [on|off]
852 show style sources
853 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
854 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
855 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
856
857 set style filename foreground COLOR
858 set style filename background COLOR
859 set style filename intensity VALUE
860 Control the styling of file names.
861
862 set style function foreground COLOR
863 set style function background COLOR
864 set style function intensity VALUE
865 Control the styling of function names.
866
867 set style variable foreground COLOR
868 set style variable background COLOR
869 set style variable intensity VALUE
870 Control the styling of variable names.
871
872 set style address foreground COLOR
873 set style address background COLOR
874 set style address intensity VALUE
875 Control the styling of addresses.
876
877 * MI changes
878
879 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
880 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
881 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
882 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
883 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
884
885 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
886 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
887
888 * New native configurations
889
890 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
891 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
892
893 * New targets
894
895 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
896 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
897 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
898 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
899 NXP S12Z s12z-*-elf
900 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
901
902 * Removed targets
903
904 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
905 before Windows XP.
906
907 * Python API
908
909 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
910
911 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
912 space associated to that inferior.
913
914 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
915 of objfiles associated to that program space.
916
917 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
918 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
919 the gdb core.
920
921 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
922 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
923 correct and did not work properly.
924
925 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
926 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
927
928 * Configure changes
929
930 --enable-ubsan
931
932 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
933 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
934 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
935 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
936 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
937
938 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
939
940 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
941 for the MIPS target.
942
943 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
944 offset to all sections.
945
946 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
947 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
948 address of individual sections using '-s'.
949
950 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
951 (address of the text section).
952
953 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
954 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
955 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
956 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
957 default.
958
959 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
960 for the rest of the current command.
961
962 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
963 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
964
965 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
966 files created on FreeBSD systems.
967
968 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
969 alignof.
970
971 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
972 the vector length while the process is running.
973
974 * New commands
975
976 set debug fbsd-nat
977 show debug fbsd-nat
978 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
979
980 set|show varsize-limit
981 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
982 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
983 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
984
985 set|show record btrace cpu
986 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
987 branch trace decode.
988
989 maint check libthread-db
990 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
991 library
992
993 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
994 maint show check-libthread-db
995 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
996 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
997 perform such checks.
998
999 * Python API
1000
1001 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
1002
1003 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
1004 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
1005
1006 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
1007
1008 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
1009 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
1010 of convenience variables.
1011
1012 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
1013 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
1014 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
1015
1016 * New targets
1017
1018 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
1019
1020 * Removed targets and native configurations
1021
1022 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
1023 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
1024 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
1025 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
1026
1027 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
1028
1029 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
1030 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
1031 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
1032 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
1033 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
1034 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
1035 reported.
1036
1037 * Configure changes
1038
1039 --enable-codesign=CERT
1040 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
1041 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
1042 gdb to work properly.
1043
1044 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
1045 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
1046
1047 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
1048
1049 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
1050 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
1051 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
1052
1053 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
1054 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
1055
1056 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
1057 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
1058 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
1059 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
1060 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
1061
1062 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
1063 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
1064 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
1065 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
1066
1067 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
1068 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
1069
1070 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
1071 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
1072 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
1073
1074 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
1075 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
1076 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
1077
1078 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
1079 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
1080 environment" command.
1081
1082 * Completion improvements
1083
1084 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
1085 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
1086 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
1087 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
1088 correctly:
1089
1090 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
1091 (gdb) b function(int)
1092
1093 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
1094 C++ anonymous namespaces:
1095
1096 (gdb) b (anon[TAB]
1097 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
1098 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
1099 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
1100
1101 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
1102 completion support, that better understands what you're
1103 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
1104 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
1105 setting a breakpoint.
1106
1107 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
1108
1109 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
1110
1111 * New command line options (gcore)
1112
1113 -a
1114 Dump all memory mappings.
1115
1116 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
1117
1118 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
1119 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
1120 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
1121
1122 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
1123
1124 A::B::func()
1125 B::func()
1126
1127 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
1128 on both symbols.
1129
1130 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
1131 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
1132 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
1133 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
1134 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
1135 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
1136 a breakpoint from Python.
1137
1138 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1139
1140 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1141 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
1142 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
1143
1144 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
1145
1146 function[abi:cxx11](int)
1147 ^^^^^^^^^^^
1148
1149 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
1150 no tag, like:
1151
1152 (gdb) b function(int)
1153
1154 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
1155
1156 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
1157
1158 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
1159
1160 * Python Scripting
1161
1162 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
1163 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
1164 description of these.
1165
1166 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
1167 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
1168 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
1169
1170 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
1171 manual for a further description of this feature.
1172
1173
1174 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1175
1176 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
1177 specified initial working directory.
1178
1179 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
1180 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
1181
1182 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
1183 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
1184
1185 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
1186 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
1187
1188 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
1189 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
1190 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
1191 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
1192 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
1193
1194 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
1195 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
1196 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
1197
1198 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
1199 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
1200 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
1201 in the *stopped notification.
1202
1203 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
1204 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
1205
1206 * New remote packets
1207
1208 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
1209 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
1210 the inferior when starting it.
1211
1212 QEnvironmentUnset
1213 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
1214 before starting the remote inferior.
1215
1216 QEnvironmentReset
1217 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
1218 user-set environment variables should be unset).
1219
1220 QStartupWithShell
1221 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
1222
1223 QSetWorkingDir
1224 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
1225 working directory.
1226
1227 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
1228 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
1229
1230 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
1231 filter the tests to be run.
1232
1233 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
1234 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
1235
1236 * New commands
1237
1238 set|show cwd
1239 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
1240
1241 set|show compile-gcc
1242 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
1243 with the 'compile' commands.
1244
1245 set debug separate-debug-file
1246 show debug separate-debug-file
1247 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
1248
1249 set dump-excluded-mappings
1250 show dump-excluded-mappings
1251 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
1252 dumped when generating a core file.
1253
1254 maint info selftests
1255 List the registered selftests.
1256
1257 starti
1258 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
1259
1260 set|show debug or1k
1261 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
1262
1263 set|show print type nested-type-limit
1264 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
1265 type printer will show.
1266
1267 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
1268 `o' for nexti.
1269
1270 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
1271
1272 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
1273 'int'.
1274
1275 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
1276 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
1277 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
1278 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
1279
1280 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
1281 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
1282 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
1283 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
1284 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
1285 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
1286
1287 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
1288 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
1289 unless you tell it the variable's type:
1290
1291 (gdb) p var
1292 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
1293 (gdb) p (float) var
1294 $3 = 3.14
1295
1296 * New native configurations
1297
1298 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
1299 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
1300
1301 * New targets
1302
1303 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
1304 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
1305 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
1306
1307 * Removed targets and native configurations
1308
1309 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
1310
1311 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
1312
1313 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
1314 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
1315 available in future Intel CPUs.
1316
1317 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
1318
1319 * Python Scripting
1320
1321 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
1322 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
1323
1324 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
1325 instructions.
1326
1327 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
1328
1329 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
1330
1331 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
1332 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
1333 removed.
1334
1335 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
1336
1337 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
1338 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
1339
1340 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
1341
1342 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
1343 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
1344 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
1345 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
1346 features.
1347
1348 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
1349
1350 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
1351 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
1352 debugger.
1353
1354 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
1355
1356 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
1357 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
1358
1359 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
1360
1361 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
1362
1363 define mycommand
1364 set $i = 0
1365 while $i < $argc
1366 eval "print $arg%d", $i
1367 set $i = $i + 1
1368 end
1369 end
1370
1371 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
1372
1373 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
1374 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
1375
1376 * New native configurations
1377
1378 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1379
1380 * New targets
1381
1382 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
1383 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1384
1385 * Removed targets and native configurations
1386
1387 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1388 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
1389
1390 * New commands
1391
1392 flash-erase
1393 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
1394
1395 maint print arc arc-instruction address
1396 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
1397
1398 * New options
1399
1400 set disassembler-options
1401 show disassembler-options
1402 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
1403 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
1404 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
1405 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
1406 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
1407
1408 * New MI commands
1409
1410 -target-flash-erase
1411 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
1412 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
1413
1414 -file-list-shared-libraries
1415 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
1416 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
1417
1418 -catch-handlers
1419 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
1420 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
1421
1422 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
1423
1424 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
1425
1426 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
1427 default. One must now explicitly configure with
1428 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
1429 option will be removed in a future release.
1430
1431 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
1432 GDB connection.
1433
1434 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
1435 memory backward from the given address. For example:
1436
1437 (gdb) bt
1438 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
1439 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
1440 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
1441 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
1442 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
1443 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
1444 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
1445 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
1446 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
1447
1448 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
1449 arrays of dynamic types.
1450
1451 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
1452 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1453 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1454 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1455 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1456 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
1457
1458 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
1459 descriptions.
1460
1461 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
1462 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
1463 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
1464
1465 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
1466
1467 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
1468 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
1469 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
1470 signal received and code location.
1471
1472 For example:
1473
1474 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
1475 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
1476 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
1477 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
1478
1479 * Rust language support.
1480 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
1481 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
1482 Rust.
1483
1484 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
1485
1486 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
1487 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
1488 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
1489 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
1490 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
1491 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
1492 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
1493 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
1494 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
1495 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
1496 line.
1497
1498 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
1499
1500 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
1501 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
1502
1503 * New commands
1504
1505 skip -file file
1506 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
1507 skip -function function
1508 skip -rfunction regular-expression
1509 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
1510 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
1511 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
1512
1513 maint info line-table REGEXP
1514 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data structure.
1515
1516 maint selftest
1517 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
1518
1519 new-ui INTERP TTY
1520 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
1521 using the TTY file for input/output.
1522
1523 * Python Scripting
1524
1525 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
1526 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
1527 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
1528 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
1529 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
1530
1531 signal-event EVENTID
1532 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
1533 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
1534 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
1535 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
1536 signalling an event.
1537
1538 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
1539 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
1540 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
1541
1542 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
1543 been removed:
1544
1545 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
1546 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
1547 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
1548 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
1549 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
1550 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
1551
1552 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
1553 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
1554 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
1555 bytecode into native code.
1556
1557 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
1558 recording. For example:
1559
1560 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
1561
1562 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
1563
1564 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
1565
1566 * New targets
1567
1568 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
1569
1570 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
1571
1572 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
1573
1574 * Per-inferior thread numbers
1575
1576 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
1577 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
1578 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
1579
1580 (gdb) info threads
1581 Id Target Id Frame
1582 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
1583 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
1584 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
1585 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
1586
1587 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
1588 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
1589 are no longer unique between inferiors.
1590
1591 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
1592 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
1593 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
1594
1595 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
1596 IDs.
1597
1598 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
1599 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
1600
1601 (gdb) thread 2.1
1602 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
1603 (gdb)
1604
1605 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
1606 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
1607 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
1608 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
1609 threads 2.*".
1610
1611 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
1612 all threads.
1613
1614 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
1615 the current thread.
1616
1617 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
1618 current inferior.
1619
1620 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
1621 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
1622 example:
1623
1624 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
1625 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
1626
1627 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
1628
1629 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
1630
1631 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
1632 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
1633
1634 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
1635 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
1636 clients.
1637
1638 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1639 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
1640 at the same time.
1641
1642 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
1643 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
1644 into native code.
1645
1646 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1647
1648 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
1649 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
1650 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
1651
1652 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
1653 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
1654
1655 * New commands
1656
1657 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
1658 maint show target-non-stop
1659 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
1660 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
1661 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
1662
1663 maint set bfd-sharing
1664 maint show bfd-sharing
1665 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
1666
1667 set debug bfd-cache
1668 show debug bfd-cache
1669 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
1670
1671 set debug fbsd-lwp
1672 show debug fbsd-lwp
1673 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
1674
1675 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1676 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1677 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
1678
1679 set remote thread-events
1680 show remote thread-events
1681 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
1682
1683 set ada print-signatures on|off
1684 show ada print-signatures"
1685 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
1686 selection menus. It is activated (@code{on}) by default.
1687
1688 set max-value-size
1689 show max-value-size
1690 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
1691 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
1692 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
1693
1694 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1695 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
1696 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
1697 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
1698 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
1699 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
1700
1701 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1702 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
1703
1704 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
1705 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
1706
1707 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
1708
1709 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
1710 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
1711 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
1712 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
1713 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
1714 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
1715
1716 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
1717 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1718
1719 catch handlers
1720 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1721
1722 * New remote packets
1723
1724 exec stop reason
1725 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1726
1727 exec-events feature in qSupported
1728 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1729 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1730 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1731 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1732
1733 vCtrlC
1734 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1735 non-stop mode.
1736
1737 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1738 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1739
1740 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1741 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1742
1743 QThreadEvents
1744 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1745 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1746 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1747 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1748 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1749 stop for that same thread.
1750
1751 N stop reply
1752 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1753 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1754 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1755
1756 QCatchSyscalls
1757 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1758 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1759
1760 syscall_entry stop reason
1761 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1762
1763 syscall_return stop reason
1764 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1765
1766 * Extended-remote exec events
1767
1768 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1769 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1770 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1771
1772 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1773 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1774 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1775
1776 * Thread names in remote protocol
1777
1778 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1779 thread.
1780
1781 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1782
1783 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1784 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1785 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1786 fork and exec catchpoints.
1787
1788 * Remote syscall events
1789
1790 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1791 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1792
1793 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1794 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1795 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1796
1797 * MI changes
1798
1799 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1800 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1801 left.
1802
1803 * Python Scripting
1804
1805 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1806 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1807 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1808 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1809 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1810 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1811
1812 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1813
1814 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1815 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1816 including advance SIMD instructions.
1817
1818 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1819
1820 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1821 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1822 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1823 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1824 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1825 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1826 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1827
1828 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1829 cpu information :
1830 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1831
1832 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1833 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1834 remote serial I/O.
1835
1836 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1837 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
1838 and may include things like its command line arguments.
1839
1840 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
1841 is now available on all platforms.
1842
1843 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
1844 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
1845 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
1846 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
1847 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
1848 backward compatibility.
1849
1850 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
1851 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
1852 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
1853 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
1854
1855 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
1856 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
1857 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
1858 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
1859 packets" below.
1860
1861 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
1862
1863 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
1864
1865 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
1866 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
1867 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
1868 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
1869 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
1870 See "New remote packets" below.
1871
1872 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
1873 available register groups, including target specific groups.
1874
1875 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
1876 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
1877 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
1878 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
1879 are ignored.
1880
1881 * Guile Scripting
1882
1883 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
1884
1885 * Python Scripting
1886
1887 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
1888 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
1889 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
1890 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
1891 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
1892 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
1893 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
1894 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
1895 "const" version of the value respectively.
1896
1897 * New commands
1898
1899 maint print symbol-cache
1900 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
1901
1902 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
1903 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
1904
1905 maint flush-symbol-cache
1906 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
1907
1908 record btrace bts
1909 record bts
1910 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
1911
1912 compile print
1913 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
1914
1915 tui enable
1916 tui disable
1917 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
1918
1919 show mpx bound
1920 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
1921 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
1922
1923 record btrace pt
1924 record pt
1925 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
1926
1927 maint info btrace
1928 Print information about branch tracing internals.
1929
1930 maint btrace packet-history
1931 Print the raw branch tracing data.
1932
1933 maint btrace clear-packet-history
1934 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
1935
1936 maint btrace clear
1937 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
1938 anew by the next "record" command.
1939
1940 * New options
1941
1942 set debug dwarf-die
1943 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
1944 show debug dwarf-die
1945 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
1946
1947 set debug dwarf-read
1948 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
1949 show debug dwarf-read
1950 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
1951
1952 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
1953 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1954 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
1955 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1956
1957 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
1958 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1959 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
1960 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1961
1962 set debug dwarf-line
1963 show debug dwarf-line
1964 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
1965
1966 set max-completions
1967 show max-completions
1968 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
1969 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
1970 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
1971 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
1972
1973 set history remove-duplicates
1974 show history remove-duplicates
1975 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1976
1977 maint set symbol-cache-size
1978 maint show symbol-cache-size
1979 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1980
1981 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1982 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1983 BTS format.
1984 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1985 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1986
1987 set debug linux-namespaces
1988 show debug linux-namespaces
1989 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1990
1991 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1992 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1993 Intel Processor Trace format.
1994 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1995 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1996
1997 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1998 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1999 packet history.
2000
2001 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
2002 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
2003
2004 * Python/Guile scripting
2005
2006 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
2007 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
2008
2009 * New remote packets
2010
2011 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
2012 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
2013
2014 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
2015 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
2016
2017 Qbtrace:pt
2018 Enable Intel Processor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
2019 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
2020 qSupported query.
2021
2022 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
2023 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
2024 Trace format.
2025
2026 swbreak stop reason
2027 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
2028 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
2029 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
2030 mode operation.
2031
2032 hwbreak stop reason
2033 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
2034 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
2035
2036 vFile:fstat:
2037 Return information about files on the remote system.
2038
2039 qXfer:exec-file:read
2040 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
2041 create a process running on the remote system.
2042
2043 vFile:setfs:
2044 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
2045 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
2046 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
2047 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
2048
2049 fork stop reason
2050 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
2051
2052 vfork stop reason
2053 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
2054
2055 vforkdone stop reason
2056 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
2057 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
2058
2059 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
2060 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
2061 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
2062 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
2063 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
2064 whether these features are enabled.
2065
2066 * Extended-remote fork events
2067
2068 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
2069 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
2070 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
2071 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
2072
2073 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
2074 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
2075 the btrace record target.
2076 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
2077
2078 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
2079 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
2080
2081 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
2082 targets.
2083
2084 * Removed command line options
2085
2086 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
2087
2088 * Removed targets and native configurations
2089
2090 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
2091 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
2092
2093 * New configure options
2094
2095 --with-intel-pt
2096 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
2097 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
2098
2099 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
2100 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
2101 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
2102 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
2103
2104 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
2105
2106 * Python Scripting
2107
2108 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
2109
2110 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
2111
2112 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
2113
2114 * Python Scripting
2115
2116 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
2117 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
2118 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
2119 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
2120 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
2121 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
2122 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
2123 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
2124 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
2125 selecting a new file to debug.
2126 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
2127 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
2128
2129 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
2130 inferior.
2131
2132 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
2133 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
2134 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
2135 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
2136
2137 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2138
2139 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2140 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2141 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2142 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2143
2144 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
2145 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
2146 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
2147 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
2148 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
2149 interface with this new feature are:
2150
2151 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
2152 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
2153
2154 * New commands
2155
2156 demangle [-l language] [--] name
2157 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
2158 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
2159 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
2160 as "maint demangler-warning".
2161
2162 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
2163 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
2164
2165 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
2166 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
2167 scripts.
2168
2169 maint print user-registers
2170 List all currently available "user" registers.
2171
2172 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
2173 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
2174 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
2175
2176 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
2177 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
2178 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
2179 provided.
2180
2181 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
2182 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
2183 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
2184 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
2185 at resume time.
2186
2187 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
2188 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
2189 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
2190 switched threads meanwhile.
2191
2192 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
2193
2194 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
2195 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
2196 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
2197 is now the default mode.
2198
2199 * New options
2200
2201 set debug symbol-lookup
2202 show debug symbol-lookup
2203 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
2204
2205 * MI changes
2206
2207 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
2208 inferiors that have exited.
2209
2210 * New targets
2211
2212 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
2213
2214 * Removed targets
2215
2216 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2217
2218 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
2219 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
2220 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
2221 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
2222 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
2223
2224 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2225 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2226 its alias "share", instead.
2227
2228 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
2229
2230 * New command line options
2231
2232 -D data-directory
2233 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
2234
2235 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
2236 as specified in ISO C99.
2237
2238 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
2239 with or without disassembly.
2240
2241 * Guile scripting
2242
2243 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
2244 available is determined at configure time.
2245 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
2246 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
2247
2248 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2249
2250 guile [code]
2251 gu [code]
2252 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
2253
2254 guile-repl
2255 gr
2256 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
2257
2258 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
2259 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
2260
2261 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
2262 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
2263
2264 * New options
2265
2266 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
2267 show print symbol-loading
2268 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
2269 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
2270 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
2271 becomes less useful.
2272
2273 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
2274 show guile print-stack
2275 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
2276
2277 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
2278 show auto-load guile-scripts
2279 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
2280
2281 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
2282 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
2283 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
2284 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
2285 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
2286 usage of this option.
2287
2288 set auto-connect-native-target
2289
2290 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
2291 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
2292 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
2293
2294 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
2295 show record btrace replay-memory-access
2296 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
2297
2298 maint set target-async (on|off)
2299 maint show target-async
2300 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
2301 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
2302 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
2303 occurring only in synchronous mode.
2304
2305 set mi-async (on|off)
2306 show mi-async
2307 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
2308 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
2309
2310 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
2311 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
2312
2313 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
2314 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
2315 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
2316 "set target-async on" command.
2317
2318 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2319
2320 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
2321 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
2322 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
2323 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
2324 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
2325
2326 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
2327 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
2328 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
2329
2330 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
2331 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
2332 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
2333 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
2334 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
2335 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
2336 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
2337
2338 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
2339 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
2340
2341 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
2342 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
2343 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
2344
2345 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
2346 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
2347 memory or registers.
2348
2349 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
2350
2351 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
2352 remote. It now works with all targets.
2353
2354 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
2355 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
2356 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
2357 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
2358 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
2359 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
2360 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
2361 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
2362 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
2363 target-stack".
2364
2365 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
2366 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
2367 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
2368
2369 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
2370
2371 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
2372 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
2373 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
2374
2375 * New remote packets
2376
2377 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
2378 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
2379 branch trace incrementally.
2380
2381 * Python Scripting
2382
2383 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
2384 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
2385 available.
2386 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
2387 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
2388 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
2389 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
2390 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
2391
2392 * New targets
2393 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
2394
2395 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2396 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2397 its alias "share", instead.
2398
2399 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
2400 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
2401 instead.
2402
2403 * MI changes
2404
2405 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
2406 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
2407 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
2408 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
2409 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
2410 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
2411 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
2412 commands and CLI execution commands.
2413
2414 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
2415
2416 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
2417 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
2418 recording has been added.
2419
2420 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2421
2422 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
2423 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
2424
2425 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
2426 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
2427 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
2428 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
2429 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
2430 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
2431 "void".
2432
2433 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
2434
2435 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
2436
2437 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
2438 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
2439 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
2440 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
2441
2442 (gdb) p $rax
2443 $1 = <not saved>
2444
2445 (gdb) info registers rax
2446 rax <not saved>
2447
2448 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
2449 "*value not available*".
2450
2451 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
2452 to binaries.
2453
2454 * Python scripting
2455
2456 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
2457 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
2458 ** Line tables representation has been added.
2459 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
2460 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
2461 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
2462
2463 * New targets
2464
2465 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
2466 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
2467 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
2468
2469 * Removed native configurations
2470
2471 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
2472 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
2473
2474 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2475 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2476 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
2477 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
2478 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2479 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2480 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2481
2482 * New commands:
2483 catch rethrow
2484 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
2485 maint check-psymtabs
2486 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
2487 maint check-symtabs
2488 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
2489 maint expand-symtabs
2490 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
2491
2492 show configuration
2493 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2494
2495 maint set|show per-command
2496 maint set|show per-command space
2497 maint set|show per-command time
2498 maint set|show per-command symtab
2499 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
2500
2501 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
2502 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
2503 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
2504 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
2505 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
2506
2507 info exceptions
2508 info exceptions REGEXP
2509 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
2510 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
2511 are listed.
2512
2513 * New options
2514
2515 set debug symfile off|on
2516 show debug symfile
2517 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
2518 symbol tables within those files
2519
2520 set print raw frame-arguments
2521 show print raw frame-arguments
2522 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
2523 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
2524
2525 set remote trace-status-packet
2526 show remote trace-status-packet
2527 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
2528
2529 set debug nios2
2530 show debug nios2
2531 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
2532
2533 set range-stepping
2534 show range-stepping
2535 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
2536
2537 set startup-with-shell
2538 show startup-with-shell
2539 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
2540 directly.
2541
2542 set code-cache
2543 show code-cache
2544 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
2545 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
2546
2547 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
2548 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
2549 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
2550 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
2551 "set height 0".
2552
2553 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
2554 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
2555 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
2556
2557 * New command-line options
2558 --configuration
2559 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2560
2561 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
2562 buffer in Common Trace Format.
2563
2564 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
2565 GDB command gcore.
2566
2567 * GDB now implements the C++ 'typeid' operator.
2568
2569 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
2570 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
2571
2572 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
2573 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
2574
2575 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
2576 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
2577 due to an uncaught signal.
2578
2579 * MI changes
2580
2581 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
2582 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
2583 command, which should contain "language-option".
2584
2585 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
2586 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
2587
2588 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
2589 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
2590 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
2591 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2592 "undefined-command-error-code".
2593
2594 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
2595 Trace Format now.
2596
2597 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
2598
2599 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
2600 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
2601 are displayed.
2602
2603 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
2604 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
2605
2606 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
2607 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
2608 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
2609
2610 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
2611 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
2612 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
2613 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
2614 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2615 "exec-run-start-option".
2616
2617 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
2618 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
2619
2620 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
2621 the new "info exceptions" command.
2622
2623 * New system-wide configuration scripts
2624 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
2625 configuration scripts for the following systems:
2626 ** ElinOS
2627 ** Wind River Linux
2628
2629 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
2630 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
2631 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
2632 below.
2633
2634 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
2635 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
2636
2637 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
2638 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
2639 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
2640
2641 * New remote packets
2642
2643 vCont;r
2644
2645 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
2646 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
2647 involvemement at each single-step.
2648
2649 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
2650 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
2651 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
2652 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
2653 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
2654 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
2655 speedup.
2656
2657 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2658
2659 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
2660 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
2661
2662 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
2663 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
2664 trace state variables.
2665
2666 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
2667 target.
2668
2669 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
2670 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
2671
2672 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
2673
2674 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
2675 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
2676 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
2677 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2678
2679 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
2680
2681 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
2682 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
2683 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
2684 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
2685
2686 set|show record full insn-number-max
2687 set|show record full stop-at-limit
2688 set|show record full memory-query
2689
2690 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
2691 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
2692 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
2693 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
2694 This new recording method can be enabled using:
2695
2696 record btrace
2697
2698 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
2699 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
2700
2701 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
2702 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
2703 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
2704
2705 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
2706 instruction granularity
2707
2708 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
2709 function granularity
2710
2711 * New native configurations
2712
2713 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
2714 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
2715 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2716 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2717
2718 * New targets
2719
2720 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2721 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2722 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2723 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2724 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2725
2726 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2727 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2728 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2729 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2730 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2731 --data-directory command-line option.
2732
2733 * New command line options:
2734
2735 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2736 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2737
2738 * Removed command line options
2739
2740 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2741 Emacs.
2742
2743 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2744 type formatting.
2745
2746 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2747
2748 * Python scripting
2749
2750 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2751
2752 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2753
2754 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2755
2756 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2757
2758 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2759 of architecture in the Python API.
2760
2761 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2762 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2763
2764 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2765
2766 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2767 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2768 ** $_strlen(str)
2769 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2770
2771 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2772 given an argument.
2773
2774 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2775 default for GCC since November 2000.
2776
2777 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2778
2779 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2780 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2781
2782 * New configure options
2783
2784 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2785 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2786 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2787 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2788 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2789 options allow the user to override that default.
2790 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2791 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2792 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2793
2794 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2795
2796 catch signal
2797 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2798 conditions to be attached.
2799
2800 maint info bfds
2801 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2802
2803 python-interactive [command]
2804 pi [command]
2805 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2806 and print the result of expressions.
2807
2808 py [command]
2809 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2810
2811 enable type-printer [name]...
2812 disable type-printer [name]...
2813 Enable or disable type printers.
2814
2815 * Removed commands
2816
2817 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2818 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2819 instead.
2820
2821 * New options
2822
2823 set print type methods (on|off)
2824 show print type methods
2825 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2826 The default is to show them.
2827
2828 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2829 show print type typedefs
2830 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2831 The default is to show them.
2832
2833 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2834 show filename-display
2835 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2836 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
2837
2838 set trace-buffer-size
2839 show trace-buffer-size
2840 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
2841
2842 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
2843 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
2844 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
2845
2846 set debug aarch64
2847 show debug aarch64
2848 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
2849 The default is off.
2850
2851 set debug coff-pe-read
2852 show debug coff-pe-read
2853 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
2854 exported symbols.
2855
2856 set debug mach-o
2857 show debug mach-o
2858 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
2859 processing.
2860
2861 set debug notification
2862 show debug notification
2863 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
2864
2865 * MI changes
2866
2867 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
2868 "=cmd-param-changed".
2869 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
2870 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
2871 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
2872 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
2873 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
2874 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
2875 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
2876 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
2877 "=memory-changed".
2878 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
2879 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
2880 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
2881 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
2882 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
2883 library load/unload events.
2884 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
2885 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
2886 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
2887 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
2888 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
2889 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
2890 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
2891 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
2892
2893 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
2894 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
2895 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
2896 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
2897
2898 * New remote packets
2899
2900 QTBuffer:size
2901 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
2902 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2903
2904 Qbtrace:bts
2905 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
2906 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
2907 qSupported query.
2908
2909 Qbtrace:off
2910 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
2911 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2912
2913 qXfer:btrace:read
2914 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
2915 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2916
2917 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
2918
2919 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
2920 for more x32 ABI info.
2921
2922 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
2923
2924 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
2925
2926 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2927 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
2928 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
2929 "info os files" lists file descriptors
2930 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
2931 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
2932 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
2933 "info os msg" lists message queues
2934 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
2935
2936 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
2937 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
2938 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
2939 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
2940 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
2941 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
2942
2943 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
2944 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
2945 record/replay support.
2946
2947 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
2948
2949 * Python scripting
2950
2951 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
2952 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
2953
2954 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
2955
2956 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
2957 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
2958
2959 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
2960
2961 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
2962 the source at which the symbol was defined.
2963
2964 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
2965 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
2966 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
2967 symbol's value.
2968
2969 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
2970 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
2971
2972 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2973 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2974 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2975
2976 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2977 object associated with a PC value.
2978
2979 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2980 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2981
2982 * Go language support.
2983 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2984 language.
2985
2986 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2987 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2988
2989 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2990 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2991
2992 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2993 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2994 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2995 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2996 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2997 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
2998
2999 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
3000 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
3001 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
3002 build/libcpp/expr.c.
3003
3004 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
3005 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
3006
3007 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
3008 since December 2007.
3009
3010 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
3011 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
3012 command does. For instance:
3013
3014 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
3015
3016 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
3017 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
3018 created, using the "condition" command.
3019
3020 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
3021 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
3022
3023 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
3024
3025 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
3026 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
3027 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
3028 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
3029 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
3030 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
3031 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
3032 files with older .gdb_index sections.
3033
3034 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
3035 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
3036 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
3037 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
3038 the .gdb_index section.
3039
3040 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
3041
3042 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
3043 target.
3044
3045 * MI changes
3046
3047 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
3048
3049 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
3050
3051 * New commands
3052
3053 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
3054 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
3055 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
3056
3057 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
3058 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
3059
3060 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
3061 several hits.
3062
3063 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
3064 C++ and Java objects.
3065
3066 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
3067 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
3068 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
3069 configured with '--with-python'.
3070
3071 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
3072 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
3073 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
3074 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
3075 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
3076 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
3077 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
3078
3079 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
3080 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
3081 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
3082 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
3083
3084 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
3085 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
3086 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
3087 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
3088
3089 ** "set print symbol"
3090 "show print symbol"
3091 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
3092 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
3093 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
3094
3095 * Deprecated commands
3096
3097 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
3098 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
3099
3100 * New targets
3101
3102 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3103 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
3104
3105 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
3106 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
3107 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
3108 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
3109 evaluates to true.
3110
3111 * New options
3112
3113 set mips compression
3114 show mips compression
3115 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
3116 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
3117 mips16
3118 micromips
3119 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
3120
3121 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
3122 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
3123 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
3124 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
3125 available mode.
3126 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
3127 target.
3128
3129 set auto-load off
3130 Disable auto-loading globally.
3131
3132 show auto-load
3133 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
3134
3135 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
3136 show auto-load gdb-scripts
3137 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
3138
3139 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
3140 show auto-load python-scripts
3141 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
3142
3143 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
3144 show auto-load local-gdbinit
3145 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
3146
3147 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
3148 show auto-load libthread-db
3149 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
3150
3151 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3152 show auto-load scripts-directory
3153 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
3154 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
3155 of the directories listed by this option.
3156 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3157
3158 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3159 show auto-load safe-path
3160 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
3161 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3162
3163 set debug auto-load on|off
3164 show debug auto-load
3165 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
3166
3167 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
3168 show dprintf-style
3169 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
3170 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
3171 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
3172 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
3173
3174 set dprintf-function <expr>
3175 show dprintf-function
3176 set dprintf-channel <expr>
3177 show dprintf-channel
3178 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
3179 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
3180
3181 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
3182 show disconnected-dprintf
3183 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
3184 after GDB disconnects.
3185
3186 * New configure options
3187
3188 --with-auto-load-dir
3189 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
3190 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
3191 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
3192 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
3193 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
3194
3195 --with-auto-load-safe-path
3196 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
3197 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
3198
3199 --without-auto-load-safe-path
3200 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
3201 security feature.
3202
3203 * New remote packets
3204
3205 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
3206
3207 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
3208 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
3209 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
3210 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
3211
3212 QProgramSignals:
3213
3214 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
3215 program without GDB involvement.
3216
3217 * New command line options
3218
3219 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
3220 before loading inferior.
3221 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
3222 execute it before loading inferior.
3223
3224 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
3225
3226 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
3227 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
3228 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
3229 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
3230 inferior changes.
3231
3232 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
3233 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
3234
3235 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
3236 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
3237 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
3238 target hardware watchpoint.
3239
3240 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
3241 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
3242 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
3243 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
3244
3245 * Python scripting
3246
3247 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
3248 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
3249 existing one.
3250
3251 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
3252 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
3253 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
3254 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
3255 now "message", which just prints the error message without
3256 the stack trace.
3257
3258 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3259 Python API.
3260
3261 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
3262 modules library. This module provides functionality for
3263 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
3264 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
3265 corresponding value.
3266
3267 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
3268 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
3269 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
3270 on GDB start-up.
3271
3272 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
3273 static_block will return the global and static blocks
3274 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
3275 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
3276
3277 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
3278
3279 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
3280 "gdb.breakpoints".
3281
3282 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
3283 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
3284 available in the CLI.
3285
3286 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
3287 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
3288 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
3289 "some_type.items()".
3290
3291 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
3292 new object file.
3293
3294 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
3295 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
3296 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
3297 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
3298 any anonymous fields.
3299
3300 * MI changes
3301
3302 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
3303 "solib-event".
3304
3305 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
3306 "=breakpoint-modified".
3307
3308 ** New command -ada-task-info.
3309
3310 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
3311 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
3312 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
3313 lives.
3314
3315 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
3316 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
3317 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
3318 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
3319 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
3320
3321 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
3322 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
3323
3324 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
3325 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
3326 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
3327 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
3328 use this option to specify where to find it.
3329
3330 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3331 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
3332 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
3333 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
3334 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
3335 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3336 section in the user manual for more details.
3337
3338 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
3339 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
3340 become available after that.
3341
3342 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
3343
3344 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
3345 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
3346 gcc version 4.7.
3347
3348 * New commands
3349
3350 !SHELL COMMAND
3351 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
3352 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
3353
3354 * Changed commands
3355
3356 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
3357 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
3358 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
3359
3360 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
3361 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
3362 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
3363
3364 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
3365 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
3366 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
3367 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
3368 name starts with a hyphen.
3369
3370 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
3371 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
3372 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
3373 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
3374 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
3375 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
3376 number of bytes that will be collected.
3377
3378 tstart [NOTES]
3379 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
3380 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
3381 setting the variable trace-notes.
3382
3383 tstop [NOTES]
3384 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
3385 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
3386 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
3387 trace-stop-notes.
3388
3389 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
3390 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
3391 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
3392 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
3393 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
3394 is running.
3395
3396 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
3397 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
3398 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
3399
3400 * New options
3401
3402 set debug dwarf2-read
3403 show debug dwarf2-read
3404 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
3405 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
3406
3407 set debug symtab-create
3408 show debug symtab-create
3409 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
3410 creation. The default is off.
3411
3412 set extended-prompt
3413 show extended-prompt
3414 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
3415 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
3416 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
3417 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
3418 prompt is displayed.
3419
3420 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
3421 show print entry-values
3422 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
3423 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
3424 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
3425
3426 set debug entry-values
3427 show debug entry-values
3428 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
3429 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
3430
3431 set basenames-may-differ
3432 show basenames-may-differ
3433 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
3434 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
3435 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
3436 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
3437 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
3438 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
3439 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
3440 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
3441
3442 set trace-user
3443 show trace-user
3444 set trace-notes
3445 show trace-notes
3446 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
3447 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
3448 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
3449 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
3450
3451 set trace-stop-notes
3452 show trace-stop-notes
3453 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
3454 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
3455 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
3456 started by someone else.
3457
3458 * New remote packets
3459
3460 QTEnable
3461
3462 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3463
3464 QTDisable
3465
3466 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3467
3468 QTNotes
3469
3470 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
3471
3472 qTP
3473
3474 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
3475
3476 qTMinFTPILen
3477
3478 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
3479 be placed.
3480
3481 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
3482 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
3483
3484 * New targets
3485
3486 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
3487
3488 * New Simulators
3489
3490 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3491
3492 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
3493
3494 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
3495
3496 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
3497
3498 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
3499 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
3500 matches the given regular expression.
3501
3502 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
3503
3504 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
3505 dumping the instruction opcodes.
3506
3507 * New command line options
3508
3509 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
3510 This is mostly for testing purposes.
3511
3512 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
3513 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
3514
3515 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
3516 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
3517 source path list instead of augmenting it.
3518
3519 * GDB now understands thread names.
3520
3521 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
3522 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
3523
3524 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
3525 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
3526
3527 * OpenCL C
3528 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
3529 has been integrated into GDB.
3530
3531 * Python scripting
3532
3533 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
3534 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
3535 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
3536
3537 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3538 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
3539 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
3540 and allows for more dynamic content.
3541
3542 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
3543 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
3544 have an is_valid method.
3545
3546 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3547 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
3548 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
3549
3550 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
3551
3552 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
3553 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
3554 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
3555 that function like so:
3556
3557 result = some_value (10,20)
3558
3559 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
3560 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
3561 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
3562
3563 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
3564 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
3565 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
3566 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
3567 New function: register_pretty_printer.
3568
3569 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
3570 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
3571
3572 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
3573
3574 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
3575 selected thread.
3576
3577 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
3578 holds the thread's name.
3579
3580 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
3581 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
3582 occurring in the process being debugged.
3583 The following events are currently supported:
3584 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
3585 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
3586 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
3587
3588 * C++ Improvements:
3589
3590 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
3591 instantiation. For example, if you have:
3592
3593 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
3594
3595 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
3596 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
3597 was added to GCC 4.5.
3598
3599 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
3600 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
3601 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
3602 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
3603 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
3604 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
3605
3606 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
3607 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
3608 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
3609 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
3610 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
3611
3612 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
3613 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
3614 execution to a label.
3615
3616 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
3617 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
3618 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
3619 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
3620
3621 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
3622 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
3623 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
3624 of scope.
3625
3626 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
3627
3628 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
3629 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
3630 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
3631 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
3632 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
3633 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
3634
3635 (gdb) info threads
3636 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
3637
3638 While now you see this:
3639
3640 (gdb) info threads
3641 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
3642
3643 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
3644 dumps.
3645
3646 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
3647 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
3648 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
3649 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
3650
3651 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3652 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
3653 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
3654 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3655 section in the user manual for more details.
3656
3657 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3658
3659 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
3660 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
3661
3662 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
3663
3664 * New native configurations
3665
3666 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3667
3668 * New targets:
3669
3670 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
3671
3672 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
3673 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
3674 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
3675 in the GDB user manual.
3676
3677 * Guile support was removed.
3678
3679 * New features in the GNU simulator
3680
3681 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
3682
3683 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
3684
3685 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
3686
3687 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
3688
3689 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
3690 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
3691 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
3692 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
3693 was always disabled for such configurations.
3694
3695 * C++ Improvements:
3696
3697 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
3698
3699 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
3700 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
3701 For example:
3702 namespace A
3703 {
3704 class B { };
3705 void foo (B) { }
3706 }
3707 ...
3708 A::B b
3709 foo(b)
3710 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
3711 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
3712 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
3713
3714 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
3715
3716 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
3717 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
3718 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
3719 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3720 entry.
3721 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3722 mentioned flavors of operators.
3723
3724 ** static const class members
3725
3726 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3727 class definition has been fixed.
3728
3729 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3730
3731 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3732 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3733 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3734 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3735 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3736 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3737
3738 * Static tracepoints
3739
3740 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3741 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3742 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3743 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3744 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3745 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3746 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3747 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3748 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3749 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3750 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3751 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3752 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3753 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3754 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3755 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3756 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3757 the "New remote packets" section below.
3758
3759 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3760
3761 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3762 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3763 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3764 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3765
3766 * Observer mode
3767
3768 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3769 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3770 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3771 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3772 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3773 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3774 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3775
3776 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3777 current thread.
3778
3779 * New remote packets
3780
3781 qGetTIBAddr
3782
3783 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3784
3785 qRelocInsn
3786
3787 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3788 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3789 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3790 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3791 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3792 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3793
3794 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
3795
3796 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3797
3798 qTSTMat
3799
3800 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3801 program.
3802
3803 qXfer:statictrace:read
3804
3805 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3806 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3807 to gdb's qSupported query.
3808
3809 QAllow
3810
3811 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3812
3813 QTDPsrc
3814
3815 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3816 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3817
3818 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3819 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3820 a directory.
3821
3822 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3823
3824 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3825 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3826 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3827 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3828
3829 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3830 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3831 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3832 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3833 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3834 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3835 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3836
3837 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
3838 for static tracepoints support.
3839
3840 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
3841
3842 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
3843 it understands register description.
3844
3845 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
3846
3847 * X86 general purpose registers
3848
3849 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
3850 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
3851 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
3852 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
3853 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
3854
3855 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
3856 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
3857 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
3858 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
3859 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
3860 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
3861
3862 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
3863 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
3864 in the specified file.
3865
3866 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
3867 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
3868 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
3869 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
3870 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
3871 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
3872 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
3873 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
3874 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
3875 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
3876
3877 * New commands
3878
3879 eval template, expressions...
3880 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
3881 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
3882
3883 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
3884 show target-file-system-kind
3885 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
3886 names.
3887
3888 save breakpoints <filename>
3889 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
3890 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
3891 definitions, use the `source' command.
3892
3893 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
3894 is now deprecated.
3895
3896 info static-tracepoint-markers
3897 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
3898
3899 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
3900 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
3901 function, line, address, or marker ID.
3902
3903 set observer on|off
3904 show observer
3905 Enable and disable observer mode.
3906
3907 set may-write-registers on|off
3908 set may-write-memory on|off
3909 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
3910 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
3911 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
3912 set may-interrupt on|off
3913 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
3914 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
3915 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
3916 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
3917 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
3918 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
3919 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
3920
3921 set record memory-query on|off
3922 show record memory-query
3923 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
3924 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
3925
3926 * Changed commands
3927
3928 disassemble
3929 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
3930
3931 * Python scripting
3932
3933 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
3934 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
3935 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
3936 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
3937 GDB using Python' in the manual.
3938
3939 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
3940 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
3941 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
3942 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
3943
3944 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
3945 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
3946
3947 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
3948
3949 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
3950
3951 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
3952
3953 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
3954 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
3955 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
3956
3957 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
3958 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
3959 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
3960 regular breakpoints.
3961
3962 * New targets
3963
3964 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
3965
3966 * D language support.
3967 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
3968 language.
3969
3970 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
3971 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
3972 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3973 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3974 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3975
3976 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3977 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3978 conditions of the form:
3979
3980 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3981
3982 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3983 interface mentioned above.
3984
3985 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
3986
3987 * C++ Improvements
3988
3989 ** Namespace Support
3990
3991 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3992 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3993 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3994 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3995 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3996
3997 ** Bug Fixes
3998
3999 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
4000 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
4001 qualified name.
4002
4003 ** Cast Operators
4004
4005 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
4006 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
4007
4008 * New targets
4009
4010 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
4011 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
4012
4013 * New Simulators
4014
4015 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
4016 Renesas RX rx
4017
4018 * Multi-program debugging.
4019
4020 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
4021 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
4022 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
4023 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
4024 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
4025 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
4026 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
4027 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
4028
4029 * New tracing features
4030
4031 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
4032
4033 ** Trace state variables
4034
4035 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
4036 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
4037 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
4038 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
4039 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
4040 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
4041 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
4042 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
4043 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
4044 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
4045
4046 ** Fast tracepoints
4047
4048 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
4049 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
4050 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
4051 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
4052 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
4053 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
4054 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
4055 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
4056 the regular trace command.
4057
4058 ** Disconnected tracing
4059
4060 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
4061 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
4062 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
4063 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
4064 connection is lost unexpectedly.
4065
4066 ** Trace files
4067
4068 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
4069 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
4070 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
4071 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
4072 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
4073 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
4074 <name>".
4075
4076 ** Circular trace buffer
4077
4078 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
4079 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
4080 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
4081 not be available for all target agents.
4082
4083 * Changed commands
4084
4085 disassemble
4086 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
4087 the arguments to be comma-separated.
4088
4089 info variables
4090 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
4091 which only declare a variable are not shown.
4092
4093 source
4094 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
4095 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
4096 support.
4097
4098 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
4099 "set script-extension" (see below).
4100
4101 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4102
4103 record save [<FILENAME>]
4104 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
4105 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
4106
4107 record restore <FILENAME>
4108 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
4109 earlier time, for replay debugging.
4110
4111 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
4112 Add a new inferior.
4113
4114 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
4115 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
4116 inferior has loaded.
4117
4118 remove-inferior ID
4119 Remove an inferior.
4120
4121 maint info program-spaces
4122 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
4123
4124 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
4125 show remote interrupt-sequence
4126 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
4127 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
4128 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
4129 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
4130 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
4131
4132 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
4133 show remote interrupt-on-connect
4134 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
4135 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
4136 Linux kernel.
4137
4138 set remotebreak [on | off]
4139 show remotebreak
4140 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
4141
4142 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
4143 Create or modify a trace state variable.
4144
4145 info tvariables
4146 List trace state variables and their values.
4147
4148 delete tvariable $NAME ...
4149 Delete one or more trace state variables.
4150
4151 teval EXPR, ...
4152 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
4153 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
4154
4155 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
4156 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
4157
4158 * New expression syntax
4159
4160 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
4161 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
4162
4163 * New options
4164
4165 set follow-exec-mode new|same
4166 show follow-exec-mode
4167 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
4168 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
4169 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
4170
4171 set default-collect EXPR, ...
4172 show default-collect
4173 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
4174 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
4175 such as registers or a critical global variable.
4176
4177 set disconnected-tracing
4178 show disconnected-tracing
4179 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
4180 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
4181 upon disconnection.
4182
4183 set circular-trace-buffer
4184 show circular-trace-buffer
4185 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
4186 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
4187 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
4188 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
4189
4190 set script-extension off|soft|strict
4191 show script-extension
4192 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
4193 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
4194 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
4195 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
4196 evaluation failed.
4197 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
4198
4199 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
4200 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
4201 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
4202 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
4203 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
4204 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
4205 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
4206 is on.
4207
4208 * Python API Improvements
4209
4210 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
4211 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
4212 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
4213
4214 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
4215 `is_base_class' attribute.
4216
4217 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
4218
4219 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
4220 evaluate an expression.
4221
4222 * New remote packets
4223
4224 QTDV
4225 Define a trace state variable.
4226
4227 qTV
4228 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
4229
4230 QTDisconnected
4231 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
4232
4233 QTBuffer:circular
4234 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
4235
4236 qTfP, qTsP
4237 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
4238
4239 * Bug fixes
4240
4241 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
4242
4243 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
4244 much more reliable. In particular:
4245 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
4246 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
4247 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
4248 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
4249 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
4250 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
4251 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
4252 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
4253 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
4254 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
4255 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
4256 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
4257 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
4258 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
4259 non-threaded programs.
4260
4261 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
4262 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
4263 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
4264 executable program.
4265
4266 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
4267
4268 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
4269 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
4270 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
4271 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
4272 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
4273
4274 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
4275 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
4276 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
4277 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
4278 for tracepoint actions.
4279
4280 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
4281 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
4282 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
4283
4284 * Process record and replay
4285
4286 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
4287 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
4288 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
4289 execute commands.
4290
4291 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
4292 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
4293 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
4294 reverse execution.
4295
4296 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
4297 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
4298 2.6.28 or later.
4299
4300 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
4301 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
4302 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
4303 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
4304 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
4305 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
4306 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
4307 the installation instructions for more information.
4308
4309 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
4310 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
4311 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
4312 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
4313
4314 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
4315 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
4316
4317 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
4318 now complete on file names.
4319
4320 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
4321 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
4322 For instance, consider:
4323
4324 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
4325 # struct example variable;
4326 (gdb) p variable.
4327
4328 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
4329 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
4330
4331 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
4332 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
4333
4334 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
4335 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
4336 macros.
4337
4338 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
4339 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
4340 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
4341
4342 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
4343 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
4344 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
4345 and simulator targets may also provide them.
4346
4347 * New remote packets
4348
4349 qSearch:memory:
4350 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4351
4352 QStartNoAckMode
4353 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
4354 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
4355 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
4356
4357 vKill
4358 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
4359 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
4360
4361 qXfer:osdata:read
4362 Obtains additional operating system information
4363
4364 qXfer:siginfo:read
4365 qXfer:siginfo:write
4366 Read or write additional signal information.
4367
4368 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
4369
4370 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
4371 packet that permitted the stub to pass a process id was removed.
4372 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
4373
4374 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
4375 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
4376
4377 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
4378 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
4379 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
4380
4381 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
4382 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
4383
4384 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
4385
4386 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
4387
4388 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
4389 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
4390
4391 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote protocol packet now allows passing a
4392 list of section offsets.
4393
4394 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
4395 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
4396 have also been fixed.
4397
4398 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
4399 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
4400 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
4401
4402 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
4403 example, given:
4404
4405 template<typename T> class C { };
4406 C<char const *> c;
4407
4408 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
4409
4410 ptype C<char const *>
4411 ptype C<char const*>
4412 ptype C<const char *>
4413 ptype C<const char*>
4414
4415 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
4416
4417 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
4418 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4419
4420 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
4421 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4422 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
4423
4424 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
4425 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
4426
4427 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
4428 gdbserver.
4429
4430 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
4431 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4432
4433 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
4434 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
4435 as appropriate.
4436
4437 * Python scripting
4438
4439 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
4440 available is determined at configure time.
4441
4442 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
4443
4444 * Ada tasking support
4445
4446 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
4447 been introduced:
4448
4449 info tasks
4450 Print the list of Ada tasks.
4451 info task N
4452 Print detailed information about task number N.
4453 task
4454 Print the task number of the current task.
4455 task N
4456 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
4457
4458 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
4459 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
4460
4461 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
4462
4463 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
4464 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
4465 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
4466 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
4467 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
4468 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
4469 below.
4470
4471 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
4472 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
4473 information.
4474
4475 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
4476 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
4477 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
4478 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
4479 more information.
4480
4481 * Multi-architecture debugging.
4482
4483 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
4484 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
4485 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
4486 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
4487 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
4488
4489 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
4490 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
4491 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
4492 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
4493 --enable-targets configure option.
4494
4495 * Non-stop mode debugging.
4496
4497 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
4498 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
4499 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
4500 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
4501 section in the user manual for more information.
4502
4503 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
4504 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
4505 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
4506 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
4507 extensions on linux targets.
4508
4509 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4510
4511 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
4512 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
4513 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
4514 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
4515 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
4516 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
4517 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
4518 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
4519 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
4520
4521 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
4522 val1 [, val2, ...]
4523 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4524
4525 maint set python print-stack
4526 maint show python print-stack
4527 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
4528
4529 python [CODE]
4530 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
4531
4532 macro define
4533 macro list
4534 macro undef
4535 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
4536 interactively.
4537
4538 info os processes
4539 Show operating system information about processes.
4540
4541 info inferiors
4542 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
4543
4544 inferior NUM
4545 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
4546
4547 detach inferior NUM
4548 Detach from inferior number NUM.
4549
4550 kill inferior NUM
4551 Kill inferior number NUM.
4552
4553 * New options
4554
4555 set spu stop-on-load
4556 show spu stop-on-load
4557 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4558
4559 set spu auto-flush-cache
4560 show spu auto-flush-cache
4561 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
4562 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4563
4564 set sh calling-convention
4565 show sh calling-convention
4566 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
4567
4568 set debug timestamp
4569 show debug timestamp
4570 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
4571
4572 set disassemble-next-line
4573 show disassemble-next-line
4574 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
4575 the debuggee stops.
4576
4577 set remote noack-packet
4578 show remote noack-packet
4579 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
4580 under "New remote packets."
4581
4582 set remote query-attached-packet
4583 show remote query-attached-packet
4584 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
4585
4586 set remote read-siginfo-object
4587 show remote read-siginfo-object
4588 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
4589 packet.
4590
4591 set remote write-siginfo-object
4592 show remote write-siginfo-object
4593 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
4594 packet.
4595
4596 set remote reverse-continue
4597 show remote reverse-continue
4598 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
4599
4600 set remote reverse-step
4601 show remote reverse-step
4602 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
4603
4604 set displaced-stepping
4605 show displaced-stepping
4606 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
4607 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
4608 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
4609
4610 set debug displaced
4611 show debug displaced
4612 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
4613
4614 maint set internal-error
4615 maint show internal-error
4616 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
4617
4618 maint set internal-warning
4619 maint show internal-warning
4620 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
4621
4622 set exec-wrapper
4623 show exec-wrapper
4624 unset exec-wrapper
4625 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4626
4627 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
4628 show multiple-symbols
4629 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
4630 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
4631 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
4632
4633 set breakpoint always-inserted
4634 show breakpoint always-inserted
4635 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
4636 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
4637 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
4638
4639 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4640 show arm fallback-mode
4641 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4642 show arm force-mode
4643 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
4644 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
4645 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
4646 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
4647
4648 set disable-randomization
4649 show disable-randomization
4650 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
4651 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
4652 multiple debugging sessions.
4653
4654 set non-stop
4655 show non-stop
4656 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
4657 a breakpoint.
4658
4659 set target-async
4660 show target-async
4661 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
4662 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
4663 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
4664 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
4665
4666 set target-wide-charset
4667 show target-wide-charset
4668 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
4669 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
4670
4671 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
4672 show tcp auto-retry
4673 set tcp connect-timeout
4674 show tcp connect-timeout
4675 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
4676 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
4677 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
4678
4679 set libthread-db-search-path
4680 show libthread-db-search-path
4681 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
4682 libthread_db.
4683
4684 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
4685 show schedule-multiple
4686 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
4687 the current process.
4688
4689 set stack-cache
4690 show stack-cache
4691 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
4692 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
4693 affecting correctness.
4694
4695 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
4696 show interactive-mode
4697 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
4698 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
4699 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
4700 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
4701 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
4702
4703 * Removed commands
4704
4705 info forks
4706 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
4707 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
4708 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
4709 command.
4710
4711 fork NUM
4712 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
4713 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
4714 alias for the `fork' command.
4715
4716 process PID
4717 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
4718 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
4719 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4720
4721 delete fork NUM
4722 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4723 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4724 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4725 fork' command.
4726
4727 detach fork NUM
4728 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4729 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4730 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4731 fork' command.
4732
4733 * New native configurations
4734
4735 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4736
4737 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4738
4739 * New targets
4740
4741 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4742 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4743 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4744 S+core 3 score-*-*
4745
4746 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4747 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4748
4749 * Removed commands
4750
4751 catch load
4752 catch unload
4753 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4754
4755 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4756
4757 * New native configurations
4758
4759 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4760 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4761
4762 * New targets
4763
4764 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4765 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4766
4767 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4768
4769 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4770 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4771 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4772 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4773
4774 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4775 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4776
4777 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4778 is resolved.
4779
4780 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4781 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4782 and in inlined functions.
4783
4784 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4785 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4786 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4787
4788 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4789
4790 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4791 registers on PowerPC targets.
4792
4793 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4794 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4795
4796 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4797 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4798
4799 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4800 extended-remote mode.
4801
4802 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4803 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4804 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4805 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4806
4807 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4808 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4809 target architectures.
4810
4811 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4812 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4813 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4814 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4815
4816 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4817 breakpoints now.
4818
4819 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4820 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4821 include:
4822 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4823 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4824 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4825 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4826 of an assignment
4827 - Improved command completion in Ada
4828 - Several bug fixes
4829
4830 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4831 process.
4832
4833 * New commands
4834
4835 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4836 show print frame-arguments
4837 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
4838 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
4839
4840 remote put
4841 remote get
4842 remote delete
4843 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4844
4845 * New MI commands
4846
4847 -target-file-put
4848 -target-file-get
4849 -target-file-delete
4850 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4851
4852 * New remote packets
4853
4854 vFile:open:
4855 vFile:close:
4856 vFile:pread:
4857 vFile:pwrite:
4858 vFile:unlink:
4859 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
4860
4861 vAttach
4862 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
4863 mode.
4864
4865 vRun
4866 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
4867
4868 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
4869
4870 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
4871 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
4872 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
4873
4874 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
4875 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
4876 -Bsymbolic linker option.
4877
4878 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
4879 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
4880 is not supported.
4881
4882 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
4883 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
4884
4885 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
4886 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
4887
4888 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
4889
4890 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
4891 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
4892 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
4893
4894 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
4895 automatically displayed as character or string data.
4896
4897 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
4898 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
4899 as strings.
4900
4901 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
4902 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
4903 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
4904
4905 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
4906 iWMMXt coprocessor.
4907
4908 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
4909 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
4910 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
4911
4912 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
4913
4914 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
4915
4916 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
4917 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
4918 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
4919
4920 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
4921 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
4922
4923 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
4924 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
4925 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
4926 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
4927 Windows and SymbianOS).
4928
4929 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
4930 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
4931
4932 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
4933 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
4934
4935 * New commands
4936
4937 set remoteflow
4938 show remoteflow
4939 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
4940 when debugging using remote targets.
4941
4942 set mem inaccessible-by-default
4943 show mem inaccessible-by-default
4944 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4945 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4946 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
4947 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
4948 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
4949
4950 set breakpoint auto-hw
4951 show breakpoint auto-hw
4952 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4953 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4954 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
4955 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
4956 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
4957 including "next" and "finish".
4958
4959 catch exception
4960 catch exception unhandled
4961 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
4962
4963 catch assert
4964 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
4965
4966 set sysroot
4967 show sysroot
4968 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
4969 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
4970 an alias to "set sysroot".
4971
4972 info spu
4973 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4974 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4975 architecture.
4976
4977 * New native configurations
4978
4979 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4980
4981 set tdesc filename
4982 unset tdesc filename
4983 show tdesc filename
4984 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4985 not query the target for its built-in description.
4986
4987 * New targets
4988
4989 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4990 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4991 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4992
4993 * New remote packets
4994
4995 QPassSignals:
4996 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4997 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4998
4999 qXfer:features:read:
5000 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
5001 features.
5002
5003 qXfer:spu:read:
5004 qXfer:spu:write:
5005 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
5006 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
5007
5008 qXfer:libraries:read:
5009 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
5010 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
5011 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
5012 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
5013
5014 * Removed targets
5015
5016 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
5017
5018 alpha*-*-osf1*
5019 alpha*-*-osf2*
5020 d10v-*-*
5021 hppa*-*-hiux*
5022 i[34567]86-ncr-*
5023 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
5024 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
5025 i[34567]86-*-netware*
5026 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
5027 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
5028 i[34567]86-*-sco*
5029 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
5030 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
5031 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
5032 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
5033 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
5034 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
5035 i[34567]86-*-isc*
5036 m68*-cisco*-*
5037 m68*-tandem-*
5038 mips*-*-pe
5039 rs6000-*-lynxos*
5040 sh*-*-pe
5041
5042 * Other removed features
5043
5044 target abug
5045 target cpu32bug
5046 target est
5047 target rom68k
5048
5049 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
5050
5051 target hms
5052 target e7000
5053 target sh3
5054 target sh3e
5055
5056 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
5057 H8/300.
5058
5059 target ocd
5060
5061 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
5062 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
5063 interfaces.
5064
5065 DWARF 1 support
5066
5067 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
5068 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
5069
5070 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
5071
5072 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
5073 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
5074 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
5075 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
5076
5077 MIPS ".pdr" sections
5078
5079 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
5080 in debugging information.
5081
5082 Scheme support
5083
5084 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
5085 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
5086
5087 set mips stack-arg-size
5088 set mips saved-gpreg-size
5089
5090 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
5091
5092 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
5093
5094 * New targets
5095
5096 Xtensa xtensa-elf
5097 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
5098
5099 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
5100 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
5101 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
5102
5103 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
5104 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
5105 supported.
5106
5107 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
5108 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
5109
5110 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
5111 stub provides the required support.
5112
5113 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
5114 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
5115
5116 * New commands
5117
5118 set substitute-path
5119 unset substitute-path
5120 show substitute-path
5121 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
5122 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
5123 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
5124 between compilation and debugging.
5125
5126 set trace-commands
5127 show trace-commands
5128 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
5129 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
5130 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
5131
5132 * REMOVED features
5133
5134 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
5135
5136 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
5137 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
5138
5139 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
5140
5141 * New remote packets
5142
5143 qSupported:
5144 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
5145 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
5146 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
5147 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
5148 target.
5149
5150 qXfer:auxv:read:
5151 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
5152 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
5153
5154 qXfer:memory-map:read:
5155 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
5156 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
5157
5158 vFlashErase:
5159 vFlashWrite:
5160 vFlashDone:
5161 Erase and program a flash memory device.
5162
5163 * Removed remote packets
5164
5165 qPart:auxv:read:
5166 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
5167 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
5168
5169 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
5170
5171 * New targets
5172
5173 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
5174
5175 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5176
5177 * New commands
5178
5179 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
5180 only if it doesn't already have a value.
5181
5182 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
5183
5184 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
5185
5186 restart <n> Return the program state to a
5187 previously saved state.
5188
5189 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
5190
5191 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
5192
5193 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
5194 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
5195
5196 info forks List forks of the user program that
5197 are available to be debugged.
5198
5199 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
5200 forks of the user program that are
5201 available to be debugged.
5202
5203 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5204 that are available to be debugged (and
5205 kill the forked process).
5206
5207 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5208 that are available to be debugged (and
5209 allow the process to continue).
5210
5211 * New architecture
5212
5213 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
5214
5215 * Improved Windows host support
5216
5217 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
5218 native console support, and remote communications using either
5219 network sockets or serial ports.
5220
5221 * Improved Modula-2 language support
5222
5223 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
5224 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
5225 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
5226 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
5227 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
5228 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
5229
5230 * REMOVED features
5231
5232 The ARM rdi-share module.
5233
5234 The Netware NLM debug server.
5235
5236 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
5237
5238 * New native configurations
5239
5240 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
5241 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
5242
5243 * New targets
5244
5245 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5246
5247 * New command line options
5248
5249 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
5250 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
5251 the child (debugged) program exited with.
5252 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
5253 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
5254 specified multiple times and in conjunction
5255 with the --command (-x) option.
5256
5257 * Deprecated commands removed
5258
5259 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
5260 removed:
5261
5262 Command Replacement
5263 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
5264 othernames set arm disassembler
5265 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
5266 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
5267 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
5268 regs info registers
5269
5270 * New BSD user-level threads support
5271
5272 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
5273 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
5274 configurations are:
5275
5276 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5277 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
5278 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
5279
5280 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
5281 are not yet supported.
5282
5283 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
5284 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
5285
5286 * REMOVED configurations and files
5287
5288 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
5289 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5290 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
5291
5292 * New "set print array-indexes" command
5293
5294 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
5295 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
5296 behavior.
5297
5298 * VAX floating point support
5299
5300 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
5301
5302 * User-defined command support
5303
5304 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
5305 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
5306 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
5307
5308 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
5309
5310 * New command line option
5311
5312 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
5313 debugging.
5314
5315 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
5316
5317 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
5318 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
5319 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
5320 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
5321 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
5322
5323 * Internationalization
5324
5325 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
5326 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
5327 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
5328
5329 * Ada
5330
5331 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
5332 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
5333 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
5334
5335 * New native configurations
5336
5337 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
5338
5339 * Remote 'p' packet
5340
5341 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
5342 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
5343
5344 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
5345
5346 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5347 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
5348 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
5349 i386 application).
5350
5351 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the registers[]
5352 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
5353 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
5354 configurations:
5355
5356 hppa-*-hpux
5357 ia64-*-aix
5358 mips-*-irix*
5359 *-*-lynx
5360 mips-*-linux-gnu
5361 sds protocol
5362 xdr protocol
5363 powerpc bdm protocol
5364
5365 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5366 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
5367
5368 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5369
5370 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5371 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5372 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5373 permanently REMOVED.
5374
5375 h8300-*-*
5376 mcore-*-*
5377 mn10300-*-*
5378 ns32k-*-*
5379 sh64-*-*
5380 v850-*-*
5381
5382 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
5383
5384 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
5385
5386 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
5387 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
5388 been fixed.
5389
5390 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
5391
5392 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
5393 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
5394 IRIX long double values).
5395
5396 * VAX and "next"
5397
5398 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
5399 command. This problem has been fixed.
5400
5401 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
5402
5403 * Fix for ``many threads''
5404
5405 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
5406 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
5407 error message:
5408
5409 ptrace: No such process.
5410 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
5411
5412 This problem has been fixed.
5413
5414 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
5415
5416 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
5417 GDB to dump core).
5418
5419 * New ``start'' command.
5420
5421 This command runs the program until the beginning of the main procedure.
5422
5423 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
5424
5425 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
5426 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
5427 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
5428
5429 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5430 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
5431 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
5432 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
5433 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
5434 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5435 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
5436 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
5437 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5438
5439 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
5440
5441 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
5442 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
5443 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
5444 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
5445 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
5446
5447 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
5448 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
5449 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
5450
5451 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
5452
5453 * New native configurations
5454
5455 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
5456 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
5457 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
5458 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
5459 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
5460 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
5461 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
5462
5463 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
5464
5465 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5466 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
5467 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
5468 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
5469 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
5470 work, was also included.
5471
5472 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
5473 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
5474
5475 h8300-*-*
5476 mcore-*-*
5477 mn10300-*-*
5478 ns32k-*-*
5479 sh64-*-*
5480 v850-*-*
5481 xstormy16-*-*
5482
5483 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5484 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
5485
5486 * REMOVED configurations and files
5487
5488 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5489 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5490 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5491 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5492 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5493 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5494 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5495 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5496 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5497 sonymips mips-sony-*
5498 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5499
5500 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
5501
5502 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
5503
5504 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
5505 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
5506 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
5507 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
5508 with GDB".
5509
5510 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
5511
5512 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
5513 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
5514 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
5515 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
5516 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
5517 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
5518 are created.
5519
5520 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
5521
5522 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
5523
5524 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
5525 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
5526 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
5527
5528 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
5529
5530 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
5531 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
5532
5533 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
5534
5535 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
5536 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
5537 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
5538
5539 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
5540
5541 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
5542 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
5543
5544 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
5545
5546 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
5547 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
5548 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
5549
5550 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
5551
5552 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
5553 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
5554 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
5555
5556 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
5557
5558 * Removed --with-mmalloc
5559
5560 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
5561 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
5562
5563 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
5564
5565 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
5566 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
5567 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
5568 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
5569
5570 * Revised SPARC target
5571
5572 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
5573 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
5574 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
5575 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
5576 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
5577
5578 * New C++ demangler
5579
5580 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
5581 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
5582 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
5583 programs.
5584
5585 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5586
5587 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
5588 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
5589 encountered these.
5590
5591 * C++ nested types and namespaces
5592
5593 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
5594 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
5595 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
5596 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
5597 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
5598 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
5599 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
5600 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
5601 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
5602
5603 * New native configurations
5604
5605 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
5606 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5607 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
5608 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5609 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
5610
5611 * New debugging protocols
5612
5613 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
5614
5615 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
5616
5617 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
5618 and its very obscure effect on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
5619 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
5620
5621 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5622
5623 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5624 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5625 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5626 permanently REMOVED.
5627
5628 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5629 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5630 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5631 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5632 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5633 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5634 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5635 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5636 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5637 sonymips mips-sony-*
5638 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5639
5640 * REMOVED configurations and files
5641
5642 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5643 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5644 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5645 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5646 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5647 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5648 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5649 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5650 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5651 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
5652 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5653 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5654 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5655 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
5656 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
5657 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5658 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5659
5660 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
5661
5662 * Objective-C
5663
5664 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
5665 integrated into GDB.
5666
5667 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
5668
5669 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
5670 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
5671 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
5672 backtraces.
5673
5674 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
5675 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
5676 DWARF 2 CFI support.
5677
5678 * Hosted file I/O.
5679
5680 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
5681 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
5682 remote protocol documentation for details.
5683
5684 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
5685
5686 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
5687 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
5688 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
5689 ppc32 on ppc64).
5690
5691 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
5692
5693 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
5694 per-thread variables.
5695
5696 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
5697
5698 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
5699 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
5700
5701 * Separate debug info.
5702
5703 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
5704 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
5705 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
5706 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
5707 and optional debug files.
5708
5709 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5710
5711 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
5712 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
5713 debugger.
5714
5715 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
5716 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5717
5718 * Java
5719
5720 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5721 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5722 considered "useable".
5723
5724 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5725
5726 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5727 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5728 kernel.
5729
5730 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5731
5732 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5733 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5734
5735 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5736
5737 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5738 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5739 command.
5740
5741 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5742
5743 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5744 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5745
5746 * Profiling support
5747
5748 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5749 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5750 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5751 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5752 data, for more informative profiling results.
5753
5754 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5755
5756 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5757 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5758 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5759
5760 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5761 removed.
5762
5763 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5764 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5765 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5766 in a subsequent -var-update.
5767
5768 * New native configurations.
5769
5770 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5771
5772 * Multi-arched targets.
5773
5774 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5775 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5776
5777 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5778
5779 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5780 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5781 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5782 permanently REMOVED.
5783
5784 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5785 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5786 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5787 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5788 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5789 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5790 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5791 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5792 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5793 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5794 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5795 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5796
5797 * REMOVED configurations and files
5798
5799 V850EA ISA
5800 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5801 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5802 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5803 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5804 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5805 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5806 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
5807 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5808 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5809 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5810 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5811 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5812 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5813
5814 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5815
5816 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5817 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5818 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5819 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5820 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5821
5822 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5823
5824 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5825
5826 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5827 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5828 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5829 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5830 shared libs like mad''.
5831
5832 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5833
5834 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5835 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5836 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5837 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
5838
5839 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
5840
5841 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
5842 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
5843 they expand.
5844
5845 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
5846 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
5847
5848 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
5849 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
5850
5851 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
5852 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
5853 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
5854 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
5855
5856 * Multi-arched targets.
5857
5858 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
5859 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
5860 NEC V850 v850-*-*
5861 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
5862 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
5863 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5864
5865 * New targets.
5866
5867 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
5868
5869
5870 * New native configurations
5871
5872 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
5873 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
5874 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
5875 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
5876
5877 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5878
5879 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5880 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5881 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5882 permanently REMOVED.
5883
5884 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5885 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5886 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5887 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5888 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5889 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5890 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5891 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5892 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5893 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5894 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
5895 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5896 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5897
5898 * OBSOLETE languages
5899
5900 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
5901
5902 * REMOVED configurations and files
5903
5904 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5905 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5906 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5907 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5908 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5909
5910 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5911
5912 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
5913
5914 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
5915 commands. The default is 1024.
5916
5917 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
5918
5919 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
5920
5921 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
5922
5923 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
5924 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
5925 from a file into memory (restore).
5926
5927 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
5928
5929 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
5930 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
5931 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
5932
5933 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
5934
5935 * New targets.
5936
5937 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
5938
5939 * Bug fixes
5940
5941 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
5942 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
5943 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
5944
5945 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
5946 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
5947 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
5948
5949 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
5950 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
5951 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
5952
5953 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
5954 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
5955 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
5956
5957 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
5958
5959 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
5960
5961 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
5962 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
5963 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
5964 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
5965 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
5966 (notably embedded) targets.
5967
5968 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
5969
5970 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
5971 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
5972 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5973 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5974
5975 * New command line option
5976
5977 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5978
5979 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5980
5981 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5982 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5983 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5984 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5985 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5986 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5987 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5988 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5989 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5990 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5991
5992 * Changes in ARM configurations.
5993
5994 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5995 configuration is fully multi-arch.
5996
5997 * New native configurations
5998
5999 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
6000 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
6001 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
6002 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
6003
6004 * New targets
6005
6006 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
6007
6008 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6009
6010 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6011 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6012 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6013 permanently REMOVED.
6014
6015 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
6016 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6017 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6018 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6019 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6020
6021 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
6022
6023 * REMOVED configurations and files
6024
6025 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6026 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6027 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6028 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6029 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6030 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6031 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6032 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6033 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6034 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6035 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6036 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6037 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
6038
6039 * Changes to command line processing
6040
6041 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
6042 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
6043
6044 * Changes to key bindings
6045
6046 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
6047
6048 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
6049
6050 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
6051
6052 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
6053 corrupted.
6054
6055 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
6056
6057 Numerous documentation fixes.
6058
6059 Numerous testsuite fixes.
6060
6061 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
6062
6063 * New native configurations
6064
6065 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
6066 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
6067 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
6068 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6069 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
6070 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
6071
6072 * New targets
6073
6074 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
6075 CRIS cris-axis
6076 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
6077
6078 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6079
6080 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
6081 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6082 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6083 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6084 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6085 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6086 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6087 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6088 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6089 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6090 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6091 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6092 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6093 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
6094
6095 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
6096 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
6097
6098 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6099 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6100 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6101 permanently REMOVED.
6102
6103 * REMOVED configurations and files
6104
6105 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6106 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6107 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
6108 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6109 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
6110 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
6111
6112 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
6113
6114 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
6115 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
6116 present.
6117
6118 * Other news:
6119
6120 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
6121
6122 * The MI enabled by default.
6123
6124 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
6125 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
6126 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
6127 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
6128 which is now deprecated.
6129
6130 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
6131
6132 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
6133 main features are supported:
6134
6135 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
6136
6137 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
6138 extension;
6139
6140 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
6141
6142 - a Pascal expression parser.
6143
6144 However, some important features are not yet supported.
6145
6146 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
6147
6148 - there are some problems with boolean types;
6149
6150 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
6151 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
6152
6153 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
6154
6155 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
6156
6157 * Changes in completion.
6158
6159 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
6160 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
6161 users expect at the shell prompt.
6162
6163 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
6164 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
6165 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
6166 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
6167 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
6168 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
6169 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
6170
6171 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
6172
6173 * New platform-independent commands:
6174
6175 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
6176 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
6177 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
6178
6179 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
6180
6181 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
6182 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
6183 many threads as your system allows you to have.
6184
6185 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
6186
6187 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
6188 multi-threaded programs though.
6189
6190 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
6191
6192 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
6193
6194 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
6195 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
6196 supported.)
6197
6198 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
6199
6200 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
6201 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
6202 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
6203 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
6204 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
6205 registers.
6206
6207 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
6208 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
6209 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
6210
6211 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
6212
6213 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
6214 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
6215
6216 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
6217 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
6218 IDT.
6219
6220 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
6221 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
6222 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
6223 a given linear address.
6224
6225 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
6226 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
6227 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
6228
6229 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
6230
6231 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
6232
6233 * Changes in documentation.
6234
6235 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
6236 Documentation License.
6237
6238 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6239 manual.
6240
6241 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
6242
6243 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6244 manual.
6245
6246 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
6247 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
6248 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
6249
6250 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
6251
6252 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
6253 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
6254 contents of this file.
6255
6256 * gdba.el deleted
6257
6258 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
6259
6260 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
6261
6262 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
6263
6264 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
6265 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
6266 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
6267 greater level of detail.
6268
6269 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
6270
6271 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
6272 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
6273 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
6274 written.
6275
6276 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
6277
6278 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
6279 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
6280 machines ``out of the box''.
6281
6282 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
6283 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
6284 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
6285 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
6286 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
6287
6288 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
6289 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
6290 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
6291 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
6292 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
6293
6294 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
6295 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
6296 also works.
6297
6298 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
6299 GDB.
6300
6301 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
6302 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
6303 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
6304 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
6305
6306 * New native configurations
6307
6308 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
6309 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6310
6311 * New targets
6312
6313 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
6314 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
6315 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
6316 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6317
6318 * OBSOLETE configurations
6319
6320 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6321 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6322 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
6323 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6324 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
6325
6326 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6327 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6328 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6329 be permanently REMOVED.
6330
6331 * Gould support removed
6332
6333 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
6334
6335 * New features for SVR4
6336
6337 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
6338 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
6339 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
6340
6341 * Many C++ enhancements
6342
6343 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
6344 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
6345
6346 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
6347
6348 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
6349 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
6350 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
6351 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
6352
6353 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
6354 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
6355
6356 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
6357
6358 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
6359 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
6360 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
6361
6362 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
6363 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
6364
6365 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
6366
6367 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
6368 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
6369 include ``set remote P-packet''.
6370
6371 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
6372
6373 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
6374 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
6375 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
6376
6377 * ``apropos'' command added.
6378
6379 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
6380 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
6381 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
6382
6383 * New MI interface
6384
6385 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
6386 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
6387 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
6388 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
6389 enabled by configuring with:
6390
6391 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
6392
6393 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
6394
6395 * New native configurations
6396
6397 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
6398 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
6399 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
6400
6401 * New targets
6402
6403 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6404 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
6405 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6406
6407 * OBSOLETE configurations
6408
6409 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
6410
6411 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6412 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6413 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6414 be permanently REMOVED.
6415
6416 * ANSI/ISO C
6417
6418 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
6419 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
6420 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
6421 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
6422 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
6423 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
6424 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
6425 already.
6426
6427 * Readline 2.2
6428
6429 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
6430
6431 * set extension-language
6432
6433 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
6434 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
6435 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
6436 set extension-language .c c++
6437 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
6438 and their associated languages.
6439
6440 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
6441
6442 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
6443 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
6444 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
6445
6446 set processor NAME
6447
6448 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
6449 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
6450
6451 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
6452 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
6453 403 IBM PowerPC 403
6454 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
6455 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
6456 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
6457 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
6458 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
6459 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
6460 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
6461 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
6462
6463 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
6464 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
6465 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
6466 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
6467
6468 * HP-UX support
6469
6470 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
6471 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
6472 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
6473 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
6474 for xdb and dbx commands.
6475
6476 * Catchpoints
6477
6478 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
6479 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
6480 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
6481
6482 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
6483 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
6484 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
6485
6486 * Debugging across forks
6487
6488 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
6489 in the inferior.
6490
6491 * TUI
6492
6493 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
6494 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
6495 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
6496
6497 * GDB remote protocol additions
6498
6499 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
6500 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
6501 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
6502 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
6503
6504 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
6505 full 64-bit address. The command
6506
6507 set remoteaddresssize 32
6508
6509 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
6510 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
6511 will be discarded.
6512
6513 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
6514 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
6515
6516 maint packet heythere
6517
6518 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
6519 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
6520 time.
6521
6522 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
6523 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
6524 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
6525
6526 * Tracing can collect general expressions
6527
6528 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
6529 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
6530 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
6531
6532 * mask-address variable for Mips
6533
6534 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
6535 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
6536 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
6537
6538 * Higher serial baud rates
6539
6540 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
6541 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
6542 to achieve all of these rates.)
6543
6544 * i960 simulator
6545
6546 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
6547 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
6548
6549
6550 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
6551
6552 * New native configurations
6553
6554 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
6555 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
6556 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6557 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6558 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6559 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
6560 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
6561
6562 * New targets
6563
6564 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6565 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
6566 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6567 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
6568 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
6569 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
6570 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
6571 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
6572 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6573 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6574 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
6575
6576 * New debugging protocols
6577
6578 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
6579 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
6580 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
6581 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6582 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6583 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6584
6585 * DWARF 2
6586
6587 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
6588 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
6589 information.
6590
6591 * Java frontend
6592
6593 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
6594 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
6595
6596 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
6597
6598 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
6599 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
6600 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
6601
6602 * Live range splitting
6603
6604 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
6605 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
6606 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
6607
6608 * Hurd support
6609
6610 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
6611 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
6612
6613 * ARM Thumb support
6614
6615 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
6616 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
6617 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
6618 accordingly.
6619
6620 * MIPS16 support
6621
6622 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
6623 instruction set.
6624
6625 * Overlay support
6626
6627 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
6628 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
6629 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
6630 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
6631 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
6632 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
6633
6634 * info symbol
6635
6636 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
6637 the symbol at the specified address.
6638
6639 * Trace support
6640
6641 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
6642 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
6643 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
6644 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
6645 file tracepoint.c for more details.
6646
6647 * MIPS simulator
6648
6649 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
6650 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
6651 of most MIPS variants.
6652
6653 * Sparc simulator
6654
6655 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
6656 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
6657 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
6658
6659 * set architecture
6660
6661 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
6662 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
6663 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
6664 the possible architectures.
6665
6666 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
6667
6668 * New native configurations
6669
6670 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
6671 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
6672 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
6673 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
6674 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6675 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
6676
6677 * New targets
6678
6679 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
6680 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6681 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
6682 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
6683 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
6684 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
6685 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6686
6687 * PowerPC simulator
6688
6689 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
6690 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
6691 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
6692 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
6693 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
6694
6695 * Solaris 2.5
6696
6697 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
6698
6699 * Windows 95/NT native
6700
6701 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
6702 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
6703 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
6704 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
6705 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
6706
6707 * dont-repeat command
6708
6709 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
6710 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
6711 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
6712 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
6713
6714 * Send break instead of ^C
6715
6716 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
6717 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
6718 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6719
6720 * Remote protocol timeout
6721
6722 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6723 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6724 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6725
6726 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6727
6728 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6729 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6730 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6731 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6732 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6733
6734 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6735 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6736 automatically on hpux10.
6737
6738 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6739
6740 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6741
6742 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6743
6744 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6745 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6746 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6747 every character. The default value is 1050.
6748
6749 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6750
6751 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6752 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6753 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6754 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6755 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6756 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6757
6758 * Speedups for remote debugging
6759
6760 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6761 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6762 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6763
6764 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6765
6766 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6767 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6768
6769 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6770
6771 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6772
6773 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6774 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6775
6776 * Remote targets use caching
6777
6778 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6779 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6780 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6781 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6782 off' turns the data cache off.
6783
6784 * Remote targets may have threads
6785
6786 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6787 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6788 gdb/remote.c for details.
6789
6790 * NetROM support
6791
6792 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6793 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6794 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6795 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6796 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6797 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6798 sequence is something like
6799
6800 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6801 load <prog>
6802 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6803
6804 * Macintosh host
6805
6806 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6807 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6808 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6809 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6810 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6811 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6812 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6813 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6814
6815 * Autoconf
6816
6817 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6818 but does simplify configuration and building.
6819
6820 * hpux10
6821
6822 GDB now supports hpux10.
6823
6824 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6825
6826 * New native configurations
6827
6828 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6829 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6830 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6831 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6832
6833 * New targets
6834
6835 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6836 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6837 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
6838 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
6839 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6840
6841 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
6842
6843 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
6844 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
6845 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
6846 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
6847 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
6848
6849 * Arguments to user-defined commands
6850
6851 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
6852 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
6853 trivial example:
6854 define adder
6855 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
6856
6857 To execute the command use:
6858 adder 1 2 3
6859
6860 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
6861 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
6862 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
6863
6864 * New `if' and `while' commands
6865
6866 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
6867 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
6868 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
6869 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
6870 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
6871 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
6872 if the expression is zero.
6873
6874 * Fortran source language mode
6875
6876 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
6877 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
6878 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
6879 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
6880 Fortran compilers.
6881
6882 * Better HPUX support
6883
6884 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
6885 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
6886 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
6887 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
6888 that behavior do the following before running the program:
6889
6890 adb -w a.out
6891 __dld_flags?W 0x5
6892 control-d
6893
6894 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
6895 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
6896
6897 adb -w a.out
6898 __dld_flags?W 0x4
6899 control-d
6900
6901 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
6902 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
6903 external linkage.
6904
6905 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
6906 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
6907
6908 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
6909
6910 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
6911 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
6912 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
6913 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
6914 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
6915 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
6916
6917 * New DOS host serial code
6918
6919 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
6920 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
6921 a PC's serial port.
6922
6923 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
6924
6925 * New "complete" command
6926
6927 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
6928 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
6929
6930 * Trailing space optional in prompt
6931
6932 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
6933 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
6934
6935 * Breakpoint hit counts
6936
6937 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
6938 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
6939 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
6940 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
6941 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
6942 that breakpoint.
6943
6944 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
6945
6946 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
6947 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
6948 arrays actually contain only short strings.
6949
6950 * Shared library breakpoints
6951
6952 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
6953 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
6954
6955 * Hardware watchpoints
6956
6957 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
6958 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
6959
6960 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
6961
6962 * Annotations
6963
6964 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
6965 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
6966
6967 * Improved Irix 5 support
6968
6969 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
6970
6971 * Improved HPPA support
6972
6973 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6974
6975 * New native configurations
6976
6977 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6978 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6979 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6980 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6981
6982 * New targets
6983
6984 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6985 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6986 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
6987
6988 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6989
6990 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6991 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6992
6993 * Fixes
6994
6995 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6996 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6997
6998 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6999
7000 * Irix 5 is now supported
7001
7002 * HPPA support
7003
7004 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
7005 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
7006 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
7007 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
7008 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
7009
7010
7011 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
7012
7013 * User visible changes:
7014
7015 * Remote Debugging
7016
7017 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
7018 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
7019 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
7020 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
7021 debugging info for the mips target).
7022
7023 * DEC Alpha native support
7024
7025 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
7026 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
7027 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
7028 Alpha-specific notes.
7029
7030 * Preliminary thread implementation
7031
7032 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
7033
7034 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
7035
7036 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
7037 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
7038 for details).
7039
7040 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
7041
7042 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
7043 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
7044 call methods, ...etc.
7045
7046 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
7047
7048 * User visible changes:
7049
7050 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
7051 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
7052 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
7053 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
7054
7055 Filename completion now works.
7056
7057 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
7058 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
7059 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
7060
7061 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
7062 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
7063 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
7064 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
7065 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
7066
7067 * DEC alpha support
7068
7069 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
7070 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
7071
7072
7073 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
7074
7075 * Testsuite
7076
7077 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
7078 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
7079 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
7080
7081 * C++ demangling
7082
7083 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
7084 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
7085 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
7086 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
7087 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
7088
7089 * Simulators
7090
7091 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
7092 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
7093 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
7094
7095 * New targets supported
7096
7097 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7098 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
7099 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
7100 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
7101 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
7102
7103 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
7104 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
7105 GO32 memory extender.
7106
7107 * New remote protocols
7108
7109 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
7110
7111 * New source languages supported
7112
7113 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
7114 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
7115 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
7116
7117
7118 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
7119
7120 * HP Precision Architecture supported
7121
7122 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
7123 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
7124 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
7125 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
7126 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
7127 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
7128
7129 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
7130
7131 * Faster and better demangling
7132
7133 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
7134 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
7135 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
7136 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
7137 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
7138 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
7139 symbol lookups.
7140
7141 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
7142 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
7143 compiler does not actually implement.
7144
7145 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
7146
7147 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
7148 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
7149 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
7150 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
7151 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
7152 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
7153 fix.
7154
7155 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
7156 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
7157
7158 * Improved configure script
7159
7160 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
7161 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
7162 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
7163 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
7164
7165 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
7166 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
7167 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
7168 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
7169 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
7170 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
7171
7172 * Documentation improvements
7173
7174 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
7175 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
7176 before submitting changes.
7177
7178 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
7179 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
7180 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
7181 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
7182 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
7183
7184 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
7185 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
7186 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
7187 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
7188 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
7189 around this problem.
7190
7191 * New features
7192
7193 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
7194 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
7195 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
7196 the target program.
7197
7198 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
7199 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
7200
7201 * New native hosts supported
7202
7203 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
7204 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
7205
7206 * New targets supported
7207
7208 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
7209
7210 * New file formats supported
7211
7212 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
7213 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
7214
7215 * Major bug fixes
7216
7217 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
7218
7219 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
7220 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
7221
7222 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
7223 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
7224 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
7225
7226 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
7227 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
7228
7229 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
7230 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
7231 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
7232 libraries.
7233
7234 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
7235 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
7236 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
7237 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
7238 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
7239
7240 * Internal improvements
7241
7242 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
7243 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
7244
7245 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
7246 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
7247 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
7248 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
7249 shared code that handles any of them.
7250
7251 * New command line options
7252
7253 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
7254
7255 * Mmalloc licensing
7256
7257 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
7258 General Public License.
7259
7260 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
7261
7262 * Host/native/target split
7263
7264 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
7265 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
7266 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
7267 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
7268 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
7269
7270 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
7271 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
7272 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
7273 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
7274 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
7275 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
7276 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
7277
7278 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
7279 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
7280 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
7281
7282 * New hosts supported
7283
7284 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
7285 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
7286 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
7287
7288 * New targets supported
7289
7290 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
7291 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
7292
7293 * New native hosts supported
7294
7295 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
7296 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
7297 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
7298
7299 * New file formats supported
7300
7301 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
7302 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
7303 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
7304
7305 * New commands
7306
7307 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
7308 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
7309 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
7310
7311 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
7312
7313 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
7314 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
7315 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
7316 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
7317
7318 * C++ improvements
7319
7320 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
7321 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
7322 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
7323
7324 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
7325
7326 * Major bug fixes
7327
7328 The crash that occurred when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
7329 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
7330 by the compiler.
7331
7332 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
7333 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
7334
7335 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
7336 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
7337 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
7338 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
7339 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
7340 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
7341
7342 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
7343 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
7344 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
7345 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
7346
7347 * AMD 29k support
7348
7349 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
7350 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
7351 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
7352 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
7353 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
7354
7355 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
7356 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
7357 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
7358 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
7359
7360 * Remote interfaces
7361
7362 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
7363 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
7364 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
7365 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
7366 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
7367 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
7368 each instruction being stepped through.
7369
7370 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
7371 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
7372
7373 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
7374 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
7375 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
7376 processor with a serial port.
7377
7378 * Configuration
7379
7380 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
7381 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
7382 supported, and what files each one uses.
7383
7384 * Library changes
7385
7386 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
7387 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
7388 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
7389 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
7390
7391 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
7392 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
7393 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
7394 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
7395
7396 * Documentation
7397
7398 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
7399 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
7400 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
7401 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
7402 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
7403 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
7404
7405 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
7406
7407
7408 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
7409
7410 * Better support for C++ function names
7411
7412 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
7413 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
7414 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
7415 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
7416 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
7417
7418 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
7419 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
7420 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
7421 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
7422 for the list of formats.
7423
7424 * G++ symbol mangling problem
7425
7426 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
7427 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
7428 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
7429 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compiling gdb/symtab.c. The
7430 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
7431 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
7432 this problem.)
7433
7434 * New 'maintenance' command
7435
7436 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
7437 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
7438 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
7439
7440 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
7441 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
7442 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
7443 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
7444 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
7445 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
7446
7447 The following commands are new:
7448
7449 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
7450 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
7451 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
7452
7453 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
7454
7455 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
7456 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
7457 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
7458 read after argv processing.
7459
7460 * New hosts supported
7461
7462 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
7463
7464 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
7465
7466 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
7467 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
7468 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
7469 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
7470 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
7471 It costs extra.
7472
7473 * New targets supported
7474
7475 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7476
7477 * More smarts about finding #include files
7478
7479 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
7480 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
7481 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
7482 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
7483 the one that contains your sources.
7484
7485 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
7486 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
7487 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
7488
7489 * Interesting infernals change
7490
7491 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
7492 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
7493 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
7494 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
7495
7496 * Bug fixes (of course!)
7497
7498 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
7499 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
7500 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
7501
7502 See the ChangeLog for details.
7503
7504 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
7505
7506 * New machines supported (host and target)
7507
7508 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
7509
7510 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
7511
7512 * New malloc package
7513
7514 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
7515 Mmalloc is capable of handling multiple heaps of memory. It is also
7516 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
7517 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
7518 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
7519 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
7520
7521 * info proc
7522
7523 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
7524 'help info proc' for details.
7525
7526 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
7527
7528 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
7529 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
7530 possible.
7531
7532 * File name changes for MS-DOS
7533
7534 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
7535 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
7536 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
7537 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
7538 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
7539 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
7540
7541 * Cross byte order fixes
7542
7543 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
7544 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
7545
7546 * New -mapped and -readnow options
7547
7548 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
7549 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
7550 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
7551 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
7552 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
7553 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
7554 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
7555 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
7556 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
7557 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
7558
7559 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
7560 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
7561 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
7562 slower, but makes future operations faster.
7563
7564 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
7565 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
7566 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
7567 use is:
7568
7569 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
7570
7571 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
7572 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
7573 shared across multiple host platforms.
7574
7575 * longjmp() handling
7576
7577 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
7578 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
7579 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
7580 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
7581
7582 * Solaris 2.0
7583
7584 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
7585 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
7586 reading symbols.
7587
7588 * Bug fixes
7589
7590 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
7591 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
7592 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
7593
7594 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
7595
7596 * New machines supported (host and target)
7597
7598 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7599 (except core files)
7600 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
7601 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
7602
7603 * New machines supported (target)
7604
7605 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7606
7607 * C++ support
7608
7609 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
7610 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
7611 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
7612
7613 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
7614 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
7615 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
7616 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
7617 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
7618 released.
7619
7620 * New features for SVR4
7621
7622 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
7623 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
7624 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
7625
7626 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
7627 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
7628 it prints the address mappings of the process.
7629
7630 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
7631 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
7632
7633 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
7634
7635 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
7636 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
7637 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
7638 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
7639 same code linked statically.
7640
7641 * New Getopt
7642
7643 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
7644 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
7645 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
7646 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
7647 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
7648 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
7649
7650 * Bugs fixed
7651
7652 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7653 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7654 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7655
7656
7657 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
7658
7659 * New machines supported (host and target)
7660
7661 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
7662 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
7663 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7664
7665 * Almost SCO Unix support
7666
7667 We had hoped to support:
7668 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7669 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
7670 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
7671 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
7672
7673 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
7674
7675 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
7676 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
7677 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
7678 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
7679 reqired (if any).
7680
7681 * New Readline
7682
7683 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
7684 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
7685 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
7686
7687 * Bugs fixed
7688
7689 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7690 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7691 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7692
7693 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
7694
7695 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
7696 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
7697 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
7698
7699 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
7700 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
7701 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
7702 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
7703 version 2.
7704
7705 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
7706 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
7707 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
7708 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
7709 situation somewhat.
7710
7711 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
7712 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
7713 methods.
7714
7715 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
7716 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
7717 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7718
7719
7720 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7721
7722 * Improved configuration
7723
7724 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7725 Porting BFD is simpler.
7726
7727 * Stepping improved
7728
7729 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7730 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7731 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7732 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7733
7734 * Bug fixing
7735
7736 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7737
7738 * New host supported (not target)
7739
7740 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7741
7742
7743 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7744
7745 * Multiple source language support
7746
7747 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7748 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7749 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7750 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7751 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7752 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7753
7754 * GDB and Modula-2
7755
7756 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7757 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7758 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7759 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7760
7761 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7762 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7763 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7764
7765 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7766 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7767
7768 * set write on/off
7769
7770 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7771 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7772 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7773 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7774 effect immediately.
7775
7776 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7777
7778 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7779 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7780 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7781 examining core files.
7782
7783 * set listsize
7784
7785 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7786 The default is 10.
7787
7788 * New machines supported (host and target)
7789
7790 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7791 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7792 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7793
7794 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7795
7796 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7797
7798 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7799
7800 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7801 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7802 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7803
7804 * New remote interfaces
7805
7806 AMD 29000 Adapt
7807 AMD 29000 Minimon
7808
7809
7810 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7811
7812 * New Facilities
7813
7814 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7815
7816 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7817 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7818 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7819 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7820 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7821 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7822 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7823 stub on the target system.
7824
7825 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7826
7827 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7828 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7829 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7830
7831 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7832 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7833
7834
7835 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7836
7837 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
7838 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
7839
7840 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
7841 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
7842 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
7843
7844 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
7845 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
7846 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
7847 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
7848
7849 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
7850 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
7851 it is already running. Default is ON.
7852
7853 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
7854 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
7855 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
7856 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
7857 Default is ON.
7858
7859 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
7860 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
7861 or the value of the environment variable
7862 GDBHISTFILE.
7863
7864 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
7865 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
7866 HISTSIZE.
7867
7868 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
7869 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
7870 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
7871
7872 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
7873 history expansion will be performed on
7874 command line input. The default is OFF.
7875
7876 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
7877 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
7878 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
7879
7880 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
7881 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
7882 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7883 variable TERM.
7884
7885 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
7886 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
7887 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7888 variable TERM.
7889
7890 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
7891 ``set width'' instead.
7892
7893 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
7894 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
7895 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
7896 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
7897
7898 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
7899 is OFF.
7900
7901 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
7902 "raw" form if off.
7903
7904 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
7905 like instructions.
7906
7907 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
7908
7909
7910 * Support for Epoch Environment.
7911
7912 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
7913 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
7914 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
7915 window.
7916
7917
7918 * Support for Shared Libraries
7919
7920 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
7921 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
7922 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
7923 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
7924 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
7925 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
7926 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
7927 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
7928
7929 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
7930 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
7931 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
7932
7933 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
7934
7935
7936 * Watchpoints
7937
7938 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
7939 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
7940 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
7941 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
7942 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
7943 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
7944
7945 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
7946
7947 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
7948
7949 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7950 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7951 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7952
7953
7954 * C++ multiple inheritance
7955
7956 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
7957 for C++ programs.
7958
7959 * C++ exception handling
7960
7961 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
7962 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
7963 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
7964 handler's context).
7965
7966 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
7967 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
7968 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
7969
7970 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
7971 current stack frame.
7972
7973
7974 * Minor command changes
7975
7976 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7977 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7978 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7979
7980 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7981 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7982 frames without printing.
7983
7984 * New directory command
7985
7986 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7987 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7988 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7989 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7990 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7991
7992 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7993
7994 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7995 for more details.
7996
7997 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7998 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7999 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
8000 where the program that you are debugging will run.
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