gdb: Introduce 'print max-depth' feature

[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS

diff --git a/gdb/NEWS b/gdb/NEWS
index c45b3134064a9ff8347c89f44f90bdb43639e8ef..b21b2cbb4787103d91c0fb9e7e8e47fd9c9ec9d7 100644 (file)
--- a/gdb/NEWS
+++ b/gdb/NEWS
@@ -3,6 +3,51 @@
 
 *** Changes since GDB 8.3
 
+* New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
+  provide the GDB version.  They are handy for conditionally using
+  features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
+  scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
+  such as in system-wide init files.
+
+* GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
+  FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv).  Other
+  architectures require kernel changes.  TLS is not yet supported for
+  amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
+
+* Support for Pointer Authentication on AArch64 Linux.
+
+* Two new convernience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
+  imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
+
+* New commands
+
+set print max-depth
+show print max-depth
+  Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
+  replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
+  The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
+  the old behavior back.
+
+* Python API
+
+  ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
+     string representing the value.  The formatting is controlled by the
+     optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
+     'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
+     'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
+
+* New commands
+
+set may-call-functions [on|off]
+show may-call-functions
+  This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
+  the program, such as with expressions in the print command.  It
+  defaults to on.  Calling functions in the program being debugged
+  can have undesired side effects.  It is now possible to forbid
+  such function calls.  If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
+  an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
+  in the program.
+
 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
 
 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on