ef21b5d97e0a901095dd698d916719efaf0ec83c
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 8.3
5
6 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
7
8 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
9 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
10 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
11 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
12 such as in system-wide init files.
13
14 * New built-in convenience functions $_gdb_setting, $_gdb_setting_str,
15 $_gdb_maint_setting and $_gdb_maint_setting_str provide access to values
16 of the GDB settings and the GDB maintenance settings. They are handy
17 for changing the logic of user defined commands depending on the
18 current GDB settings.
19
20 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
21 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
22 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
23 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
24
25 * Support for Pointer Authentication (PAC) on AArch64 Linux. Return
26 addresses that required unmasking are shown in the backtrace with the
27 postfix [PAC].
28
29 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
30 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
31
32 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
33 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
34 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
35
36 * The RX port now supports XML target descriptions.
37
38 * GDB now shows the Ada task names at more places, e.g. in task switching
39 messages.
40
41 * GDB can now be compiled with Python 3 on Windows.
42
43 * New convenience variable $_ada_exception holds the address of the
44 Ada exception being thrown. This is set by Ada-related catchpoints.
45
46 * GDB can now place breakpoints on nested functions and subroutines in
47 Fortran code. The '::' operator can be used between parent and
48 child scopes when placing breakpoints, for example:
49
50 (gdb) break outer_function::inner_function
51
52 The 'outer_function::' prefix is only needed if 'inner_function' is
53 not visible in the current scope.
54
55 * In addition to the system-wide gdbinit file, if configured with
56 --with-system-gdbinit-dir, GDB will now also load files in that directory
57 as system gdbinit files, unless the -nx or -n flag is provided. Files
58 with extensions .gdb, .py and .scm are supported as long as GDB was
59 compiled with support for that language.
60
61 * Python API
62
63 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
64 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
65 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
66 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
67 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
68
69 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
70 type was defined in.
71
72 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
73 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
74 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
75 is given.
76
77 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
78 symbols with static linkage.
79
80 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
81 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
82
83 ** gdb.Block now supports the dictionary syntax for accessing symbols in
84 this block (e.g. block['local_variable']).
85
86 * New commands
87
88 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
89 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
90 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
91 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
92 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
93 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
94 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
95
96 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
97 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
98 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
99 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
100 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
101 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
102 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
103 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
104 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
105 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
106 of array elements to print.
107
108 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
109 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
110
111 set may-call-functions [on|off]
112 show may-call-functions
113 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
114 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
115 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
116 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
117 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
118 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
119 in the program.
120
121 set print finish [on|off]
122 show print finish
123 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
124 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
125 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
126 default is `on'.
127
128 set print max-depth
129 show print max-depth
130 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
131 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
132 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
133 the old behavior back.
134
135 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
136 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
137 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
138
139 set style title foreground COLOR
140 set style title background COLOR
141 set style title intensity VALUE
142 Control the styling of titles.
143
144 set style highlight foreground COLOR
145 set style highlight background COLOR
146 set style highlight intensity VALUE
147 Control the styling of highlightings.
148
149 maint set test-settings KIND
150 maint show test-settings KIND
151 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
152 infrastructure.
153
154 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
155 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
156 show print frame-info
157 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
158 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
159 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
160 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
161
162 * Changed commands
163
164 help
165 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
166 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
167 command names.
168
169 apropos [-v] REGEXP
170 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
171 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
172 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
173 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
174 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
175
176 printf
177 eval
178 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
179 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
180 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
181 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
182
183 info sources [-dirname | -basename] [--] [REGEXP]
184 This command has now optional arguments to only print the files
185 whose names match REGEXP. The arguments -dirname and -basename
186 allow to restrict matching respectively to the dirname and basename
187 parts of the files.
188
189 show style
190 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
191 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
192 the user visualize the different styles.
193
194 set print frame-arguments
195 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
196 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
197
198 set print raw-frame-arguments
199 show print raw-frame-arguments
200
201 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
202 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
203 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
204 release.
205
206 maint test-options require-delimiter
207 maint test-options unknown-is-error
208 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
209 maint show test-options-completion-result
210 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
211 framework.
212
213 focus, winheight, +, -, >, <
214 These commands are now case-sensitive.
215
216 * New command options, command completion
217
218 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
219 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
220 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
221 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
222 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
223 number of commands got support for new command options in this
224 release:
225
226 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
227 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
228 set by "set print" subcommands:
229
230 -address [on|off]
231 -array [on|off]
232 -array-indexes [on|off]
233 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
234 -null-stop [on|off]
235 -object [on|off]
236 -pretty [on|off]
237 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
238 -static-members [on|off]
239 -symbol [on|off]
240 -union [on|off]
241 -vtbl [on|off]
242
243 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
244 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
245 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
246 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
247
248 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
249 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
250 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
251
252 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
253 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
254 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
255 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
256 |location-and-address|short-location
257 -past-main [on|off]
258 -past-entry [on|off]
259
260 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
261 exposed as command options too:
262
263 -full
264 -no-filters
265 -hide
266
267 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
268 support the following options:
269
270 -past-main [on|off]
271 -past-entry [on|off]
272
273 ** The new "info sources" options -dirname and -basename options
274 are using the standard '-OPT' infrastructure.
275
276 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
277 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
278 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
279 like for example:
280
281 (gdb) p -r -p -o 0 -- *myptr
282
283 The above is equivalent to:
284
285 (gdb) print -raw -pretty -object off -- *myptr
286
287 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
288 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
289 variables" and "info functions".
290
291 ** The "info variables", "info functions", and "whereis" commands
292 now take a '-n' flag that excludes non-debug symbols (symbols
293 from the symbol table, not from the debug info such as DWARF)
294 from the results.
295
296 * Completion improvements
297
298 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
299 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
300 abbreviated.
301
302 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
303 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
304 commands.
305
306 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
307 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
308 completes on filenames.
309
310 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
311 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
312
313 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
314
315 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
316 elements unlimited".
317
318 * New MI commands
319
320 -complete
321 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
322 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
323 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
324
325 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
326 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
327 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
328
329 * Other MI changes
330
331 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
332
333 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
334 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
335 the following commands and events:
336
337 - -break-insert
338 - -break-info
339 - =breakpoint-created
340 - =breakpoint-modified
341
342 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
343 this behavior with previous MI versions.
344
345 ** Backtraces and frames include a new optional field addr_flags which is
346 given after the addr field. On AArch64 this contains PAC if the address
347 has been masked in the frame. On all other targets the field is not
348 present.
349
350 * Testsuite
351
352 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
353 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
354 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
355 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
356
357 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.82.
358
359 Using another implementation of the make program or an earlier version of
360 GNU make to build GDB or GDBserver is not supported.
361
362 * Building GDB now requires GNU readline >= 7.0.
363
364 GDB now bundles GNU readline 8.0, but if you choose to use
365 --with-system-readline, only readline >= 7.0 can be used.
366
367 * The TUI SingleKey keymap is now named "SingleKey". This can be used
368 from .inputrc to bind keys in this keymap. This feature is only
369 available when gdb is built against GNU readline 8.0 or later.
370
371 * Removed targets and native configurations
372
373 GDB no longer supports debugging the Cell Broadband Engine. This includes
374 both debugging standalone Cell/B.E. SPU applications and integrated debugging
375 of Cell/B.E. applications that use both the PPU and SPU architectures.
376
377 * New Simulators
378
379 TI PRU pru-*-elf
380
381 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
382
383 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
384 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
385 HTM registers.
386
387 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
388 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
389 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
390 and operators.
391
392 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
393 (the C++ plug-in).
394
395 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
396 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
397 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
398
399 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
400 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
401
402 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
403 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
404 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
405 in the GDB user manual.
406
407 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
408 executed failed.
409
410 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
411
412 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
413 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
414 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
415 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
416 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
417 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
418 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
419 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
420 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
421 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
422 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
423 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
424
425 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
426 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
427 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
428 information.
429
430 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
431 lucid.
432
433 * New commands
434
435 set debug compile-cplus-types
436 show debug compile-cplus-types
437 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
438 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiliong
439 for other languages.
440
441 set debug skip
442 show debug skip
443 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
444 displayed.
445
446 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
447 Apply a command to some frames.
448 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
449 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
450
451 taas COMMAND
452 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
453 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
454
455 faas COMMAND
456 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
457 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
458
459 tfaas COMMAND
460 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
461 output).
462 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
463
464 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
465 maint show dwarf unwinders
466 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
467
468 info proc files
469 Display a list of open files for a process.
470
471 * Changed commands
472
473 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
474 These commands all now take a frame specification which
475 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
476 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
477 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
478 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
479 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
480
481 target remote FILENAME
482 target extended-remote FILENAME
483 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
484 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
485
486 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
487 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
488 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
489 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
490 These commands can now print only the searched entities
491 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
492 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
493 printing headers or informations messages.
494
495 info functions
496 info types
497 info variables
498 rbreak
499 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
500 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
501 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
502 the shown entities.
503
504 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
505 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
506 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
507 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
508
509 set tui tab-width NCHARS
510 show tui tab-width NCHARS
511 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
512
513 set style enabled [on|off]
514 show style enabled
515 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
516 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
517
518 set style sources [on|off]
519 show style sources
520 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
521 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
522 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
523
524 set style filename foreground COLOR
525 set style filename background COLOR
526 set style filename intensity VALUE
527 Control the styling of file names.
528
529 set style function foreground COLOR
530 set style function background COLOR
531 set style function intensity VALUE
532 Control the styling of function names.
533
534 set style variable foreground COLOR
535 set style variable background COLOR
536 set style variable intensity VALUE
537 Control the styling of variable names.
538
539 set style address foreground COLOR
540 set style address background COLOR
541 set style address intensity VALUE
542 Control the styling of addresses.
543
544 * MI changes
545
546 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
547 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
548 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
549 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
550 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
551
552 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
553 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
554
555 * New native configurations
556
557 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
558 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
559
560 * New targets
561
562 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
563 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
564 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
565 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
566 NXP S12Z s12z-*-elf
567 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
568
569 * Removed targets
570
571 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
572 before Windows XP.
573
574 * Python API
575
576 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
577
578 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
579 space associated to that inferior.
580
581 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
582 of objfiles associated to that program space.
583
584 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
585 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
586 the gdb core.
587
588 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
589 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
590 correct and did not work properly.
591
592 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
593 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
594
595 * Configure changes
596
597 --enable-ubsan
598
599 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
600 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
601 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
602 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
603 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
604
605 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
606
607 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
608 for the MIPS target.
609
610 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
611 offset to all sections.
612
613 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
614 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
615 address of individual sections using '-s'.
616
617 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
618 (address of the text section).
619
620 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
621 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
622 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
623 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
624 default.
625
626 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
627 for the rest of the current command.
628
629 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
630 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
631
632 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
633 files created on FreeBSD systems.
634
635 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
636 alignof.
637
638 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
639 the vector length while the process is running.
640
641 * New commands
642
643 set debug fbsd-nat
644 show debug fbsd-nat
645 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
646
647 set|show varsize-limit
648 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
649 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
650 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
651
652 set|show record btrace cpu
653 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
654 branch trace decode.
655
656 maint check libthread-db
657 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
658 library
659
660 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
661 maint show check-libthread-db
662 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
663 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
664 perform such checks.
665
666 * Python API
667
668 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
669
670 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
671 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
672
673 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
674
675 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
676 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
677 of convenience variables.
678
679 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
680 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
681 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
682
683 * New targets
684
685 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
686
687 * Removed targets and native configurations
688
689 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
690 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
691 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
692 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
693
694 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
695
696 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
697 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
698 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
699 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
700 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
701 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
702 reported.
703
704 * Configure changes
705
706 --enable-codesign=CERT
707 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
708 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
709 gdb to work properly.
710
711 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
712 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
713
714 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
715
716 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
717 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
718 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
719
720 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
721 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
722
723 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
724 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
725 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
726 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
727 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
728
729 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
730 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
731 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
732 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
733
734 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
735 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
736
737 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
738 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
739 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
740
741 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
742 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
743 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
744
745 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
746 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
747 environment" command.
748
749 * Completion improvements
750
751 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
752 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
753 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
754 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
755 correctly:
756
757 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
758 (gdb) b function(int)
759
760 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
761 C++ anonymous namespaces:
762
763 (gdb) b (anon[TAB]
764 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
765 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
766 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
767
768 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
769 completion support, that better understands what you're
770 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
771 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
772 setting a breakpoint.
773
774 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
775
776 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
777
778 * New command line options (gcore)
779
780 -a
781 Dump all memory mappings.
782
783 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
784
785 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
786 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
787 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
788
789 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
790
791 A::B::func()
792 B::func()
793
794 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
795 on both symbols.
796
797 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
798 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
799 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
800 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
801 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
802 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
803 a breakpoint from Python.
804
805 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
806
807 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
808 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
809 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
810
811 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
812
813 function[abi:cxx11](int)
814 ^^^^^^^^^^^
815
816 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
817 no tag, like:
818
819 (gdb) b function(int)
820
821 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
822
823 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
824
825 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
826
827 * Python Scripting
828
829 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
830 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
831 description of these.
832
833 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
834 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
835 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
836
837 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
838 manual for a further description of this feature.
839
840
841 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
842
843 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
844 specified initial working directory.
845
846 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
847 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
848
849 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
850 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
851
852 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
853 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
854
855 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
856 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
857 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
858 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
859 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
860
861 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
862 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
863 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
864
865 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
866 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
867 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
868 in the *stopped notification.
869
870 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
871 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
872
873 * New remote packets
874
875 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
876 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
877 the inferior when starting it.
878
879 QEnvironmentUnset
880 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
881 before starting the remote inferior.
882
883 QEnvironmentReset
884 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
885 user-set environment variables should be unset).
886
887 QStartupWithShell
888 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
889
890 QSetWorkingDir
891 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
892 working directory.
893
894 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
895 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
896
897 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
898 filter the tests to be run.
899
900 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
901 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
902
903 * New commands
904
905 set|show cwd
906 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
907
908 set|show compile-gcc
909 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
910 with the 'compile' commands.
911
912 set debug separate-debug-file
913 show debug separate-debug-file
914 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
915
916 set dump-excluded-mappings
917 show dump-excluded-mappings
918 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
919 dumped when generating a core file.
920
921 maint info selftests
922 List the registered selftests.
923
924 starti
925 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
926
927 set|show debug or1k
928 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
929
930 set|show print type nested-type-limit
931 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
932 type printer will show.
933
934 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
935 `o' for nexti.
936
937 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
938
939 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
940 'int'.
941
942 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
943 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
944 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
945 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
946
947 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
948 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
949 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
950 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
951 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
952 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
953
954 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
955 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
956 unless you tell it the variable's type:
957
958 (gdb) p var
959 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
960 (gdb) p (float) var
961 $3 = 3.14
962
963 * New native configurations
964
965 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
966 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
967
968 * New targets
969
970 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
971 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
972 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
973
974 * Removed targets and native configurations
975
976 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
977
978 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
979
980 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
981 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
982 available in future Intel CPUs.
983
984 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
985
986 * Python Scripting
987
988 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
989 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
990
991 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
992 instructions.
993
994 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
995
996 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
997
998 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
999 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
1000 removed.
1001
1002 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
1003
1004 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
1005 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
1006
1007 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
1008
1009 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
1010 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
1011 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
1012 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
1013 features.
1014
1015 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
1016
1017 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
1018 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
1019 debugger.
1020
1021 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
1022
1023 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
1024 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
1025
1026 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
1027
1028 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
1029
1030 define mycommand
1031 set $i = 0
1032 while $i < $argc
1033 eval "print $arg%d", $i
1034 set $i = $i + 1
1035 end
1036 end
1037
1038 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
1039
1040 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
1041 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
1042
1043 * New native configurations
1044
1045 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1046
1047 * New targets
1048
1049 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
1050 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1051
1052 * Removed targets and native configurations
1053
1054 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1055 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
1056
1057 * New commands
1058
1059 flash-erase
1060 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
1061
1062 maint print arc arc-instruction address
1063 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
1064
1065 * New options
1066
1067 set disassembler-options
1068 show disassembler-options
1069 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
1070 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
1071 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
1072 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
1073 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
1074
1075 * New MI commands
1076
1077 -target-flash-erase
1078 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
1079 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
1080
1081 -file-list-shared-libraries
1082 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
1083 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
1084
1085 -catch-handlers
1086 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
1087 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
1088
1089 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
1090
1091 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
1092
1093 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
1094 default. One must now explicitly configure with
1095 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
1096 option will be removed in a future release.
1097
1098 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
1099 GDB connection.
1100
1101 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
1102 memory backward from the given address. For example:
1103
1104 (gdb) bt
1105 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
1106 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
1107 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
1108 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
1109 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
1110 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
1111 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
1112 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
1113 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
1114
1115 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
1116 arrays of dynamic types.
1117
1118 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
1119 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1120 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1121 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1122 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1123 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
1124
1125 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
1126 descriptions.
1127
1128 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
1129 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
1130 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
1131
1132 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
1133
1134 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
1135 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
1136 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
1137 signal received and code location.
1138
1139 For example:
1140
1141 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
1142 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
1143 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
1144 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
1145
1146 * Rust language support.
1147 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
1148 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
1149 Rust.
1150
1151 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
1152
1153 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
1154 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
1155 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
1156 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
1157 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
1158 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
1159 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
1160 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
1161 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
1162 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
1163 line.
1164
1165 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
1166
1167 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
1168 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
1169
1170 * New commands
1171
1172 skip -file file
1173 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
1174 skip -function function
1175 skip -rfunction regular-expression
1176 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
1177 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
1178 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
1179
1180 maint info line-table REGEXP
1181 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data struture.
1182
1183 maint selftest
1184 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
1185
1186 new-ui INTERP TTY
1187 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
1188 using the TTY file for input/output.
1189
1190 * Python Scripting
1191
1192 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
1193 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
1194 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
1195 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
1196 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
1197
1198 signal-event EVENTID
1199 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
1200 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
1201 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
1202 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
1203 signalling an event.
1204
1205 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
1206 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
1207 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
1208
1209 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
1210 been removed:
1211
1212 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
1213 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
1214 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
1215 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
1216 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
1217 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
1218
1219 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
1220 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
1221 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
1222 bytecode into native code.
1223
1224 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
1225 recording. For example:
1226
1227 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
1228
1229 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
1230
1231 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
1232
1233 * New targets
1234
1235 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
1236
1237 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
1238
1239 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
1240
1241 * Per-inferior thread numbers
1242
1243 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
1244 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
1245 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
1246
1247 (gdb) info threads
1248 Id Target Id Frame
1249 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
1250 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
1251 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
1252 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
1253
1254 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
1255 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
1256 are no longer unique between inferiors.
1257
1258 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
1259 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
1260 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
1261
1262 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
1263 IDs.
1264
1265 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
1266 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
1267
1268 (gdb) thread 2.1
1269 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
1270 (gdb)
1271
1272 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
1273 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
1274 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
1275 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
1276 threads 2.*".
1277
1278 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
1279 all threads.
1280
1281 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
1282 the current thread.
1283
1284 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
1285 current inferior.
1286
1287 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
1288 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
1289 example:
1290
1291 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
1292 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
1293
1294 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
1295
1296 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
1297
1298 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
1299 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
1300
1301 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
1302 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
1303 clients.
1304
1305 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1306 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
1307 at the same time.
1308
1309 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
1310 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
1311 into native code.
1312
1313 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1314
1315 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
1316 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
1317 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
1318
1319 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
1320 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
1321
1322 * New commands
1323
1324 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
1325 maint show target-non-stop
1326 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
1327 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
1328 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
1329
1330 maint set bfd-sharing
1331 maint show bfd-sharing
1332 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
1333
1334 set debug bfd-cache
1335 show debug bfd-cache
1336 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
1337
1338 set debug fbsd-lwp
1339 show debug fbsd-lwp
1340 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
1341
1342 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1343 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1344 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
1345
1346 set remote thread-events
1347 show remote thread-events
1348 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
1349
1350 set ada print-signatures on|off
1351 show ada print-signatures"
1352 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
1353 selection menus. It is activaled (@code{on}) by default.
1354
1355 set max-value-size
1356 show max-value-size
1357 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
1358 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
1359 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
1360
1361 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1362 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
1363 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
1364 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
1365 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
1366 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
1367
1368 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1369 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
1370
1371 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
1372 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
1373
1374 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
1375
1376 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
1377 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
1378 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
1379 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
1380 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
1381 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
1382
1383 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
1384 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1385
1386 catch handlers
1387 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1388
1389 * New remote packets
1390
1391 exec stop reason
1392 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1393
1394 exec-events feature in qSupported
1395 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1396 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1397 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1398 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1399
1400 vCtrlC
1401 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1402 non-stop mode.
1403
1404 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1405 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1406
1407 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1408 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1409
1410 QThreadEvents
1411 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1412 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1413 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1414 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1415 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1416 stop for that same thread.
1417
1418 N stop reply
1419 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1420 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1421 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1422
1423 QCatchSyscalls
1424 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1425 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1426
1427 syscall_entry stop reason
1428 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1429
1430 syscall_return stop reason
1431 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1432
1433 * Extended-remote exec events
1434
1435 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1436 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1437 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1438
1439 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1440 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1441 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1442
1443 * Thread names in remote protocol
1444
1445 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1446 thread.
1447
1448 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1449
1450 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1451 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1452 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1453 fork and exec catchpoints.
1454
1455 * Remote syscall events
1456
1457 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1458 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1459
1460 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1461 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1462 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1463
1464 * MI changes
1465
1466 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1467 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1468 left.
1469
1470 * Python Scripting
1471
1472 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1473 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1474 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1475 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1476 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1477 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1478
1479 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1480
1481 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1482 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1483 including advance SIMD instructions.
1484
1485 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1486
1487 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1488 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1489 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1490 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1491 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1492 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1493 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1494
1495 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1496 cpu information :
1497 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1498
1499 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1500 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1501 remote serial I/O.
1502
1503 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1504 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
1505 and may include things like its command line arguments.
1506
1507 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
1508 is now available on all platforms.
1509
1510 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
1511 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
1512 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
1513 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
1514 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
1515 backward compatibility.
1516
1517 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
1518 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
1519 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
1520 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
1521
1522 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
1523 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
1524 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
1525 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
1526 packets" below.
1527
1528 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
1529
1530 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
1531
1532 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
1533 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
1534 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
1535 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
1536 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
1537 See "New remote packets" below.
1538
1539 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
1540 available register groups, including target specific groups.
1541
1542 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
1543 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
1544 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
1545 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
1546 are ignored.
1547
1548 * Guile Scripting
1549
1550 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
1551
1552 * Python Scripting
1553
1554 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
1555 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
1556 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
1557 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
1558 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
1559 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
1560 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
1561 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
1562 "const" version of the value respectively.
1563
1564 * New commands
1565
1566 maint print symbol-cache
1567 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
1568
1569 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
1570 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
1571
1572 maint flush-symbol-cache
1573 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
1574
1575 record btrace bts
1576 record bts
1577 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
1578
1579 compile print
1580 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
1581
1582 tui enable
1583 tui disable
1584 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
1585
1586 show mpx bound
1587 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
1588 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
1589
1590 record btrace pt
1591 record pt
1592 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
1593
1594 maint info btrace
1595 Print information about branch tracing internals.
1596
1597 maint btrace packet-history
1598 Print the raw branch tracing data.
1599
1600 maint btrace clear-packet-history
1601 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
1602
1603 maint btrace clear
1604 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
1605 anew by the next "record" command.
1606
1607 * New options
1608
1609 set debug dwarf-die
1610 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
1611 show debug dwarf-die
1612 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
1613
1614 set debug dwarf-read
1615 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
1616 show debug dwarf-read
1617 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
1618
1619 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
1620 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1621 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
1622 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1623
1624 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
1625 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1626 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
1627 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1628
1629 set debug dwarf-line
1630 show debug dwarf-line
1631 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
1632
1633 set max-completions
1634 show max-completions
1635 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
1636 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
1637 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
1638 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
1639
1640 set history remove-duplicates
1641 show history remove-duplicates
1642 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1643
1644 maint set symbol-cache-size
1645 maint show symbol-cache-size
1646 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1647
1648 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1649 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1650 BTS format.
1651 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1652 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1653
1654 set debug linux-namespaces
1655 show debug linux-namespaces
1656 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1657
1658 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1659 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1660 Intel Processor Trace format.
1661 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1662 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1663
1664 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1665 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1666 packet history.
1667
1668 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
1669 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
1670
1671 * Python/Guile scripting
1672
1673 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
1674 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
1675
1676 * New remote packets
1677
1678 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
1679 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
1680
1681 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
1682 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
1683
1684 Qbtrace:pt
1685 Enable Intel Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
1686 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
1687 qSupported query.
1688
1689 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
1690 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
1691 Trace format.
1692
1693 swbreak stop reason
1694 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
1695 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
1696 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
1697 mode operation.
1698
1699 hwbreak stop reason
1700 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
1701 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
1702
1703 vFile:fstat:
1704 Return information about files on the remote system.
1705
1706 qXfer:exec-file:read
1707 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
1708 create a process running on the remote system.
1709
1710 vFile:setfs:
1711 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
1712 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
1713 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
1714 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
1715
1716 fork stop reason
1717 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
1718
1719 vfork stop reason
1720 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
1721
1722 vforkdone stop reason
1723 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
1724 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
1725
1726 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
1727 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
1728 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
1729 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
1730 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
1731 whether these features are enabled.
1732
1733 * Extended-remote fork events
1734
1735 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
1736 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
1737 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
1738 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
1739
1740 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
1741 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
1742 the btrace record target.
1743 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
1744
1745 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
1746 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
1747
1748 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
1749 targets.
1750
1751 * Removed command line options
1752
1753 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
1754
1755 * Removed targets and native configurations
1756
1757 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
1758 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1759
1760 * New configure options
1761
1762 --with-intel-pt
1763 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
1764 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
1765
1766 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
1767 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
1768 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
1769 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
1770
1771 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
1772
1773 * Python Scripting
1774
1775 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
1776
1777 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
1778
1779 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
1780
1781 * Python Scripting
1782
1783 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
1784 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
1785 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
1786 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
1787 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
1788 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
1789 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
1790 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
1791 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
1792 selecting a new file to debug.
1793 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
1794 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
1795
1796 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
1797 inferior.
1798
1799 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
1800 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
1801 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
1802 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
1803
1804 * New Python-based convenience functions:
1805
1806 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1807 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1808 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1809 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1810
1811 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
1812 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
1813 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
1814 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
1815 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
1816 interface with this new feature are:
1817
1818 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
1819 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
1820
1821 * New commands
1822
1823 demangle [-l language] [--] name
1824 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
1825 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
1826 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
1827 as "maint demangler-warning".
1828
1829 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
1830 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
1831
1832 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
1833 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
1834 scripts.
1835
1836 maint print user-registers
1837 List all currently available "user" registers.
1838
1839 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
1840 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
1841 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
1842
1843 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
1844 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
1845 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
1846 provided.
1847
1848 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
1849 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
1850 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
1851 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
1852 at resume time.
1853
1854 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
1855 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
1856 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
1857 switched threads meanwhile.
1858
1859 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
1860
1861 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
1862 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
1863 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
1864 is now the default mode.
1865
1866 * New options
1867
1868 set debug symbol-lookup
1869 show debug symbol-lookup
1870 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
1871
1872 * MI changes
1873
1874 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
1875 inferiors that have exited.
1876
1877 * New targets
1878
1879 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
1880
1881 * Removed targets
1882
1883 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1884
1885 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
1886 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
1887 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
1888 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
1889 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
1890
1891 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1892 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1893 its alias "share", instead.
1894
1895 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
1896
1897 * New command line options
1898
1899 -D data-directory
1900 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
1901
1902 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
1903 as specified in ISO C99.
1904
1905 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
1906 with or without disassembly.
1907
1908 * Guile scripting
1909
1910 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
1911 available is determined at configure time.
1912 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
1913 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
1914
1915 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1916
1917 guile [code]
1918 gu [code]
1919 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
1920
1921 guile-repl
1922 gr
1923 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
1924
1925 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
1926 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
1927
1928 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
1929 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
1930
1931 * New options
1932
1933 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
1934 show print symbol-loading
1935 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
1936 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
1937 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
1938 becomes less useful.
1939
1940 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
1941 show guile print-stack
1942 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
1943
1944 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
1945 show auto-load guile-scripts
1946 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
1947
1948 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
1949 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
1950 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
1951 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
1952 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
1953 usage of this option.
1954
1955 set auto-connect-native-target
1956
1957 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
1958 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
1959 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
1960
1961 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
1962 show record btrace replay-memory-access
1963 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
1964
1965 maint set target-async (on|off)
1966 maint show target-async
1967 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
1968 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
1969 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
1970 occurring only in synchronous mode.
1971
1972 set mi-async (on|off)
1973 show mi-async
1974 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
1975 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
1976
1977 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
1978 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
1979
1980 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
1981 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
1982 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
1983 "set target-async on" command.
1984
1985 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1986
1987 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
1988 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
1989 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
1990 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
1991 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
1992
1993 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
1994 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
1995 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
1996
1997 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
1998 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
1999 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
2000 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
2001 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
2002 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
2003 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
2004
2005 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
2006 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
2007
2008 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
2009 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
2010 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
2011
2012 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
2013 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
2014 memory or registers.
2015
2016 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
2017
2018 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
2019 remote. It now works with all targets.
2020
2021 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
2022 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
2023 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
2024 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
2025 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
2026 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
2027 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
2028 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
2029 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
2030 target-stack".
2031
2032 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
2033 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
2034 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
2035
2036 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
2037
2038 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
2039 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
2040 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
2041
2042 * New remote packets
2043
2044 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
2045 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
2046 branch trace incrementally.
2047
2048 * Python Scripting
2049
2050 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
2051 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
2052 available.
2053 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
2054 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
2055 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
2056 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
2057 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
2058
2059 * New targets
2060 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
2061
2062 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2063 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2064 its alias "share", instead.
2065
2066 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
2067 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
2068 instead.
2069
2070 * MI changes
2071
2072 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
2073 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
2074 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
2075 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
2076 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
2077 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
2078 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
2079 commands and CLI execution commands.
2080
2081 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
2082
2083 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
2084 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
2085 recording has been added.
2086
2087 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2088
2089 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
2090 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
2091
2092 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
2093 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
2094 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
2095 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
2096 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
2097 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
2098 "void".
2099
2100 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
2101
2102 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
2103
2104 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
2105 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
2106 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
2107 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
2108
2109 (gdb) p $rax
2110 $1 = <not saved>
2111
2112 (gdb) info registers rax
2113 rax <not saved>
2114
2115 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
2116 "*value not available*".
2117
2118 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
2119 to binaries.
2120
2121 * Python scripting
2122
2123 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
2124 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
2125 ** Line tables representation has been added.
2126 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
2127 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
2128 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
2129
2130 * New targets
2131
2132 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
2133 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
2134 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
2135
2136 * Removed native configurations
2137
2138 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
2139 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
2140
2141 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2142 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2143 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
2144 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
2145 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2146 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2147 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2148
2149 * New commands:
2150 catch rethrow
2151 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
2152 maint check-psymtabs
2153 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
2154 maint check-symtabs
2155 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
2156 maint expand-symtabs
2157 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
2158
2159 show configuration
2160 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2161
2162 maint set|show per-command
2163 maint set|show per-command space
2164 maint set|show per-command time
2165 maint set|show per-command symtab
2166 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
2167
2168 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
2169 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
2170 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
2171 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
2172 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
2173
2174 info exceptions
2175 info exceptions REGEXP
2176 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
2177 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
2178 are listed.
2179
2180 * New options
2181
2182 set debug symfile off|on
2183 show debug symfile
2184 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
2185 symbol tables within those files
2186
2187 set print raw frame-arguments
2188 show print raw frame-arguments
2189 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
2190 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
2191
2192 set remote trace-status-packet
2193 show remote trace-status-packet
2194 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
2195
2196 set debug nios2
2197 show debug nios2
2198 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
2199
2200 set range-stepping
2201 show range-stepping
2202 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
2203
2204 set startup-with-shell
2205 show startup-with-shell
2206 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
2207 directly.
2208
2209 set code-cache
2210 show code-cache
2211 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
2212 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
2213
2214 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
2215 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
2216 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
2217 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
2218 "set height 0".
2219
2220 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
2221 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
2222 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
2223
2224 * New command-line options
2225 --configuration
2226 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2227
2228 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
2229 buffer in Common Trace Format.
2230
2231 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
2232 GDB command gcore.
2233
2234 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
2235
2236 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
2237 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
2238
2239 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
2240 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
2241
2242 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
2243 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
2244 due to an uncaught signal.
2245
2246 * MI changes
2247
2248 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
2249 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
2250 command, which should contain "language-option".
2251
2252 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
2253 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
2254
2255 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
2256 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
2257 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
2258 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2259 "undefined-command-error-code".
2260
2261 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
2262 Trace Format now.
2263
2264 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
2265
2266 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
2267 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
2268 are displayed.
2269
2270 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
2271 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
2272
2273 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
2274 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
2275 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
2276
2277 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
2278 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
2279 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
2280 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
2281 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2282 "exec-run-start-option".
2283
2284 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
2285 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
2286
2287 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
2288 the new "info exceptions" command.
2289
2290 * New system-wide configuration scripts
2291 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
2292 configuration scripts for the following systems:
2293 ** ElinOS
2294 ** Wind River Linux
2295
2296 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
2297 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
2298 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
2299 below.
2300
2301 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
2302 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
2303
2304 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
2305 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
2306 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
2307
2308 * New remote packets
2309
2310 vCont;r
2311
2312 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
2313 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
2314 involvemement at each single-step.
2315
2316 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
2317 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
2318 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
2319 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
2320 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
2321 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
2322 speedup.
2323
2324 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2325
2326 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
2327 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
2328
2329 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
2330 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
2331 trace state variables.
2332
2333 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
2334 target.
2335
2336 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
2337 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
2338
2339 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
2340
2341 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
2342 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
2343 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
2344 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2345
2346 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
2347
2348 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
2349 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
2350 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
2351 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
2352
2353 set|show record full insn-number-max
2354 set|show record full stop-at-limit
2355 set|show record full memory-query
2356
2357 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
2358 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
2359 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
2360 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
2361 This new recording method can be enabled using:
2362
2363 record btrace
2364
2365 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
2366 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
2367
2368 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
2369 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
2370 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
2371
2372 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
2373 instruction granularity
2374
2375 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
2376 function granularity
2377
2378 * New native configurations
2379
2380 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
2381 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
2382 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2383 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2384
2385 * New targets
2386
2387 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2388 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2389 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2390 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2391 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2392
2393 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2394 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2395 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2396 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2397 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2398 --data-directory command-line option.
2399
2400 * New command line options:
2401
2402 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2403 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2404
2405 * Removed command line options
2406
2407 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2408 Emacs.
2409
2410 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2411 type formatting.
2412
2413 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2414
2415 * Python scripting
2416
2417 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2418
2419 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2420
2421 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2422
2423 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2424
2425 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2426 of architecture in the Python API.
2427
2428 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2429 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2430
2431 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2432
2433 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2434 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2435 ** $_strlen(str)
2436 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2437
2438 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2439 given an argument.
2440
2441 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2442 default for GCC since November 2000.
2443
2444 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2445
2446 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2447 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2448
2449 * New configure options
2450
2451 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2452 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2453 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2454 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2455 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2456 options allow the user to override that default.
2457 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2458 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2459 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2460
2461 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2462
2463 catch signal
2464 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2465 conditions to be attached.
2466
2467 maint info bfds
2468 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2469
2470 python-interactive [command]
2471 pi [command]
2472 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2473 and print the result of expressions.
2474
2475 py [command]
2476 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2477
2478 enable type-printer [name]...
2479 disable type-printer [name]...
2480 Enable or disable type printers.
2481
2482 * Removed commands
2483
2484 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2485 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2486 instead.
2487
2488 * New options
2489
2490 set print type methods (on|off)
2491 show print type methods
2492 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2493 The default is to show them.
2494
2495 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2496 show print type typedefs
2497 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2498 The default is to show them.
2499
2500 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2501 show filename-display
2502 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2503 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
2504
2505 set trace-buffer-size
2506 show trace-buffer-size
2507 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
2508
2509 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
2510 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
2511 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
2512
2513 set debug aarch64
2514 show debug aarch64
2515 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
2516 The default is off.
2517
2518 set debug coff-pe-read
2519 show debug coff-pe-read
2520 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
2521 exported symbols.
2522
2523 set debug mach-o
2524 show debug mach-o
2525 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
2526 processing.
2527
2528 set debug notification
2529 show debug notification
2530 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
2531
2532 * MI changes
2533
2534 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
2535 "=cmd-param-changed".
2536 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
2537 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
2538 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
2539 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
2540 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
2541 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
2542 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
2543 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
2544 "=memory-changed".
2545 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
2546 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
2547 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
2548 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
2549 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
2550 library load/unload events.
2551 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
2552 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
2553 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
2554 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
2555 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
2556 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
2557 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
2558 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
2559
2560 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
2561 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
2562 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
2563 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
2564
2565 * New remote packets
2566
2567 QTBuffer:size
2568 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
2569 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2570
2571 Qbtrace:bts
2572 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
2573 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
2574 qSupported query.
2575
2576 Qbtrace:off
2577 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
2578 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2579
2580 qXfer:btrace:read
2581 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
2582 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2583
2584 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
2585
2586 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
2587 for more x32 ABI info.
2588
2589 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
2590
2591 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
2592
2593 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2594 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
2595 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
2596 "info os files" lists file descriptors
2597 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
2598 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
2599 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
2600 "info os msg" lists message queues
2601 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
2602
2603 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
2604 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
2605 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
2606 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
2607 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
2608 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
2609
2610 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
2611 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
2612 record/replay support.
2613
2614 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
2615
2616 * Python scripting
2617
2618 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
2619 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
2620
2621 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
2622
2623 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
2624 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
2625
2626 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
2627
2628 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
2629 the source at which the symbol was defined.
2630
2631 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
2632 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
2633 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
2634 symbol's value.
2635
2636 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
2637 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
2638
2639 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2640 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2641 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2642
2643 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2644 object associated with a PC value.
2645
2646 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2647 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2648
2649 * Go language support.
2650 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2651 language.
2652
2653 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2654 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2655
2656 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2657 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2658
2659 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2660 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2661 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2662 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2663 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2664 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
2665
2666 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
2667 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
2668 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
2669 build/libcpp/expr.c.
2670
2671 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
2672 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
2673
2674 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
2675 since December 2007.
2676
2677 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
2678 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
2679 command does. For instance:
2680
2681 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
2682
2683 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
2684 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
2685 created, using the "condition" command.
2686
2687 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
2688 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
2689
2690 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
2691
2692 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
2693 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
2694 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
2695 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
2696 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
2697 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
2698 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
2699 files with older .gdb_index sections.
2700
2701 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
2702 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
2703 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
2704 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
2705 the .gdb_index section.
2706
2707 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
2708
2709 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
2710 target.
2711
2712 * MI changes
2713
2714 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
2715
2716 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
2717
2718 * New commands
2719
2720 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2721 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2722 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
2723
2724 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
2725 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
2726
2727 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
2728 several hits.
2729
2730 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
2731 C++ and Java objects.
2732
2733 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
2734 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
2735 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
2736 configured with '--with-python'.
2737
2738 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
2739 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
2740 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
2741 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
2742 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
2743 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
2744 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
2745
2746 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
2747 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
2748 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
2749 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
2750
2751 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
2752 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
2753 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
2754 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
2755
2756 ** "set print symbol"
2757 "show print symbol"
2758 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
2759 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
2760 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
2761
2762 * Deprecated commands
2763
2764 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
2765 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
2766
2767 * New targets
2768
2769 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2770 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
2771
2772 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
2773 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
2774 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
2775 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
2776 evaluates to true.
2777
2778 * New options
2779
2780 set mips compression
2781 show mips compression
2782 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
2783 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
2784 mips16
2785 micromips
2786 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
2787
2788 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
2789 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
2790 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
2791 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
2792 available mode.
2793 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
2794 target.
2795
2796 set auto-load off
2797 Disable auto-loading globally.
2798
2799 show auto-load
2800 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
2801
2802 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
2803 show auto-load gdb-scripts
2804 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
2805
2806 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
2807 show auto-load python-scripts
2808 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
2809
2810 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
2811 show auto-load local-gdbinit
2812 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
2813
2814 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
2815 show auto-load libthread-db
2816 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
2817
2818 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2819 show auto-load scripts-directory
2820 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
2821 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
2822 of the directories listed by this option.
2823 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2824
2825 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2826 show auto-load safe-path
2827 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
2828 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2829
2830 set debug auto-load on|off
2831 show debug auto-load
2832 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
2833
2834 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
2835 show dprintf-style
2836 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
2837 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
2838 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
2839 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
2840
2841 set dprintf-function <expr>
2842 show dprintf-function
2843 set dprintf-channel <expr>
2844 show dprintf-channel
2845 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
2846 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
2847
2848 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
2849 show disconnected-dprintf
2850 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
2851 after GDB disconnects.
2852
2853 * New configure options
2854
2855 --with-auto-load-dir
2856 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
2857 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
2858 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
2859 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
2860 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
2861
2862 --with-auto-load-safe-path
2863 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
2864 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
2865
2866 --without-auto-load-safe-path
2867 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
2868 security feature.
2869
2870 * New remote packets
2871
2872 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
2873
2874 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
2875 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
2876 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
2877 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
2878
2879 QProgramSignals:
2880
2881 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
2882 program without GDB involvement.
2883
2884 * New command line options
2885
2886 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
2887 before loading inferior.
2888 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
2889 execute it before loading inferior.
2890
2891 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
2892
2893 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
2894 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
2895 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
2896 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
2897 inferior changes.
2898
2899 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
2900 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
2901
2902 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
2903 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
2904 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
2905 target hardware watchpoint.
2906
2907 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
2908 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
2909 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
2910 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
2911
2912 * Python scripting
2913
2914 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
2915 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
2916 existing one.
2917
2918 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
2919 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
2920 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
2921 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
2922 now "message", which just prints the error message without
2923 the stack trace.
2924
2925 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
2926 Python API.
2927
2928 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
2929 modules library. This module provides functionality for
2930 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
2931 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
2932 corresponding value.
2933
2934 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
2935 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
2936 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
2937 on GDB start-up.
2938
2939 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
2940 static_block will return the global and static blocks
2941 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
2942 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
2943
2944 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
2945
2946 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
2947 "gdb.breakpoints".
2948
2949 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
2950 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
2951 available in the CLI.
2952
2953 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
2954 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
2955 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
2956 "some_type.items()".
2957
2958 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
2959 new object file.
2960
2961 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
2962 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
2963 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
2964 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
2965 any anonymous fields.
2966
2967 * MI changes
2968
2969 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
2970 "solib-event".
2971
2972 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
2973 "=breakpoint-modified".
2974
2975 ** New command -ada-task-info.
2976
2977 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
2978 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
2979 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
2980 lives.
2981
2982 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
2983 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
2984 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
2985 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
2986 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
2987
2988 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
2989 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
2990
2991 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
2992 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
2993 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
2994 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
2995 use this option to specify where to find it.
2996
2997 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2998 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
2999 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
3000 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
3001 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
3002 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3003 section in the user manual for more details.
3004
3005 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
3006 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
3007 become available after that.
3008
3009 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
3010
3011 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
3012 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
3013 gcc version 4.7.
3014
3015 * New commands
3016
3017 !SHELL COMMAND
3018 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
3019 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
3020
3021 * Changed commands
3022
3023 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
3024 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
3025 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
3026
3027 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
3028 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
3029 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
3030
3031 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
3032 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
3033 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
3034 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
3035 name starts with a hyphen.
3036
3037 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
3038 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
3039 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
3040 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
3041 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
3042 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
3043 number of bytes that will be collected.
3044
3045 tstart [NOTES]
3046 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
3047 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
3048 setting the variable trace-notes.
3049
3050 tstop [NOTES]
3051 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
3052 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
3053 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
3054 trace-stop-notes.
3055
3056 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
3057 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
3058 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
3059 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
3060 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
3061 is running.
3062
3063 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
3064 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
3065 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
3066
3067 * New options
3068
3069 set debug dwarf2-read
3070 show debug dwarf2-read
3071 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
3072 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
3073
3074 set debug symtab-create
3075 show debug symtab-create
3076 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
3077 creation. The default is off.
3078
3079 set extended-prompt
3080 show extended-prompt
3081 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
3082 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
3083 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
3084 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
3085 prompt is displayed.
3086
3087 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
3088 show print entry-values
3089 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
3090 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
3091 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
3092
3093 set debug entry-values
3094 show debug entry-values
3095 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
3096 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
3097
3098 set basenames-may-differ
3099 show basenames-may-differ
3100 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
3101 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
3102 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
3103 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
3104 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
3105 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
3106 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
3107 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
3108
3109 set trace-user
3110 show trace-user
3111 set trace-notes
3112 show trace-notes
3113 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
3114 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
3115 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
3116 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
3117
3118 set trace-stop-notes
3119 show trace-stop-notes
3120 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
3121 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
3122 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
3123 started by someone else.
3124
3125 * New remote packets
3126
3127 QTEnable
3128
3129 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3130
3131 QTDisable
3132
3133 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3134
3135 QTNotes
3136
3137 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
3138
3139 qTP
3140
3141 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
3142
3143 qTMinFTPILen
3144
3145 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
3146 be placed.
3147
3148 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
3149 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
3150
3151 * New targets
3152
3153 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
3154
3155 * New Simulators
3156
3157 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3158
3159 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
3160
3161 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
3162
3163 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
3164
3165 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
3166 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
3167 matches the given regular expression.
3168
3169 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
3170
3171 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
3172 dumping the instruction opcodes.
3173
3174 * New command line options
3175
3176 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
3177 This is mostly for testing purposes.
3178
3179 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
3180 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
3181
3182 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
3183 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
3184 source path list instead of augmenting it.
3185
3186 * GDB now understands thread names.
3187
3188 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
3189 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
3190
3191 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
3192 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
3193
3194 * OpenCL C
3195 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
3196 has been integrated into GDB.
3197
3198 * Python scripting
3199
3200 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
3201 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
3202 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
3203
3204 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3205 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
3206 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
3207 and allows for more dynamic content.
3208
3209 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
3210 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
3211 have an is_valid method.
3212
3213 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3214 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
3215 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
3216
3217 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
3218
3219 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
3220 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
3221 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
3222 that function like so:
3223
3224 result = some_value (10,20)
3225
3226 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
3227 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
3228 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
3229
3230 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
3231 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
3232 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
3233 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
3234 New function: register_pretty_printer.
3235
3236 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
3237 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
3238
3239 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
3240
3241 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
3242 selected thread.
3243
3244 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
3245 holds the thread's name.
3246
3247 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
3248 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
3249 occurring in the process being debugged.
3250 The following events are currently supported:
3251 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
3252 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
3253 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
3254
3255 * C++ Improvements:
3256
3257 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
3258 instantiation. For example, if you have:
3259
3260 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
3261
3262 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
3263 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
3264 was added to GCC 4.5.
3265
3266 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
3267 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
3268 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
3269 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
3270 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
3271 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
3272
3273 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
3274 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
3275 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
3276 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
3277 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
3278
3279 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
3280 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
3281 execution to a label.
3282
3283 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
3284 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
3285 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
3286 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
3287
3288 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
3289 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
3290 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
3291 of scope.
3292
3293 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
3294
3295 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
3296 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
3297 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
3298 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
3299 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
3300 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
3301
3302 (gdb) info threads
3303 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
3304
3305 While now you see this:
3306
3307 (gdb) info threads
3308 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
3309
3310 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
3311 dumps.
3312
3313 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
3314 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
3315 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
3316 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
3317
3318 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3319 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
3320 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
3321 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3322 section in the user manual for more details.
3323
3324 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3325
3326 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
3327 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
3328
3329 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
3330
3331 * New native configurations
3332
3333 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3334
3335 * New targets:
3336
3337 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
3338
3339 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
3340 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
3341 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
3342 in the GDB user manual.
3343
3344 * Guile support was removed.
3345
3346 * New features in the GNU simulator
3347
3348 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
3349
3350 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
3351
3352 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
3353
3354 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
3355
3356 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
3357 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
3358 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
3359 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
3360 was always disabled for such configurations.
3361
3362 * C++ Improvements:
3363
3364 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
3365
3366 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
3367 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
3368 For example:
3369 namespace A
3370 {
3371 class B { };
3372 void foo (B) { }
3373 }
3374 ...
3375 A::B b
3376 foo(b)
3377 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
3378 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
3379 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
3380
3381 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
3382
3383 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
3384 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
3385 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
3386 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3387 entry.
3388 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3389 mentioned flavors of operators.
3390
3391 ** static const class members
3392
3393 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3394 class definition has been fixed.
3395
3396 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3397
3398 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3399 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3400 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3401 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3402 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3403 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3404
3405 * Static tracepoints
3406
3407 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3408 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3409 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3410 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3411 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3412 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3413 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3414 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3415 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3416 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3417 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3418 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3419 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3420 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3421 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3422 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3423 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3424 the "New remote packets" section below.
3425
3426 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3427
3428 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3429 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3430 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3431 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3432
3433 * Observer mode
3434
3435 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3436 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3437 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3438 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3439 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3440 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3441 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3442
3443 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3444 current thread.
3445
3446 * New remote packets
3447
3448 qGetTIBAddr
3449
3450 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3451
3452 qRelocInsn
3453
3454 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3455 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3456 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3457 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3458 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3459 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3460
3461 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
3462
3463 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3464
3465 qTSTMat
3466
3467 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3468 program.
3469
3470 qXfer:statictrace:read
3471
3472 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3473 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3474 to gdb's qSupported query.
3475
3476 QAllow
3477
3478 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3479
3480 QTDPsrc
3481
3482 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3483 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3484
3485 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3486 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3487 a directory.
3488
3489 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3490
3491 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3492 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3493 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3494 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3495
3496 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3497 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3498 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3499 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3500 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3501 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3502 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3503
3504 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
3505 for static tracepoints support.
3506
3507 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
3508
3509 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
3510 it understands register description.
3511
3512 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
3513
3514 * X86 general purpose registers
3515
3516 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
3517 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
3518 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
3519 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
3520 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
3521
3522 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
3523 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
3524 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
3525 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
3526 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
3527 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
3528
3529 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
3530 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
3531 in the specified file.
3532
3533 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
3534 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
3535 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
3536 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
3537 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
3538 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
3539 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
3540 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
3541 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
3542 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
3543
3544 * New commands
3545
3546 eval template, expressions...
3547 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
3548 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
3549
3550 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
3551 show target-file-system-kind
3552 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
3553 names.
3554
3555 save breakpoints <filename>
3556 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
3557 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
3558 definitions, use the `source' command.
3559
3560 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
3561 is now deprecated.
3562
3563 info static-tracepoint-markers
3564 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
3565
3566 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
3567 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
3568 function, line, address, or marker ID.
3569
3570 set observer on|off
3571 show observer
3572 Enable and disable observer mode.
3573
3574 set may-write-registers on|off
3575 set may-write-memory on|off
3576 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
3577 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
3578 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
3579 set may-interrupt on|off
3580 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
3581 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
3582 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
3583 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
3584 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
3585 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
3586 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
3587
3588 set record memory-query on|off
3589 show record memory-query
3590 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
3591 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
3592
3593 * Changed commands
3594
3595 disassemble
3596 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
3597
3598 * Python scripting
3599
3600 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
3601 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
3602 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
3603 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
3604 GDB using Python' in the manual.
3605
3606 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
3607 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
3608 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
3609 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
3610
3611 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
3612 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
3613
3614 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
3615
3616 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
3617
3618 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
3619
3620 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
3621 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
3622 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
3623
3624 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
3625 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
3626 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
3627 regular breakpoints.
3628
3629 * New targets
3630
3631 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
3632
3633 * D language support.
3634 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
3635 language.
3636
3637 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
3638 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
3639 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3640 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3641 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3642
3643 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3644 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3645 conditions of the form:
3646
3647 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3648
3649 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3650 interface mentioned above.
3651
3652 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
3653
3654 * C++ Improvements
3655
3656 ** Namespace Support
3657
3658 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3659 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3660 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3661 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3662 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3663
3664 ** Bug Fixes
3665
3666 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
3667 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
3668 qualified name.
3669
3670 ** Cast Operators
3671
3672 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
3673 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
3674
3675 * New targets
3676
3677 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
3678 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
3679
3680 * New Simulators
3681
3682 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
3683 Renesas RX rx
3684
3685 * Multi-program debugging.
3686
3687 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
3688 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
3689 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
3690 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
3691 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
3692 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
3693 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
3694 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
3695
3696 * New tracing features
3697
3698 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
3699
3700 ** Trace state variables
3701
3702 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
3703 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
3704 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
3705 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
3706 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
3707 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
3708 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
3709 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
3710 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
3711 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
3712
3713 ** Fast tracepoints
3714
3715 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
3716 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
3717 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
3718 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
3719 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
3720 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
3721 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
3722 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
3723 the regular trace command.
3724
3725 ** Disconnected tracing
3726
3727 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
3728 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
3729 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
3730 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
3731 connection is lost unexpectedly.
3732
3733 ** Trace files
3734
3735 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
3736 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
3737 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
3738 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
3739 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
3740 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
3741 <name>".
3742
3743 ** Circular trace buffer
3744
3745 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
3746 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
3747 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
3748 not be available for all target agents.
3749
3750 * Changed commands
3751
3752 disassemble
3753 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
3754 the arguments to be comma-separated.
3755
3756 info variables
3757 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
3758 which only declare a variable are not shown.
3759
3760 source
3761 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
3762 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
3763 support.
3764
3765 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
3766 "set script-extension" (see below).
3767
3768 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3769
3770 record save [<FILENAME>]
3771 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
3772 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
3773
3774 record restore <FILENAME>
3775 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
3776 earlier time, for replay debugging.
3777
3778 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
3779 Add a new inferior.
3780
3781 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
3782 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
3783 inferior has loaded.
3784
3785 remove-inferior ID
3786 Remove an inferior.
3787
3788 maint info program-spaces
3789 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
3790
3791 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
3792 show remote interrupt-sequence
3793 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
3794 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
3795 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
3796 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
3797 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
3798
3799 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
3800 show remote interrupt-on-connect
3801 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
3802 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
3803 Linux kernel.
3804
3805 set remotebreak [on | off]
3806 show remotebreak
3807 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
3808
3809 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
3810 Create or modify a trace state variable.
3811
3812 info tvariables
3813 List trace state variables and their values.
3814
3815 delete tvariable $NAME ...
3816 Delete one or more trace state variables.
3817
3818 teval EXPR, ...
3819 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
3820 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
3821
3822 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
3823 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
3824
3825 * New expression syntax
3826
3827 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
3828 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
3829
3830 * New options
3831
3832 set follow-exec-mode new|same
3833 show follow-exec-mode
3834 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
3835 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
3836 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
3837
3838 set default-collect EXPR, ...
3839 show default-collect
3840 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
3841 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
3842 such as registers or a critical global variable.
3843
3844 set disconnected-tracing
3845 show disconnected-tracing
3846 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
3847 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
3848 upon disconnection.
3849
3850 set circular-trace-buffer
3851 show circular-trace-buffer
3852 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
3853 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
3854 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
3855 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
3856
3857 set script-extension off|soft|strict
3858 show script-extension
3859 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
3860 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
3861 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
3862 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
3863 evaluation failed.
3864 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
3865
3866 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
3867 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
3868 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
3869 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
3870 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
3871 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
3872 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
3873 is on.
3874
3875 * Python API Improvements
3876
3877 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
3878 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
3879 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
3880
3881 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
3882 `is_base_class' attribute.
3883
3884 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
3885
3886 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
3887 evaluate an expression.
3888
3889 * New remote packets
3890
3891 QTDV
3892 Define a trace state variable.
3893
3894 qTV
3895 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
3896
3897 QTDisconnected
3898 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
3899
3900 QTBuffer:circular
3901 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
3902
3903 qTfP, qTsP
3904 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
3905
3906 * Bug fixes
3907
3908 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
3909
3910 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
3911 much more reliable. In particular:
3912 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
3913 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
3914 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
3915 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
3916 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
3917 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
3918 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
3919 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
3920 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
3921 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
3922 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
3923 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
3924 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
3925 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
3926 non-threaded programs.
3927
3928 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
3929 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
3930 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
3931 executable program.
3932
3933 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
3934
3935 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
3936 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
3937 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
3938 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
3939 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
3940
3941 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
3942 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
3943 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
3944 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
3945 for tracepoint actions.
3946
3947 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
3948 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
3949 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
3950
3951 * Process record and replay
3952
3953 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
3954 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
3955 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
3956 execute commands.
3957
3958 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
3959 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
3960 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
3961 reverse execution.
3962
3963 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
3964 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
3965 2.6.28 or later.
3966
3967 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
3968 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
3969 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
3970 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
3971 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
3972 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
3973 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
3974 the installation instructions for more information.
3975
3976 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
3977 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
3978 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
3979 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
3980
3981 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
3982 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
3983
3984 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
3985 now complete on file names.
3986
3987 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
3988 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
3989 For instance, consider:
3990
3991 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
3992 # struct example variable;
3993 (gdb) p variable.
3994
3995 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
3996 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
3997
3998 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
3999 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
4000
4001 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
4002 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
4003 macros.
4004
4005 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
4006 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
4007 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
4008
4009 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
4010 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
4011 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
4012 and simulator targets may also provide them.
4013
4014 * New remote packets
4015
4016 qSearch:memory:
4017 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4018
4019 QStartNoAckMode
4020 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
4021 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
4022 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
4023
4024 vKill
4025 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
4026 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
4027
4028 qXfer:osdata:read
4029 Obtains additional operating system information
4030
4031 qXfer:siginfo:read
4032 qXfer:siginfo:write
4033 Read or write additional signal information.
4034
4035 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
4036
4037 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
4038 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
4039 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
4040
4041 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
4042 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
4043
4044 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
4045 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
4046 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
4047
4048 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
4049 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
4050
4051 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
4052
4053 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
4054
4055 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
4056 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
4057
4058 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
4059 list of section offsets.
4060
4061 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
4062 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
4063 have also been fixed.
4064
4065 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
4066 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
4067 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
4068
4069 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
4070 example, given:
4071
4072 template<typename T> class C { };
4073 C<char const *> c;
4074
4075 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
4076
4077 ptype C<char const *>
4078 ptype C<char const*>
4079 ptype C<const char *>
4080 ptype C<const char*>
4081
4082 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
4083
4084 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
4085 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4086
4087 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
4088 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4089 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
4090
4091 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
4092 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
4093
4094 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
4095 gdbserver.
4096
4097 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
4098 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4099
4100 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
4101 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
4102 as appropriate.
4103
4104 * Python scripting
4105
4106 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
4107 available is determined at configure time.
4108
4109 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
4110
4111 * Ada tasking support
4112
4113 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
4114 been introduced:
4115
4116 info tasks
4117 Print the list of Ada tasks.
4118 info task N
4119 Print detailed information about task number N.
4120 task
4121 Print the task number of the current task.
4122 task N
4123 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
4124
4125 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
4126 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
4127
4128 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
4129
4130 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
4131 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
4132 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
4133 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
4134 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
4135 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
4136 below.
4137
4138 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
4139 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
4140 information.
4141
4142 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
4143 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
4144 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
4145 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
4146 more information.
4147
4148 * Multi-architecture debugging.
4149
4150 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
4151 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
4152 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
4153 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
4154 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
4155
4156 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
4157 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
4158 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
4159 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
4160 --enable-targets configure option.
4161
4162 * Non-stop mode debugging.
4163
4164 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
4165 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
4166 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
4167 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
4168 section in the user manual for more information.
4169
4170 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
4171 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
4172 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
4173 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
4174 extensions on linux targets.
4175
4176 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4177
4178 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
4179 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
4180 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
4181 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
4182 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
4183 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
4184 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
4185 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
4186 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
4187
4188 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
4189 val1 [, val2, ...]
4190 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4191
4192 maint set python print-stack
4193 maint show python print-stack
4194 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
4195
4196 python [CODE]
4197 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
4198
4199 macro define
4200 macro list
4201 macro undef
4202 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
4203 interactively.
4204
4205 info os processes
4206 Show operating system information about processes.
4207
4208 info inferiors
4209 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
4210
4211 inferior NUM
4212 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
4213
4214 detach inferior NUM
4215 Detach from inferior number NUM.
4216
4217 kill inferior NUM
4218 Kill inferior number NUM.
4219
4220 * New options
4221
4222 set spu stop-on-load
4223 show spu stop-on-load
4224 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4225
4226 set spu auto-flush-cache
4227 show spu auto-flush-cache
4228 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
4229 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4230
4231 set sh calling-convention
4232 show sh calling-convention
4233 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
4234
4235 set debug timestamp
4236 show debug timestamp
4237 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
4238
4239 set disassemble-next-line
4240 show disassemble-next-line
4241 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
4242 the debuggee stops.
4243
4244 set remote noack-packet
4245 show remote noack-packet
4246 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
4247 under "New remote packets."
4248
4249 set remote query-attached-packet
4250 show remote query-attached-packet
4251 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
4252
4253 set remote read-siginfo-object
4254 show remote read-siginfo-object
4255 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
4256 packet.
4257
4258 set remote write-siginfo-object
4259 show remote write-siginfo-object
4260 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
4261 packet.
4262
4263 set remote reverse-continue
4264 show remote reverse-continue
4265 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
4266
4267 set remote reverse-step
4268 show remote reverse-step
4269 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
4270
4271 set displaced-stepping
4272 show displaced-stepping
4273 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
4274 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
4275 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
4276
4277 set debug displaced
4278 show debug displaced
4279 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
4280
4281 maint set internal-error
4282 maint show internal-error
4283 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
4284
4285 maint set internal-warning
4286 maint show internal-warning
4287 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
4288
4289 set exec-wrapper
4290 show exec-wrapper
4291 unset exec-wrapper
4292 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4293
4294 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
4295 show multiple-symbols
4296 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
4297 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
4298 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
4299
4300 set breakpoint always-inserted
4301 show breakpoint always-inserted
4302 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
4303 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
4304 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
4305
4306 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4307 show arm fallback-mode
4308 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4309 show arm force-mode
4310 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
4311 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
4312 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
4313 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
4314
4315 set disable-randomization
4316 show disable-randomization
4317 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
4318 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
4319 multiple debugging sessions.
4320
4321 set non-stop
4322 show non-stop
4323 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
4324 a breakpoint.
4325
4326 set target-async
4327 show target-async
4328 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
4329 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
4330 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
4331 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
4332
4333 set target-wide-charset
4334 show target-wide-charset
4335 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
4336 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
4337
4338 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
4339 show tcp auto-retry
4340 set tcp connect-timeout
4341 show tcp connect-timeout
4342 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
4343 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
4344 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
4345
4346 set libthread-db-search-path
4347 show libthread-db-search-path
4348 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
4349 libthread_db.
4350
4351 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
4352 show schedule-multiple
4353 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
4354 the current process.
4355
4356 set stack-cache
4357 show stack-cache
4358 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
4359 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
4360 affecting correctness.
4361
4362 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
4363 show interactive-mode
4364 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
4365 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
4366 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
4367 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
4368 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
4369
4370 * Removed commands
4371
4372 info forks
4373 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
4374 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
4375 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
4376 command.
4377
4378 fork NUM
4379 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
4380 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
4381 alias for the `fork' command.
4382
4383 process PID
4384 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
4385 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
4386 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4387
4388 delete fork NUM
4389 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4390 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4391 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4392 fork' command.
4393
4394 detach fork NUM
4395 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4396 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4397 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4398 fork' command.
4399
4400 * New native configurations
4401
4402 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4403
4404 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4405
4406 * New targets
4407
4408 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4409 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4410 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4411 S+core 3 score-*-*
4412
4413 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4414 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4415
4416 * Removed commands
4417
4418 catch load
4419 catch unload
4420 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4421
4422 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4423
4424 * New native configurations
4425
4426 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4427 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4428
4429 * New targets
4430
4431 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4432 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
4433
4434 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4435
4436 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4437 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4438 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4439 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4440
4441 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4442 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4443
4444 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4445 is resolved.
4446
4447 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4448 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4449 and in inlined functions.
4450
4451 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4452 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4453 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4454
4455 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4456
4457 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4458 registers on PowerPC targets.
4459
4460 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4461 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4462
4463 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4464 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4465
4466 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4467 extended-remote mode.
4468
4469 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4470 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4471 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4472 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4473
4474 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4475 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4476 target architectures.
4477
4478 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4479 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4480 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4481 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4482
4483 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4484 breakpoints now.
4485
4486 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4487 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4488 include:
4489 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4490 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4491 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4492 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4493 of an assignment
4494 - Improved command completion in Ada
4495 - Several bug fixes
4496
4497 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4498 process.
4499
4500 * New commands
4501
4502 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4503 show print frame-arguments
4504 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
4505 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
4506
4507 remote put
4508 remote get
4509 remote delete
4510 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4511
4512 * New MI commands
4513
4514 -target-file-put
4515 -target-file-get
4516 -target-file-delete
4517 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4518
4519 * New remote packets
4520
4521 vFile:open:
4522 vFile:close:
4523 vFile:pread:
4524 vFile:pwrite:
4525 vFile:unlink:
4526 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
4527
4528 vAttach
4529 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
4530 mode.
4531
4532 vRun
4533 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
4534
4535 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
4536
4537 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
4538 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
4539 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
4540
4541 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
4542 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
4543 -Bsymbolic linker option.
4544
4545 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
4546 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
4547 is not supported.
4548
4549 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
4550 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
4551
4552 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
4553 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
4554
4555 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
4556
4557 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
4558 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
4559 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
4560
4561 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
4562 automatically displayed as character or string data.
4563
4564 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
4565 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
4566 as strings.
4567
4568 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
4569 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
4570 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
4571
4572 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
4573 iWMMXt coprocessor.
4574
4575 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
4576 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
4577 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
4578
4579 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
4580
4581 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
4582
4583 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
4584 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
4585 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
4586
4587 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
4588 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
4589
4590 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
4591 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
4592 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
4593 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
4594 Windows and SymbianOS).
4595
4596 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
4597 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
4598
4599 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
4600 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
4601
4602 * New commands
4603
4604 set remoteflow
4605 show remoteflow
4606 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
4607 when debugging using remote targets.
4608
4609 set mem inaccessible-by-default
4610 show mem inaccessible-by-default
4611 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4612 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4613 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
4614 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
4615 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
4616
4617 set breakpoint auto-hw
4618 show breakpoint auto-hw
4619 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4620 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4621 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
4622 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
4623 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
4624 including "next" and "finish".
4625
4626 catch exception
4627 catch exception unhandled
4628 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
4629
4630 catch assert
4631 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
4632
4633 set sysroot
4634 show sysroot
4635 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
4636 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
4637 an alias to "set sysroot".
4638
4639 info spu
4640 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4641 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4642 architecture.
4643
4644 * New native configurations
4645
4646 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4647
4648 set tdesc filename
4649 unset tdesc filename
4650 show tdesc filename
4651 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4652 not query the target for its built-in description.
4653
4654 * New targets
4655
4656 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4657 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4658 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4659
4660 * New remote packets
4661
4662 QPassSignals:
4663 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4664 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4665
4666 qXfer:features:read:
4667 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
4668 features.
4669
4670 qXfer:spu:read:
4671 qXfer:spu:write:
4672 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
4673 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
4674
4675 qXfer:libraries:read:
4676 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
4677 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
4678 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
4679 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
4680
4681 * Removed targets
4682
4683 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
4684
4685 alpha*-*-osf1*
4686 alpha*-*-osf2*
4687 d10v-*-*
4688 hppa*-*-hiux*
4689 i[34567]86-ncr-*
4690 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
4691 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
4692 i[34567]86-*-netware*
4693 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
4694 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
4695 i[34567]86-*-sco*
4696 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
4697 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
4698 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
4699 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
4700 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
4701 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
4702 i[34567]86-*-isc*
4703 m68*-cisco*-*
4704 m68*-tandem-*
4705 mips*-*-pe
4706 rs6000-*-lynxos*
4707 sh*-*-pe
4708
4709 * Other removed features
4710
4711 target abug
4712 target cpu32bug
4713 target est
4714 target rom68k
4715
4716 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
4717
4718 target hms
4719 target e7000
4720 target sh3
4721 target sh3e
4722
4723 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
4724 H8/300.
4725
4726 target ocd
4727
4728 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
4729 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
4730 interfaces.
4731
4732 DWARF 1 support
4733
4734 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
4735 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
4736
4737 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
4738
4739 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
4740 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
4741 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
4742 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
4743
4744 MIPS ".pdr" sections
4745
4746 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
4747 in debugging information.
4748
4749 Scheme support
4750
4751 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
4752 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
4753
4754 set mips stack-arg-size
4755 set mips saved-gpreg-size
4756
4757 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
4758
4759 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
4760
4761 * New targets
4762
4763 Xtensa xtensa-elf
4764 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
4765
4766 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
4767 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
4768 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
4769
4770 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
4771 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
4772 supported.
4773
4774 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
4775 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
4776
4777 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
4778 stub provides the required support.
4779
4780 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
4781 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
4782
4783 * New commands
4784
4785 set substitute-path
4786 unset substitute-path
4787 show substitute-path
4788 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
4789 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
4790 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
4791 between compilation and debugging.
4792
4793 set trace-commands
4794 show trace-commands
4795 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
4796 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
4797 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
4798
4799 * REMOVED features
4800
4801 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
4802
4803 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
4804 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
4805
4806 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
4807
4808 * New remote packets
4809
4810 qSupported:
4811 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
4812 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
4813 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
4814 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
4815 target.
4816
4817 qXfer:auxv:read:
4818 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
4819 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
4820
4821 qXfer:memory-map:read:
4822 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
4823 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
4824
4825 vFlashErase:
4826 vFlashWrite:
4827 vFlashDone:
4828 Erase and program a flash memory device.
4829
4830 * Removed remote packets
4831
4832 qPart:auxv:read:
4833 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
4834 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
4835
4836 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
4837
4838 * New targets
4839
4840 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
4841
4842 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4843
4844 * New commands
4845
4846 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
4847 only if it doesn't already have a value.
4848
4849 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
4850
4851 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
4852
4853 restart <n> Return the program state to a
4854 previously saved state.
4855
4856 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
4857
4858 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
4859
4860 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
4861 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
4862
4863 info forks List forks of the user program that
4864 are available to be debugged.
4865
4866 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
4867 forks of the user program that are
4868 available to be debugged.
4869
4870 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4871 that are available to be debugged (and
4872 kill the forked process).
4873
4874 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4875 that are available to be debugged (and
4876 allow the process to continue).
4877
4878 * New architecture
4879
4880 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
4881
4882 * Improved Windows host support
4883
4884 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
4885 native console support, and remote communications using either
4886 network sockets or serial ports.
4887
4888 * Improved Modula-2 language support
4889
4890 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
4891 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
4892 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
4893 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
4894 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
4895 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
4896
4897 * REMOVED features
4898
4899 The ARM rdi-share module.
4900
4901 The Netware NLM debug server.
4902
4903 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
4904
4905 * New native configurations
4906
4907 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
4908 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
4909
4910 * New targets
4911
4912 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4913
4914 * New command line options
4915
4916 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
4917 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
4918 the child (debugged) program exited with.
4919 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
4920 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
4921 specified multiple times and in conjunction
4922 with the --command (-x) option.
4923
4924 * Deprecated commands removed
4925
4926 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
4927 removed:
4928
4929 Command Replacement
4930 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
4931 othernames set arm disassembler
4932 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
4933 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
4934 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
4935 regs info registers
4936
4937 * New BSD user-level threads support
4938
4939 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
4940 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
4941 configurations are:
4942
4943 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4944 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
4945 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
4946
4947 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
4948 are not yet supported.
4949
4950 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
4951 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
4952
4953 * REMOVED configurations and files
4954
4955 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
4956 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4957 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
4958
4959 * New "set print array-indexes" command
4960
4961 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
4962 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
4963 behavior.
4964
4965 * VAX floating point support
4966
4967 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
4968
4969 * User-defined command support
4970
4971 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
4972 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
4973 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
4974
4975 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
4976
4977 * New command line option
4978
4979 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
4980 debugging.
4981
4982 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
4983
4984 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
4985 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
4986 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
4987 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
4988 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
4989
4990 * Internationalization
4991
4992 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
4993 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
4994 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
4995
4996 * Ada
4997
4998 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
4999 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
5000 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
5001
5002 * New native configurations
5003
5004 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
5005
5006 * Remote 'p' packet
5007
5008 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
5009 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
5010
5011 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
5012
5013 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5014 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
5015 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
5016 i386 application).
5017
5018 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
5019 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
5020 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
5021 configurations:
5022
5023 hppa-*-hpux
5024 ia64-*-aix
5025 mips-*-irix*
5026 *-*-lynx
5027 mips-*-linux-gnu
5028 sds protocol
5029 xdr protocol
5030 powerpc bdm protocol
5031
5032 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5033 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
5034
5035 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5036
5037 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5038 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5039 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5040 permanently REMOVED.
5041
5042 h8300-*-*
5043 mcore-*-*
5044 mn10300-*-*
5045 ns32k-*-*
5046 sh64-*-*
5047 v850-*-*
5048
5049 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
5050
5051 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
5052
5053 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
5054 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
5055 been fixed.
5056
5057 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
5058
5059 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
5060 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
5061 IRIX long double values).
5062
5063 * VAX and "next"
5064
5065 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
5066 command. This problem has been fixed.
5067
5068 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
5069
5070 * Fix for ``many threads''
5071
5072 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
5073 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
5074 error message:
5075
5076 ptrace: No such process.
5077 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
5078
5079 This problem has been fixed.
5080
5081 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
5082
5083 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
5084 GDB to dump core).
5085
5086 * New ``start'' command.
5087
5088 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
5089
5090 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
5091
5092 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
5093 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
5094 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
5095
5096 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5097 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
5098 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
5099 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
5100 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
5101 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5102 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
5103 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
5104 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5105
5106 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
5107
5108 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
5109 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
5110 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
5111 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
5112 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
5113
5114 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
5115 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
5116 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
5117
5118 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
5119
5120 * New native configurations
5121
5122 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
5123 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
5124 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
5125 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
5126 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
5127 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
5128 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
5129
5130 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
5131
5132 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5133 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
5134 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
5135 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
5136 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
5137 work, was also included.
5138
5139 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
5140 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
5141
5142 h8300-*-*
5143 mcore-*-*
5144 mn10300-*-*
5145 ns32k-*-*
5146 sh64-*-*
5147 v850-*-*
5148 xstormy16-*-*
5149
5150 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5151 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
5152
5153 * REMOVED configurations and files
5154
5155 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5156 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5157 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5158 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5159 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5160 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5161 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5162 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5163 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5164 sonymips mips-sony-*
5165 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5166
5167 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
5168
5169 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
5170
5171 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
5172 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
5173 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
5174 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
5175 with GDB".
5176
5177 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
5178
5179 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
5180 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
5181 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
5182 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
5183 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
5184 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
5185 are created.
5186
5187 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
5188
5189 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
5190
5191 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
5192 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
5193 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
5194
5195 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
5196
5197 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
5198 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
5199
5200 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
5201
5202 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
5203 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
5204 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
5205
5206 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
5207
5208 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
5209 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
5210
5211 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
5212
5213 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
5214 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
5215 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
5216
5217 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
5218
5219 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
5220 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
5221 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
5222
5223 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
5224
5225 * Removed --with-mmalloc
5226
5227 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
5228 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
5229
5230 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
5231
5232 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
5233 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
5234 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
5235 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
5236
5237 * Revised SPARC target
5238
5239 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
5240 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
5241 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
5242 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
5243 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
5244
5245 * New C++ demangler
5246
5247 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
5248 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
5249 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
5250 programs.
5251
5252 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5253
5254 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
5255 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
5256 encountered these.
5257
5258 * C++ nested types and namespaces
5259
5260 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
5261 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
5262 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
5263 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
5264 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
5265 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
5266 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
5267 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
5268 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
5269
5270 * New native configurations
5271
5272 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
5273 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5274 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
5275 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5276 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
5277
5278 * New debugging protocols
5279
5280 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
5281
5282 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
5283
5284 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
5285 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
5286 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
5287
5288 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5289
5290 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5291 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5292 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5293 permanently REMOVED.
5294
5295 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5296 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5297 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5298 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5299 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5300 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5301 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5302 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5303 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5304 sonymips mips-sony-*
5305 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5306
5307 * REMOVED configurations and files
5308
5309 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5310 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5311 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5312 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5313 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5314 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5315 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5316 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5317 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5318 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
5319 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5320 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5321 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5322 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
5323 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
5324 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5325 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5326
5327 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
5328
5329 * Objective-C
5330
5331 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
5332 integrated into GDB.
5333
5334 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
5335
5336 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
5337 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
5338 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
5339 backtraces.
5340
5341 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
5342 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
5343 DWARF 2 CFI support.
5344
5345 * Hosted file I/O.
5346
5347 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
5348 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
5349 remote protocol documentation for details.
5350
5351 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
5352
5353 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
5354 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
5355 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
5356 ppc32 on ppc64).
5357
5358 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
5359
5360 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
5361 per-thread variables.
5362
5363 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
5364
5365 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
5366 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
5367
5368 * Separate debug info.
5369
5370 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
5371 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
5372 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
5373 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
5374 and optional debug files.
5375
5376 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5377
5378 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
5379 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
5380 debugger.
5381
5382 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
5383 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5384
5385 * Java
5386
5387 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5388 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5389 considered "useable".
5390
5391 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5392
5393 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5394 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5395 kernel.
5396
5397 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5398
5399 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5400 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5401
5402 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5403
5404 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5405 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5406 command.
5407
5408 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5409
5410 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5411 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5412
5413 * Profiling support
5414
5415 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5416 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5417 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5418 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5419 data, for more informative profiling results.
5420
5421 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5422
5423 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5424 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5425 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5426
5427 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5428 removed.
5429
5430 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5431 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5432 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5433 in a subsequent -var-update.
5434
5435 * New native configurations.
5436
5437 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5438
5439 * Multi-arched targets.
5440
5441 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5442 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5443
5444 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5445
5446 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5447 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5448 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5449 permanently REMOVED.
5450
5451 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5452 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5453 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5454 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5455 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5456 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5457 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5458 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5459 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5460 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5461 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5462 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5463
5464 * REMOVED configurations and files
5465
5466 V850EA ISA
5467 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5468 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5469 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5470 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5471 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5472 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5473 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
5474 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5475 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5476 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5477 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5478 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5479 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5480
5481 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5482
5483 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5484 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5485 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5486 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5487 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5488
5489 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5490
5491 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5492
5493 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5494 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5495 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5496 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5497 shared libs like mad''.
5498
5499 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5500
5501 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5502 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5503 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5504 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
5505
5506 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
5507
5508 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
5509 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
5510 they expand.
5511
5512 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
5513 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
5514
5515 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
5516 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
5517
5518 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
5519 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
5520 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
5521 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
5522
5523 * Multi-arched targets.
5524
5525 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
5526 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
5527 NEC V850 v850-*-*
5528 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
5529 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
5530 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5531
5532 * New targets.
5533
5534 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
5535
5536
5537 * New native configurations
5538
5539 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
5540 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
5541 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
5542 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
5543
5544 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5545
5546 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5547 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5548 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5549 permanently REMOVED.
5550
5551 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5552 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5553 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5554 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5555 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5556 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5557 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5558 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5559 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5560 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5561 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
5562 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5563 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5564
5565 * OBSOLETE languages
5566
5567 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
5568
5569 * REMOVED configurations and files
5570
5571 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5572 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5573 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5574 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5575 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5576
5577 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5578
5579 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
5580
5581 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
5582 commands. The default is 1024.
5583
5584 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
5585
5586 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
5587
5588 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
5589
5590 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
5591 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
5592 from a file into memory (restore).
5593
5594 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
5595
5596 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
5597 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
5598 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
5599
5600 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
5601
5602 * New targets.
5603
5604 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
5605
5606 * Bug fixes
5607
5608 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
5609 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
5610 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
5611
5612 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
5613 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
5614 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
5615
5616 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
5617 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
5618 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
5619
5620 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
5621 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
5622 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
5623
5624 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
5625
5626 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
5627
5628 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
5629 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
5630 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
5631 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
5632 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
5633 (notably embedded) targets.
5634
5635 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
5636
5637 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
5638 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
5639 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5640 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5641
5642 * New command line option
5643
5644 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5645
5646 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5647
5648 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5649 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5650 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5651 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5652 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5653 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5654 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5655 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5656 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5657 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5658
5659 * Changes in ARM configurations.
5660
5661 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5662 configuration is fully multi-arch.
5663
5664 * New native configurations
5665
5666 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
5667 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
5668 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
5669 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
5670
5671 * New targets
5672
5673 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
5674
5675 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5676
5677 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5678 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5679 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5680 permanently REMOVED.
5681
5682 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5683 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5684 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5685 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5686 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5687
5688 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5689
5690 * REMOVED configurations and files
5691
5692 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5693 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5694 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5695 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5696 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5697 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5698 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5699 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5700 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5701 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5702 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5703 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5704 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
5705
5706 * Changes to command line processing
5707
5708 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
5709 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
5710
5711 * Changes to key bindings
5712
5713 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
5714
5715 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
5716
5717 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
5718
5719 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
5720 corrupted.
5721
5722 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
5723
5724 Numerous documentation fixes.
5725
5726 Numerous testsuite fixes.
5727
5728 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
5729
5730 * New native configurations
5731
5732 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
5733 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
5734 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
5735 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5736 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
5737 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
5738
5739 * New targets
5740
5741 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
5742 CRIS cris-axis
5743 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
5744
5745 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5746
5747 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
5748 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5749 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5750 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5751 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5752 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5753 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5754 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5755 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5756 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5757 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5758 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5759 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5760 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
5761
5762 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
5763 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
5764
5765 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5766 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5767 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5768 permanently REMOVED.
5769
5770 * REMOVED configurations and files
5771
5772 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5773 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5774 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
5775 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5776 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
5777 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
5778
5779 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
5780
5781 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
5782 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
5783 present.
5784
5785 * Other news:
5786
5787 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
5788
5789 * The MI enabled by default.
5790
5791 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
5792 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
5793 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
5794 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
5795 which is now deprecated.
5796
5797 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
5798
5799 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
5800 main features are supported:
5801
5802 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
5803
5804 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
5805 extension;
5806
5807 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
5808
5809 - a Pascal expression parser.
5810
5811 However, some important features are not yet supported.
5812
5813 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
5814
5815 - there are some problems with boolean types;
5816
5817 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
5818 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
5819
5820 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
5821
5822 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
5823
5824 * Changes in completion.
5825
5826 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
5827 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
5828 users expect at the shell prompt.
5829
5830 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
5831 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
5832 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
5833 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
5834 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
5835 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
5836 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
5837
5838 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
5839
5840 * New platform-independent commands:
5841
5842 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
5843 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
5844 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
5845
5846 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
5847
5848 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
5849 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
5850 many threads as your system allows you to have.
5851
5852 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
5853
5854 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
5855 multi-threaded programs though.
5856
5857 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
5858
5859 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
5860
5861 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
5862 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
5863 supported.)
5864
5865 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
5866
5867 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
5868 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
5869 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
5870 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
5871 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
5872 registers.
5873
5874 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
5875 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
5876 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
5877
5878 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
5879
5880 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
5881 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
5882
5883 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
5884 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
5885 IDT.
5886
5887 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
5888 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
5889 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
5890 a given linear address.
5891
5892 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
5893 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
5894 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
5895
5896 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
5897
5898 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
5899
5900 * Changes in documentation.
5901
5902 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
5903 Documentation License.
5904
5905 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5906 manual.
5907
5908 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
5909
5910 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5911 manual.
5912
5913 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
5914 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
5915 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
5916
5917 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
5918
5919 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
5920 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
5921 contents of this file.
5922
5923 * gdba.el deleted
5924
5925 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
5926
5927 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
5928
5929 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
5930
5931 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
5932 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
5933 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
5934 greater level of detail.
5935
5936 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
5937
5938 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
5939 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
5940 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
5941 written.
5942
5943 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
5944
5945 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
5946 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
5947 machines ``out of the box''.
5948
5949 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
5950 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
5951 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
5952 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
5953 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
5954
5955 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
5956 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
5957 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
5958 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
5959 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
5960
5961 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
5962 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
5963 also works.
5964
5965 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
5966 GDB.
5967
5968 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
5969 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
5970 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
5971 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
5972
5973 * New native configurations
5974
5975 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
5976 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5977
5978 * New targets
5979
5980 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
5981 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
5982 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
5983 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5984
5985 * OBSOLETE configurations
5986
5987 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5988 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5989 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
5990 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5991 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
5992
5993 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5994 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5995 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5996 be permanently REMOVED.
5997
5998 * Gould support removed
5999
6000 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
6001
6002 * New features for SVR4
6003
6004 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
6005 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
6006 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
6007
6008 * Many C++ enhancements
6009
6010 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
6011 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
6012
6013 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
6014
6015 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
6016 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
6017 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
6018 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
6019
6020 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
6021 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
6022
6023 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
6024
6025 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
6026 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
6027 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
6028
6029 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
6030 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
6031
6032 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
6033
6034 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
6035 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
6036 include ``set remote P-packet''.
6037
6038 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
6039
6040 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
6041 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
6042 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
6043
6044 * ``apropos'' command added.
6045
6046 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
6047 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
6048 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
6049
6050 * New MI interface
6051
6052 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
6053 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
6054 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
6055 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
6056 enabled by configuring with:
6057
6058 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
6059
6060 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
6061
6062 * New native configurations
6063
6064 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
6065 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
6066 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
6067
6068 * New targets
6069
6070 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6071 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
6072 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6073
6074 * OBSOLETE configurations
6075
6076 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
6077
6078 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6079 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6080 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6081 be permanently REMOVED.
6082
6083 * ANSI/ISO C
6084
6085 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
6086 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
6087 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
6088 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
6089 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
6090 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
6091 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
6092 already.
6093
6094 * Readline 2.2
6095
6096 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
6097
6098 * set extension-language
6099
6100 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
6101 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
6102 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
6103 set extension-language .c c++
6104 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
6105 and their associated languages.
6106
6107 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
6108
6109 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
6110 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
6111 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
6112
6113 set processor NAME
6114
6115 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
6116 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
6117
6118 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
6119 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
6120 403 IBM PowerPC 403
6121 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
6122 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
6123 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
6124 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
6125 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
6126 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
6127 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
6128 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
6129
6130 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
6131 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
6132 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
6133 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
6134
6135 * HP-UX support
6136
6137 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
6138 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
6139 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
6140 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
6141 for xdb and dbx commands.
6142
6143 * Catchpoints
6144
6145 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
6146 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
6147 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
6148
6149 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
6150 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
6151 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
6152
6153 * Debugging across forks
6154
6155 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
6156 in the inferior.
6157
6158 * TUI
6159
6160 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
6161 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
6162 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
6163
6164 * GDB remote protocol additions
6165
6166 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
6167 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
6168 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
6169 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
6170
6171 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
6172 full 64-bit address. The command
6173
6174 set remoteaddresssize 32
6175
6176 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
6177 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
6178 will be discarded.
6179
6180 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
6181 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
6182
6183 maint packet heythere
6184
6185 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
6186 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
6187 time.
6188
6189 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
6190 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
6191 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
6192
6193 * Tracing can collect general expressions
6194
6195 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
6196 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
6197 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
6198
6199 * mask-address variable for Mips
6200
6201 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
6202 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
6203 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
6204
6205 * Higher serial baud rates
6206
6207 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
6208 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
6209 to achieve all of these rates.)
6210
6211 * i960 simulator
6212
6213 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
6214 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
6215
6216
6217 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
6218
6219 * New native configurations
6220
6221 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
6222 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
6223 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6224 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6225 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6226 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
6227 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
6228
6229 * New targets
6230
6231 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6232 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
6233 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6234 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
6235 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
6236 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
6237 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
6238 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
6239 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6240 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6241 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
6242
6243 * New debugging protocols
6244
6245 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
6246 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
6247 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
6248 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6249 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6250 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6251
6252 * DWARF 2
6253
6254 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
6255 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
6256 information.
6257
6258 * Java frontend
6259
6260 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
6261 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
6262
6263 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
6264
6265 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
6266 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
6267 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
6268
6269 * Live range splitting
6270
6271 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
6272 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
6273 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
6274
6275 * Hurd support
6276
6277 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
6278 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
6279
6280 * ARM Thumb support
6281
6282 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
6283 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
6284 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
6285 accordingly.
6286
6287 * MIPS16 support
6288
6289 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
6290 instruction set.
6291
6292 * Overlay support
6293
6294 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
6295 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
6296 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
6297 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
6298 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
6299 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
6300
6301 * info symbol
6302
6303 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
6304 the symbol at the specified address.
6305
6306 * Trace support
6307
6308 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
6309 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
6310 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
6311 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
6312 file tracepoint.c for more details.
6313
6314 * MIPS simulator
6315
6316 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
6317 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
6318 of most MIPS variants.
6319
6320 * Sparc simulator
6321
6322 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
6323 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
6324 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
6325
6326 * set architecture
6327
6328 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
6329 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
6330 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
6331 the possible architectures.
6332
6333 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
6334
6335 * New native configurations
6336
6337 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
6338 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
6339 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
6340 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
6341 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6342 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
6343
6344 * New targets
6345
6346 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
6347 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6348 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
6349 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
6350 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
6351 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
6352 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6353
6354 * PowerPC simulator
6355
6356 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
6357 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
6358 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
6359 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
6360 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
6361
6362 * Solaris 2.5
6363
6364 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
6365
6366 * Windows 95/NT native
6367
6368 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
6369 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
6370 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
6371 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
6372 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
6373
6374 * dont-repeat command
6375
6376 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
6377 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
6378 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
6379 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
6380
6381 * Send break instead of ^C
6382
6383 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
6384 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
6385 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6386
6387 * Remote protocol timeout
6388
6389 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6390 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6391 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6392
6393 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6394
6395 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6396 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6397 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6398 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6399 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6400
6401 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6402 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6403 automatically on hpux10.
6404
6405 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6406
6407 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6408
6409 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6410
6411 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6412 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6413 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6414 every character. The default value is 1050.
6415
6416 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6417
6418 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6419 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6420 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6421 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6422 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6423 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6424
6425 * Speedups for remote debugging
6426
6427 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6428 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6429 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6430
6431 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6432
6433 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6434 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6435
6436 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6437
6438 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6439
6440 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6441 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6442
6443 * Remote targets use caching
6444
6445 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6446 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6447 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6448 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6449 off' turns the the data cache off.
6450
6451 * Remote targets may have threads
6452
6453 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6454 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6455 gdb/remote.c for details.
6456
6457 * NetROM support
6458
6459 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6460 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6461 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6462 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6463 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6464 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6465 sequence is something like
6466
6467 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6468 load <prog>
6469 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6470
6471 * Macintosh host
6472
6473 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6474 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6475 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6476 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6477 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6478 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6479 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6480 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6481
6482 * Autoconf
6483
6484 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6485 but does simplify configuration and building.
6486
6487 * hpux10
6488
6489 GDB now supports hpux10.
6490
6491 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6492
6493 * New native configurations
6494
6495 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6496 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6497 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6498 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6499
6500 * New targets
6501
6502 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6503 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6504 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
6505 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
6506 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6507
6508 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
6509
6510 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
6511 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
6512 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
6513 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
6514 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
6515
6516 * Arguments to user-defined commands
6517
6518 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
6519 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
6520 trivial example:
6521 define adder
6522 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
6523
6524 To execute the command use:
6525 adder 1 2 3
6526
6527 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
6528 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
6529 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
6530
6531 * New `if' and `while' commands
6532
6533 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
6534 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
6535 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
6536 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
6537 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
6538 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
6539 if the expression is zero.
6540
6541 * Fortran source language mode
6542
6543 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
6544 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
6545 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
6546 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
6547 Fortran compilers.
6548
6549 * Better HPUX support
6550
6551 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
6552 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
6553 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
6554 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
6555 that behavior do the following before running the program:
6556
6557 adb -w a.out
6558 __dld_flags?W 0x5
6559 control-d
6560
6561 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
6562 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
6563
6564 adb -w a.out
6565 __dld_flags?W 0x4
6566 control-d
6567
6568 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
6569 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
6570 external linkage.
6571
6572 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
6573 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
6574
6575 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
6576
6577 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
6578 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
6579 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
6580 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
6581 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
6582 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
6583
6584 * New DOS host serial code
6585
6586 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
6587 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
6588 a PC's serial port.
6589
6590 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
6591
6592 * New "complete" command
6593
6594 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
6595 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
6596
6597 * Trailing space optional in prompt
6598
6599 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
6600 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
6601
6602 * Breakpoint hit counts
6603
6604 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
6605 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
6606 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
6607 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
6608 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
6609 that breakpoint.
6610
6611 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
6612
6613 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
6614 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
6615 arrays actually contain only short strings.
6616
6617 * Shared library breakpoints
6618
6619 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
6620 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
6621
6622 * Hardware watchpoints
6623
6624 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
6625 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
6626
6627 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
6628
6629 * Annotations
6630
6631 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
6632 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
6633
6634 * Improved Irix 5 support
6635
6636 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
6637
6638 * Improved HPPA support
6639
6640 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6641
6642 * New native configurations
6643
6644 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6645 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6646 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6647 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6648
6649 * New targets
6650
6651 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6652 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6653 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
6654
6655 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6656
6657 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6658 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6659
6660 * Fixes
6661
6662 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6663 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6664
6665 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6666
6667 * Irix 5 is now supported
6668
6669 * HPPA support
6670
6671 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
6672 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
6673 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
6674 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
6675 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
6676
6677
6678 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
6679
6680 * User visible changes:
6681
6682 * Remote Debugging
6683
6684 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
6685 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
6686 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
6687 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
6688 debugging info for the mips target).
6689
6690 * DEC Alpha native support
6691
6692 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
6693 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
6694 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
6695 Alpha-specific notes.
6696
6697 * Preliminary thread implementation
6698
6699 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
6700
6701 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
6702
6703 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
6704 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
6705 for details).
6706
6707 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
6708
6709 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
6710 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
6711 call methods, ...etc.
6712
6713 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
6714
6715 * User visible changes:
6716
6717 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
6718 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
6719 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
6720 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
6721
6722 Filename completion now works.
6723
6724 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
6725 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
6726 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
6727
6728 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
6729 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
6730 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
6731 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
6732 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
6733
6734 * DEC alpha support
6735
6736 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
6737 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
6738
6739
6740 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
6741
6742 * Testsuite
6743
6744 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
6745 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
6746 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
6747
6748 * C++ demangling
6749
6750 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
6751 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
6752 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
6753 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
6754 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
6755
6756 * Simulators
6757
6758 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
6759 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
6760 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
6761
6762 * New targets supported
6763
6764 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6765 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6766 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
6767 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6768 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
6769
6770 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
6771 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
6772 GO32 memory extender.
6773
6774 * New remote protocols
6775
6776 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
6777
6778 * New source languages supported
6779
6780 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
6781 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
6782 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
6783
6784
6785 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
6786
6787 * HP Precision Architecture supported
6788
6789 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
6790 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
6791 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
6792 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
6793 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
6794 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
6795
6796 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
6797
6798 * Faster and better demangling
6799
6800 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
6801 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
6802 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
6803 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
6804 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
6805 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
6806 symbol lookups.
6807
6808 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
6809 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
6810 compiler does not actually implement.
6811
6812 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
6813
6814 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
6815 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
6816 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
6817 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
6818 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
6819 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
6820 fix.
6821
6822 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
6823 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
6824
6825 * Improved configure script
6826
6827 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
6828 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
6829 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
6830 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
6831
6832 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
6833 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
6834 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
6835 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
6836 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
6837 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
6838
6839 * Documentation improvements
6840
6841 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
6842 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
6843 before submitting changes.
6844
6845 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
6846 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
6847 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
6848 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
6849 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
6850
6851 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
6852 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
6853 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
6854 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
6855 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
6856 around this problem.
6857
6858 * New features
6859
6860 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
6861 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
6862 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
6863 the target program.
6864
6865 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
6866 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
6867
6868 * New native hosts supported
6869
6870 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
6871 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
6872
6873 * New targets supported
6874
6875 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
6876
6877 * New file formats supported
6878
6879 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
6880 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
6881
6882 * Major bug fixes
6883
6884 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
6885
6886 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
6887 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
6888
6889 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
6890 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
6891 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
6892
6893 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
6894 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
6895
6896 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
6897 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
6898 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
6899 libraries.
6900
6901 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
6902 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
6903 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
6904 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
6905 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
6906
6907 * Internal improvements
6908
6909 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
6910 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
6911
6912 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
6913 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
6914 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
6915 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
6916 shared code that handles any of them.
6917
6918 * New command line options
6919
6920 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
6921
6922 * Mmalloc licensing
6923
6924 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
6925 General Public License.
6926
6927 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
6928
6929 * Host/native/target split
6930
6931 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
6932 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
6933 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
6934 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
6935 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
6936
6937 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
6938 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
6939 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
6940 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
6941 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
6942 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
6943 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
6944
6945 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
6946 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
6947 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
6948
6949 * New hosts supported
6950
6951 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
6952 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6953 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
6954
6955 * New targets supported
6956
6957 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6958 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
6959
6960 * New native hosts supported
6961
6962 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6963 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
6964 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
6965
6966 * New file formats supported
6967
6968 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
6969 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
6970 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
6971
6972 * New commands
6973
6974 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
6975 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
6976 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
6977
6978 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
6979
6980 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
6981 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
6982 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
6983 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
6984
6985 * C++ improvements
6986
6987 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
6988 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
6989 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
6990
6991 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
6992
6993 * Major bug fixes
6994
6995 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
6996 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
6997 by the compiler.
6998
6999 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
7000 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
7001
7002 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
7003 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
7004 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
7005 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
7006 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
7007 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
7008
7009 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
7010 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
7011 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
7012 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
7013
7014 * AMD 29k support
7015
7016 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
7017 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
7018 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
7019 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
7020 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
7021
7022 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
7023 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
7024 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
7025 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
7026
7027 * Remote interfaces
7028
7029 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
7030 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
7031 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
7032 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
7033 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
7034 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
7035 each instruction being stepped through.
7036
7037 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
7038 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
7039
7040 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
7041 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
7042 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
7043 processor with a serial port.
7044
7045 * Configuration
7046
7047 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
7048 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
7049 supported, and what files each one uses.
7050
7051 * Library changes
7052
7053 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
7054 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
7055 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
7056 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
7057
7058 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
7059 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
7060 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
7061 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
7062
7063 * Documentation
7064
7065 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
7066 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
7067 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
7068 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
7069 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
7070 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
7071
7072 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
7073
7074
7075 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
7076
7077 * Better support for C++ function names
7078
7079 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
7080 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
7081 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
7082 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
7083 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
7084
7085 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
7086 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
7087 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
7088 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
7089 for the list of formats.
7090
7091 * G++ symbol mangling problem
7092
7093 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
7094 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
7095 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
7096 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
7097 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
7098 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
7099 this problem.)
7100
7101 * New 'maintenance' command
7102
7103 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
7104 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
7105 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
7106
7107 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
7108 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
7109 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
7110 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
7111 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
7112 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
7113
7114 The following commands are new:
7115
7116 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
7117 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
7118 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
7119
7120 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
7121
7122 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
7123 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
7124 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
7125 read after argv processing.
7126
7127 * New hosts supported
7128
7129 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
7130
7131 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
7132
7133 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
7134 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
7135 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
7136 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
7137 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
7138 It costs extra.
7139
7140 * New targets supported
7141
7142 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7143
7144 * More smarts about finding #include files
7145
7146 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
7147 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
7148 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
7149 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
7150 the one that contains your sources.
7151
7152 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
7153 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
7154 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
7155
7156 * Interesting infernals change
7157
7158 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
7159 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
7160 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
7161 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
7162
7163 * Bug fixes (of course!)
7164
7165 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
7166 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
7167 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
7168
7169 See the ChangeLog for details.
7170
7171 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
7172
7173 * New machines supported (host and target)
7174
7175 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
7176
7177 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
7178
7179 * New malloc package
7180
7181 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
7182 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
7183 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
7184 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
7185 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
7186 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
7187
7188 * info proc
7189
7190 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
7191 'help info proc' for details.
7192
7193 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
7194
7195 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
7196 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
7197 possible.
7198
7199 * File name changes for MS-DOS
7200
7201 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
7202 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
7203 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
7204 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
7205 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
7206 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
7207
7208 * Cross byte order fixes
7209
7210 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
7211 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
7212
7213 * New -mapped and -readnow options
7214
7215 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
7216 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
7217 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
7218 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
7219 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
7220 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
7221 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
7222 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
7223 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
7224 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
7225
7226 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
7227 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
7228 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
7229 slower, but makes future operations faster.
7230
7231 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
7232 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
7233 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
7234 use is:
7235
7236 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
7237
7238 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
7239 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
7240 shared across multiple host platforms.
7241
7242 * longjmp() handling
7243
7244 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
7245 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
7246 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
7247 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
7248
7249 * Solaris 2.0
7250
7251 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
7252 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
7253 reading symbols.
7254
7255 * Bug fixes
7256
7257 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
7258 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
7259 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
7260
7261 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
7262
7263 * New machines supported (host and target)
7264
7265 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7266 (except core files)
7267 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
7268 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
7269
7270 * New machines supported (target)
7271
7272 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7273
7274 * C++ support
7275
7276 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
7277 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
7278 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
7279
7280 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
7281 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
7282 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
7283 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
7284 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
7285 released.
7286
7287 * New features for SVR4
7288
7289 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
7290 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
7291 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
7292
7293 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
7294 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
7295 it prints the address mappings of the process.
7296
7297 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
7298 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
7299
7300 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
7301
7302 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
7303 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
7304 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
7305 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
7306 same code linked statically.
7307
7308 * New Getopt
7309
7310 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
7311 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
7312 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
7313 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
7314 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
7315 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
7316
7317 * Bugs fixed
7318
7319 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7320 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7321 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7322
7323
7324 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
7325
7326 * New machines supported (host and target)
7327
7328 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
7329 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
7330 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7331
7332 * Almost SCO Unix support
7333
7334 We had hoped to support:
7335 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7336 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
7337 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
7338 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
7339
7340 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
7341
7342 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
7343 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
7344 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
7345 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
7346 reqired (if any).
7347
7348 * New Readline
7349
7350 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
7351 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
7352 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
7353
7354 * Bugs fixed
7355
7356 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7357 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7358 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7359
7360 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
7361
7362 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
7363 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
7364 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
7365
7366 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
7367 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
7368 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
7369 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
7370 version 2.
7371
7372 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
7373 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
7374 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
7375 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
7376 situation somewhat.
7377
7378 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
7379 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
7380 methods.
7381
7382 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
7383 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
7384 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7385
7386
7387 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7388
7389 * Improved configuration
7390
7391 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7392 Porting BFD is simpler.
7393
7394 * Stepping improved
7395
7396 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7397 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7398 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7399 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7400
7401 * Bug fixing
7402
7403 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7404
7405 * New host supported (not target)
7406
7407 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7408
7409
7410 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7411
7412 * Multiple source language support
7413
7414 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7415 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7416 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7417 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7418 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7419 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7420
7421 * GDB and Modula-2
7422
7423 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7424 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7425 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7426 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7427
7428 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7429 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7430 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7431
7432 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7433 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7434
7435 * set write on/off
7436
7437 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7438 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7439 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7440 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7441 effect immediately.
7442
7443 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7444
7445 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7446 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7447 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7448 examining core files.
7449
7450 * set listsize
7451
7452 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7453 The default is 10.
7454
7455 * New machines supported (host and target)
7456
7457 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7458 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7459 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7460
7461 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7462
7463 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7464
7465 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7466
7467 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7468 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7469 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7470
7471 * New remote interfaces
7472
7473 AMD 29000 Adapt
7474 AMD 29000 Minimon
7475
7476
7477 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7478
7479 * New Facilities
7480
7481 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7482
7483 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7484 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7485 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7486 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7487 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7488 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7489 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7490 stub on the target system.
7491
7492 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7493
7494 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7495 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7496 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7497
7498 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7499 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7500
7501
7502 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7503
7504 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
7505 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
7506
7507 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
7508 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
7509 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
7510
7511 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
7512 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
7513 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
7514 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
7515
7516 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
7517 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
7518 it is already running. Default is ON.
7519
7520 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
7521 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
7522 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
7523 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
7524 Default is ON.
7525
7526 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
7527 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
7528 or the value of the environment variable
7529 GDBHISTFILE.
7530
7531 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
7532 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
7533 HISTSIZE.
7534
7535 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
7536 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
7537 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
7538
7539 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
7540 history expansion will be performed on
7541 command line input. The default is OFF.
7542
7543 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
7544 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
7545 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
7546
7547 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
7548 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
7549 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7550 variable TERM.
7551
7552 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
7553 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
7554 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7555 variable TERM.
7556
7557 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
7558 ``set width'' instead.
7559
7560 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
7561 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
7562 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
7563 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
7564
7565 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
7566 is OFF.
7567
7568 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
7569 "raw" form if off.
7570
7571 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
7572 like instructions.
7573
7574 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
7575
7576
7577 * Support for Epoch Environment.
7578
7579 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
7580 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
7581 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
7582 window.
7583
7584
7585 * Support for Shared Libraries
7586
7587 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
7588 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
7589 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
7590 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
7591 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
7592 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
7593 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
7594 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
7595
7596 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
7597 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
7598 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
7599
7600 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
7601
7602
7603 * Watchpoints
7604
7605 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
7606 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
7607 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
7608 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
7609 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
7610 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
7611
7612 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
7613
7614 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
7615
7616 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7617 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7618 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7619
7620
7621 * C++ multiple inheritance
7622
7623 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
7624 for C++ programs.
7625
7626 * C++ exception handling
7627
7628 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
7629 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
7630 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
7631 handler's context).
7632
7633 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
7634 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
7635 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
7636
7637 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
7638 current stack frame.
7639
7640
7641 * Minor command changes
7642
7643 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7644 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7645 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7646
7647 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7648 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7649 frames without printing.
7650
7651 * New directory command
7652
7653 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7654 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7655 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7656 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7657 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7658
7659 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7660
7661 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7662 for more details.
7663
7664 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7665 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7666 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
7667 where the program that you are debugging will run.
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