[PR/24474] Add gdb.lookup_static_symbol to the python API
[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 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
15 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
16 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
17 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
18
19 * Support for Pointer Authentication on AArch64 Linux.
20
21 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
22 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
23
24 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
25 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
26 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
27
28 * Python API
29
30 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
31 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
32 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
33 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
34 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
35
36 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
37 type was defined in.
38
39 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
40 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
41 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
42 is given.
43
44 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
45 symbols with static linkage.
46
47 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
48 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
49
50 * New commands
51
52 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
53 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
54 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
55 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
56 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
57 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
58 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
59
60 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
61 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
62 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
63 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
64 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
65 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
66 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
67 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
68 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
69 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
70 of array elements to print.
71
72 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
73 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
74
75 set may-call-functions [on|off]
76 show may-call-functions
77 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
78 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
79 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
80 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
81 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
82 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
83 in the program.
84
85 set print finish [on|off]
86 show print finish
87 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
88 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
89 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
90 default is `on'.
91
92 set print max-depth
93 show print max-depth
94 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
95 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
96 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
97 the old behavior back.
98
99 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
100 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
101 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
102
103 set style title foreground COLOR
104 set style title background COLOR
105 set style title intensity VALUE
106 Control the styling of titles.
107
108 set style highlight foreground COLOR
109 set style highlight background COLOR
110 set style highlight intensity VALUE
111 Control the styling of highlightings.
112
113 maint set test-settings KIND
114 maint show test-settings KIND
115 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
116 infrastructure.
117
118 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
119 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
120 show print frame-info
121 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
122 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
123 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
124 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
125
126 * Changed commands
127
128 help
129 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
130 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
131 command names.
132
133 apropos [-v] REGEXP
134 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
135 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
136 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
137 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
138 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
139
140 printf
141 eval
142 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
143 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
144 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
145 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
146
147 show style
148 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
149 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
150 the user visualize the different styles.
151
152 set print frame-arguments
153 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
154 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
155
156 set print raw-frame-arguments
157 show print raw-frame-arguments
158
159 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
160 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
161 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
162 release.
163
164 maint test-options require-delimiter
165 maint test-options unknown-is-error
166 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
167 maint show test-options-completion-result
168 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
169 framework.
170
171 * New command options, command completion
172
173 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
174 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
175 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
176 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
177 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
178 number of commands got support for new command options in this
179 release:
180
181 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
182 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
183 set by "set print" subcommands:
184
185 -address [on|off]
186 -array [on|off]
187 -array-indexes [on|off]
188 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
189 -null-stop [on|off]
190 -object [on|off]
191 -pretty [on|off]
192 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
193 -static-members [on|off]
194 -symbol [on|off]
195 -union [on|off]
196 -vtbl [on|off]
197
198 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
199 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
200 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
201 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
202
203 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
204 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
205 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
206
207 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
208 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
209 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
210 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
211 |location-and-address|short-location
212 -past-main [on|off]
213 -past-entry [on|off]
214
215 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
216 exposed as command options too:
217
218 -full
219 -no-filters
220 -hide
221
222 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
223 support the following options:
224
225 -past-main [on|off]
226 -past-entry [on|off]
227
228 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
229 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
230 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
231 like for example:
232
233 (gdb) p -r -p -o 0 -- *myptr
234
235 The above is equivalent to:
236
237 (gdb) print -raw -pretty -object off -- *myptr
238
239 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
240 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
241 variables" and "info functions".
242
243 * Completion improvements
244
245 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
246 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
247 abbreviated.
248
249 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
250 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
251 commands.
252
253 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
254 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
255 completes on filenames.
256
257 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
258 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
259
260 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
261
262 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
263 elements unlimited".
264
265 * New MI commands
266
267 -complete
268 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
269 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
270 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
271
272 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
273 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
274 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
275
276 * Testsuite
277
278 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
279 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
280 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
281 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
282
283 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
284
285 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
286 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
287 HTM registers.
288
289 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
290 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
291 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
292 and operators.
293
294 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
295 (the C++ plug-in).
296
297 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
298 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
299 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
300
301 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
302 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
303
304 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
305 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
306 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
307 in the GDB user manual.
308
309 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
310 executed failed.
311
312 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
313
314 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
315 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
316 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
317 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
318 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
319 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
320 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
321 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
322 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
323 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
324 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
325 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
326
327 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
328 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
329 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
330 information.
331
332 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
333 lucid.
334
335 * New commands
336
337 set debug compile-cplus-types
338 show debug compile-cplus-types
339 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
340 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiliong
341 for other languages.
342
343 set debug skip
344 show debug skip
345 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
346 displayed.
347
348 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
349 Apply a command to some frames.
350 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
351 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
352
353 taas COMMAND
354 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
355 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
356
357 faas COMMAND
358 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
359 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
360
361 tfaas COMMAND
362 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
363 output).
364 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
365
366 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
367 maint show dwarf unwinders
368 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
369
370 info proc files
371 Display a list of open files for a process.
372
373 * Changed commands
374
375 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
376 These commands all now take a frame specification which
377 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
378 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
379 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
380 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
381 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
382
383 target remote FILENAME
384 target extended-remote FILENAME
385 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
386 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
387
388 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
389 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
390 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
391 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
392 These commands can now print only the searched entities
393 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
394 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
395 printing headers or informations messages.
396
397 info functions
398 info types
399 info variables
400 rbreak
401 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
402 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
403 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
404 the shown entities.
405
406 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
407 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
408 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
409 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
410
411 set tui tab-width NCHARS
412 show tui tab-width NCHARS
413 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
414
415 set style enabled [on|off]
416 show style enabled
417 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
418 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
419
420 set style sources [on|off]
421 show style sources
422 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
423 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
424 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
425
426 set style filename foreground COLOR
427 set style filename background COLOR
428 set style filename intensity VALUE
429 Control the styling of file names.
430
431 set style function foreground COLOR
432 set style function background COLOR
433 set style function intensity VALUE
434 Control the styling of function names.
435
436 set style variable foreground COLOR
437 set style variable background COLOR
438 set style variable intensity VALUE
439 Control the styling of variable names.
440
441 set style address foreground COLOR
442 set style address background COLOR
443 set style address intensity VALUE
444 Control the styling of addresses.
445
446 * MI changes
447
448 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
449
450 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
451 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
452 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
453 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
454 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
455
456 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
457 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
458
459 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
460 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
461 the following commands and events:
462
463 - -break-insert
464 - -break-info
465 - =breakpoint-created
466 - =breakpoint-modified
467
468 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
469 this behavior with previous MI versions.
470
471 * New native configurations
472
473 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
474 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
475
476 * New targets
477
478 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
479 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
480 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
481 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
482 NXP S12Z s12z-*-elf
483 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
484
485 * Removed targets
486
487 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
488 before Windows XP.
489
490 * Python API
491
492 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
493
494 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
495 space associated to that inferior.
496
497 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
498 of objfiles associated to that program space.
499
500 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
501 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
502 the gdb core.
503
504 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
505 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
506 correct and did not work properly.
507
508 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
509 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
510
511 * Configure changes
512
513 --enable-ubsan
514
515 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
516 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
517 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
518 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
519 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
520
521 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
522
523 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
524 for the MIPS target.
525
526 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
527 offset to all sections.
528
529 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
530 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
531 address of individual sections using '-s'.
532
533 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
534 (address of the text section).
535
536 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
537 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
538 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
539 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
540 default.
541
542 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
543 for the rest of the current command.
544
545 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
546 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
547
548 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
549 files created on FreeBSD systems.
550
551 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
552 alignof.
553
554 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
555 the vector length while the process is running.
556
557 * New commands
558
559 set debug fbsd-nat
560 show debug fbsd-nat
561 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
562
563 set|show varsize-limit
564 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
565 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
566 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
567
568 set|show record btrace cpu
569 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
570 branch trace decode.
571
572 maint check libthread-db
573 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
574 library
575
576 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
577 maint show check-libthread-db
578 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
579 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
580 perform such checks.
581
582 * Python API
583
584 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
585
586 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
587 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
588
589 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
590
591 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
592 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
593 of convenience variables.
594
595 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
596 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
597 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
598
599 * New targets
600
601 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
602
603 * Removed targets and native configurations
604
605 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
606 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
607 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
608 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
609
610 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
611
612 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
613 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
614 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
615 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
616 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
617 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
618 reported.
619
620 * Configure changes
621
622 --enable-codesign=CERT
623 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
624 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
625 gdb to work properly.
626
627 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
628 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
629
630 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
631
632 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
633 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
634 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
635
636 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
637 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
638
639 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
640 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
641 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
642 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
643 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
644
645 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
646 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
647 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
648 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
649
650 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
651 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
652
653 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
654 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
655 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
656
657 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
658 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
659 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
660
661 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
662 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
663 environment" command.
664
665 * Completion improvements
666
667 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
668 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
669 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
670 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
671 correctly:
672
673 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
674 (gdb) b function(int)
675
676 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
677 C++ anonymous namespaces:
678
679 (gdb) b (anon[TAB]
680 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
681 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
682 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
683
684 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
685 completion support, that better understands what you're
686 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
687 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
688 setting a breakpoint.
689
690 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
691
692 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
693
694 * New command line options (gcore)
695
696 -a
697 Dump all memory mappings.
698
699 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
700
701 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
702 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
703 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
704
705 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
706
707 A::B::func()
708 B::func()
709
710 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
711 on both symbols.
712
713 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
714 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
715 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
716 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
717 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
718 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
719 a breakpoint from Python.
720
721 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
722
723 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
724 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
725 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
726
727 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
728
729 function[abi:cxx11](int)
730 ^^^^^^^^^^^
731
732 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
733 no tag, like:
734
735 (gdb) b function(int)
736
737 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
738
739 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
740
741 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
742
743 * Python Scripting
744
745 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
746 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
747 description of these.
748
749 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
750 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
751 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
752
753 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
754 manual for a further description of this feature.
755
756
757 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
758
759 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
760 specified initial working directory.
761
762 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
763 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
764
765 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
766 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
767
768 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
769 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
770
771 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
772 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
773 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
774 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
775 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
776
777 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
778 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
779 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
780
781 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
782 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
783 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
784 in the *stopped notification.
785
786 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
787 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
788
789 * New remote packets
790
791 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
792 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
793 the inferior when starting it.
794
795 QEnvironmentUnset
796 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
797 before starting the remote inferior.
798
799 QEnvironmentReset
800 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
801 user-set environment variables should be unset).
802
803 QStartupWithShell
804 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
805
806 QSetWorkingDir
807 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
808 working directory.
809
810 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
811 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
812
813 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
814 filter the tests to be run.
815
816 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
817 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
818
819 * New commands
820
821 set|show cwd
822 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
823
824 set|show compile-gcc
825 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
826 with the 'compile' commands.
827
828 set debug separate-debug-file
829 show debug separate-debug-file
830 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
831
832 set dump-excluded-mappings
833 show dump-excluded-mappings
834 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
835 dumped when generating a core file.
836
837 maint info selftests
838 List the registered selftests.
839
840 starti
841 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
842
843 set|show debug or1k
844 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
845
846 set|show print type nested-type-limit
847 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
848 type printer will show.
849
850 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
851 `o' for nexti.
852
853 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
854
855 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
856 'int'.
857
858 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
859 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
860 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
861 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
862
863 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
864 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
865 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
866 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
867 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
868 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
869
870 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
871 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
872 unless you tell it the variable's type:
873
874 (gdb) p var
875 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
876 (gdb) p (float) var
877 $3 = 3.14
878
879 * New native configurations
880
881 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
882 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
883
884 * New targets
885
886 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
887 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
888 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
889
890 * Removed targets and native configurations
891
892 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
893
894 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
895
896 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
897 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
898 available in future Intel CPUs.
899
900 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
901
902 * Python Scripting
903
904 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
905 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
906
907 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
908 instructions.
909
910 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
911
912 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
913
914 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
915 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
916 removed.
917
918 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
919
920 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
921 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
922
923 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
924
925 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
926 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
927 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
928 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
929 features.
930
931 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
932
933 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
934 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
935 debugger.
936
937 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
938
939 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
940 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
941
942 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
943
944 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
945
946 define mycommand
947 set $i = 0
948 while $i < $argc
949 eval "print $arg%d", $i
950 set $i = $i + 1
951 end
952 end
953
954 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
955
956 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
957 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
958
959 * New native configurations
960
961 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
962
963 * New targets
964
965 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
966 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
967
968 * Removed targets and native configurations
969
970 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
971 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
972
973 * New commands
974
975 flash-erase
976 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
977
978 maint print arc arc-instruction address
979 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
980
981 * New options
982
983 set disassembler-options
984 show disassembler-options
985 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
986 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
987 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
988 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
989 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
990
991 * New MI commands
992
993 -target-flash-erase
994 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
995 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
996
997 -file-list-shared-libraries
998 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
999 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
1000
1001 -catch-handlers
1002 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
1003 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
1004
1005 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
1006
1007 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
1008
1009 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
1010 default. One must now explicitly configure with
1011 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
1012 option will be removed in a future release.
1013
1014 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
1015 GDB connection.
1016
1017 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
1018 memory backward from the given address. For example:
1019
1020 (gdb) bt
1021 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
1022 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
1023 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
1024 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
1025 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
1026 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
1027 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
1028 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
1029 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
1030
1031 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
1032 arrays of dynamic types.
1033
1034 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
1035 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1036 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1037 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1038 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1039 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
1040
1041 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
1042 descriptions.
1043
1044 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
1045 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
1046 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
1047
1048 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
1049
1050 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
1051 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
1052 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
1053 signal received and code location.
1054
1055 For example:
1056
1057 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
1058 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
1059 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
1060 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
1061
1062 * Rust language support.
1063 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
1064 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
1065 Rust.
1066
1067 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
1068
1069 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
1070 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
1071 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
1072 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
1073 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
1074 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
1075 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
1076 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
1077 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
1078 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
1079 line.
1080
1081 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
1082
1083 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
1084 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
1085
1086 * New commands
1087
1088 skip -file file
1089 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
1090 skip -function function
1091 skip -rfunction regular-expression
1092 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
1093 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
1094 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
1095
1096 maint info line-table REGEXP
1097 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data struture.
1098
1099 maint selftest
1100 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
1101
1102 new-ui INTERP TTY
1103 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
1104 using the TTY file for input/output.
1105
1106 * Python Scripting
1107
1108 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
1109 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
1110 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
1111 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
1112 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
1113
1114 signal-event EVENTID
1115 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
1116 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
1117 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
1118 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
1119 signalling an event.
1120
1121 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
1122 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
1123 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
1124
1125 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
1126 been removed:
1127
1128 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
1129 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
1130 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
1131 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
1132 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
1133 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
1134
1135 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
1136 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
1137 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
1138 bytecode into native code.
1139
1140 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
1141 recording. For example:
1142
1143 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
1144
1145 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
1146
1147 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
1148
1149 * New targets
1150
1151 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
1152
1153 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
1154
1155 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
1156
1157 * Per-inferior thread numbers
1158
1159 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
1160 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
1161 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
1162
1163 (gdb) info threads
1164 Id Target Id Frame
1165 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
1166 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
1167 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
1168 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
1169
1170 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
1171 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
1172 are no longer unique between inferiors.
1173
1174 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
1175 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
1176 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
1177
1178 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
1179 IDs.
1180
1181 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
1182 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
1183
1184 (gdb) thread 2.1
1185 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
1186 (gdb)
1187
1188 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
1189 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
1190 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
1191 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
1192 threads 2.*".
1193
1194 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
1195 all threads.
1196
1197 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
1198 the current thread.
1199
1200 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
1201 current inferior.
1202
1203 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
1204 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
1205 example:
1206
1207 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
1208 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
1209
1210 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
1211
1212 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
1213
1214 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
1215 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
1216
1217 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
1218 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
1219 clients.
1220
1221 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1222 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
1223 at the same time.
1224
1225 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
1226 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
1227 into native code.
1228
1229 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1230
1231 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
1232 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
1233 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
1234
1235 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
1236 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
1237
1238 * New commands
1239
1240 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
1241 maint show target-non-stop
1242 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
1243 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
1244 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
1245
1246 maint set bfd-sharing
1247 maint show bfd-sharing
1248 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
1249
1250 set debug bfd-cache
1251 show debug bfd-cache
1252 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
1253
1254 set debug fbsd-lwp
1255 show debug fbsd-lwp
1256 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
1257
1258 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1259 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1260 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
1261
1262 set remote thread-events
1263 show remote thread-events
1264 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
1265
1266 set ada print-signatures on|off
1267 show ada print-signatures"
1268 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
1269 selection menus. It is activaled (@code{on}) by default.
1270
1271 set max-value-size
1272 show max-value-size
1273 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
1274 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
1275 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
1276
1277 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1278 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
1279 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
1280 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
1281 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
1282 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
1283
1284 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1285 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
1286
1287 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
1288 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
1289
1290 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
1291
1292 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
1293 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
1294 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
1295 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
1296 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
1297 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
1298
1299 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
1300 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1301
1302 catch handlers
1303 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1304
1305 * New remote packets
1306
1307 exec stop reason
1308 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1309
1310 exec-events feature in qSupported
1311 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1312 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1313 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1314 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1315
1316 vCtrlC
1317 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1318 non-stop mode.
1319
1320 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1321 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1322
1323 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1324 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1325
1326 QThreadEvents
1327 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1328 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1329 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1330 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1331 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1332 stop for that same thread.
1333
1334 N stop reply
1335 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1336 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1337 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1338
1339 QCatchSyscalls
1340 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1341 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1342
1343 syscall_entry stop reason
1344 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1345
1346 syscall_return stop reason
1347 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1348
1349 * Extended-remote exec events
1350
1351 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1352 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1353 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1354
1355 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1356 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1357 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1358
1359 * Thread names in remote protocol
1360
1361 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1362 thread.
1363
1364 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1365
1366 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1367 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1368 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1369 fork and exec catchpoints.
1370
1371 * Remote syscall events
1372
1373 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1374 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1375
1376 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1377 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1378 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1379
1380 * MI changes
1381
1382 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1383 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1384 left.
1385
1386 * Python Scripting
1387
1388 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1389 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1390 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1391 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1392 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1393 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1394
1395 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1396
1397 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1398 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1399 including advance SIMD instructions.
1400
1401 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1402
1403 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1404 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1405 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1406 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1407 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1408 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1409 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1410
1411 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1412 cpu information :
1413 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1414
1415 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1416 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1417 remote serial I/O.
1418
1419 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1420 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
1421 and may include things like its command line arguments.
1422
1423 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
1424 is now available on all platforms.
1425
1426 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
1427 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
1428 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
1429 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
1430 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
1431 backward compatibility.
1432
1433 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
1434 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
1435 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
1436 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
1437
1438 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
1439 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
1440 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
1441 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
1442 packets" below.
1443
1444 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
1445
1446 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
1447
1448 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
1449 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
1450 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
1451 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
1452 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
1453 See "New remote packets" below.
1454
1455 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
1456 available register groups, including target specific groups.
1457
1458 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
1459 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
1460 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
1461 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
1462 are ignored.
1463
1464 * Guile Scripting
1465
1466 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
1467
1468 * Python Scripting
1469
1470 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
1471 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
1472 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
1473 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
1474 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
1475 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
1476 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
1477 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
1478 "const" version of the value respectively.
1479
1480 * New commands
1481
1482 maint print symbol-cache
1483 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
1484
1485 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
1486 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
1487
1488 maint flush-symbol-cache
1489 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
1490
1491 record btrace bts
1492 record bts
1493 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
1494
1495 compile print
1496 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
1497
1498 tui enable
1499 tui disable
1500 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
1501
1502 show mpx bound
1503 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
1504 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
1505
1506 record btrace pt
1507 record pt
1508 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
1509
1510 maint info btrace
1511 Print information about branch tracing internals.
1512
1513 maint btrace packet-history
1514 Print the raw branch tracing data.
1515
1516 maint btrace clear-packet-history
1517 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
1518
1519 maint btrace clear
1520 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
1521 anew by the next "record" command.
1522
1523 * New options
1524
1525 set debug dwarf-die
1526 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
1527 show debug dwarf-die
1528 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
1529
1530 set debug dwarf-read
1531 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
1532 show debug dwarf-read
1533 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
1534
1535 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
1536 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1537 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
1538 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1539
1540 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
1541 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1542 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
1543 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1544
1545 set debug dwarf-line
1546 show debug dwarf-line
1547 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
1548
1549 set max-completions
1550 show max-completions
1551 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
1552 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
1553 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
1554 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
1555
1556 set history remove-duplicates
1557 show history remove-duplicates
1558 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1559
1560 maint set symbol-cache-size
1561 maint show symbol-cache-size
1562 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1563
1564 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1565 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1566 BTS format.
1567 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1568 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1569
1570 set debug linux-namespaces
1571 show debug linux-namespaces
1572 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1573
1574 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1575 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1576 Intel Processor Trace format.
1577 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1578 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1579
1580 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1581 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1582 packet history.
1583
1584 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
1585 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
1586
1587 * Python/Guile scripting
1588
1589 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
1590 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
1591
1592 * New remote packets
1593
1594 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
1595 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
1596
1597 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
1598 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
1599
1600 Qbtrace:pt
1601 Enable Intel Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
1602 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
1603 qSupported query.
1604
1605 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
1606 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
1607 Trace format.
1608
1609 swbreak stop reason
1610 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
1611 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
1612 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
1613 mode operation.
1614
1615 hwbreak stop reason
1616 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
1617 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
1618
1619 vFile:fstat:
1620 Return information about files on the remote system.
1621
1622 qXfer:exec-file:read
1623 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
1624 create a process running on the remote system.
1625
1626 vFile:setfs:
1627 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
1628 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
1629 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
1630 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
1631
1632 fork stop reason
1633 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
1634
1635 vfork stop reason
1636 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
1637
1638 vforkdone stop reason
1639 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
1640 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
1641
1642 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
1643 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
1644 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
1645 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
1646 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
1647 whether these features are enabled.
1648
1649 * Extended-remote fork events
1650
1651 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
1652 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
1653 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
1654 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
1655
1656 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
1657 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
1658 the btrace record target.
1659 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
1660
1661 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
1662 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
1663
1664 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
1665 targets.
1666
1667 * Removed command line options
1668
1669 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
1670
1671 * Removed targets and native configurations
1672
1673 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
1674 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1675
1676 * New configure options
1677
1678 --with-intel-pt
1679 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
1680 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
1681
1682 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
1683 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
1684 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
1685 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
1686
1687 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
1688
1689 * Python Scripting
1690
1691 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
1692
1693 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
1694
1695 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
1696
1697 * Python Scripting
1698
1699 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
1700 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
1701 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
1702 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
1703 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
1704 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
1705 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
1706 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
1707 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
1708 selecting a new file to debug.
1709 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
1710 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
1711
1712 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
1713 inferior.
1714
1715 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
1716 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
1717 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
1718 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
1719
1720 * New Python-based convenience functions:
1721
1722 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1723 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1724 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1725 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1726
1727 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
1728 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
1729 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
1730 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
1731 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
1732 interface with this new feature are:
1733
1734 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
1735 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
1736
1737 * New commands
1738
1739 demangle [-l language] [--] name
1740 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
1741 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
1742 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
1743 as "maint demangler-warning".
1744
1745 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
1746 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
1747
1748 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
1749 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
1750 scripts.
1751
1752 maint print user-registers
1753 List all currently available "user" registers.
1754
1755 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
1756 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
1757 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
1758
1759 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
1760 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
1761 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
1762 provided.
1763
1764 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
1765 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
1766 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
1767 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
1768 at resume time.
1769
1770 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
1771 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
1772 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
1773 switched threads meanwhile.
1774
1775 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
1776
1777 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
1778 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
1779 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
1780 is now the default mode.
1781
1782 * New options
1783
1784 set debug symbol-lookup
1785 show debug symbol-lookup
1786 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
1787
1788 * MI changes
1789
1790 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
1791 inferiors that have exited.
1792
1793 * New targets
1794
1795 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
1796
1797 * Removed targets
1798
1799 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1800
1801 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
1802 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
1803 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
1804 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
1805 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
1806
1807 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1808 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1809 its alias "share", instead.
1810
1811 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
1812
1813 * New command line options
1814
1815 -D data-directory
1816 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
1817
1818 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
1819 as specified in ISO C99.
1820
1821 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
1822 with or without disassembly.
1823
1824 * Guile scripting
1825
1826 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
1827 available is determined at configure time.
1828 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
1829 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
1830
1831 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1832
1833 guile [code]
1834 gu [code]
1835 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
1836
1837 guile-repl
1838 gr
1839 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
1840
1841 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
1842 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
1843
1844 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
1845 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
1846
1847 * New options
1848
1849 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
1850 show print symbol-loading
1851 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
1852 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
1853 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
1854 becomes less useful.
1855
1856 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
1857 show guile print-stack
1858 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
1859
1860 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
1861 show auto-load guile-scripts
1862 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
1863
1864 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
1865 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
1866 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
1867 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
1868 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
1869 usage of this option.
1870
1871 set auto-connect-native-target
1872
1873 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
1874 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
1875 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
1876
1877 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
1878 show record btrace replay-memory-access
1879 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
1880
1881 maint set target-async (on|off)
1882 maint show target-async
1883 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
1884 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
1885 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
1886 occurring only in synchronous mode.
1887
1888 set mi-async (on|off)
1889 show mi-async
1890 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
1891 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
1892
1893 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
1894 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
1895
1896 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
1897 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
1898 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
1899 "set target-async on" command.
1900
1901 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1902
1903 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
1904 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
1905 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
1906 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
1907 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
1908
1909 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
1910 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
1911 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
1912
1913 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
1914 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
1915 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
1916 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
1917 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
1918 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
1919 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
1920
1921 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
1922 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
1923
1924 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
1925 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
1926 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
1927
1928 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
1929 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
1930 memory or registers.
1931
1932 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
1933
1934 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
1935 remote. It now works with all targets.
1936
1937 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
1938 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
1939 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
1940 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
1941 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
1942 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
1943 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
1944 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
1945 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
1946 target-stack".
1947
1948 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
1949 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
1950 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
1951
1952 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
1953
1954 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
1955 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
1956 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
1957
1958 * New remote packets
1959
1960 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
1961 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
1962 branch trace incrementally.
1963
1964 * Python Scripting
1965
1966 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
1967 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
1968 available.
1969 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
1970 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
1971 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
1972 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
1973 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
1974
1975 * New targets
1976 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
1977
1978 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1979 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1980 its alias "share", instead.
1981
1982 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
1983 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
1984 instead.
1985
1986 * MI changes
1987
1988 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
1989 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
1990 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
1991 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
1992 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
1993 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
1994 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
1995 commands and CLI execution commands.
1996
1997 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
1998
1999 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
2000 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
2001 recording has been added.
2002
2003 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2004
2005 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
2006 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
2007
2008 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
2009 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
2010 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
2011 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
2012 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
2013 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
2014 "void".
2015
2016 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
2017
2018 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
2019
2020 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
2021 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
2022 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
2023 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
2024
2025 (gdb) p $rax
2026 $1 = <not saved>
2027
2028 (gdb) info registers rax
2029 rax <not saved>
2030
2031 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
2032 "*value not available*".
2033
2034 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
2035 to binaries.
2036
2037 * Python scripting
2038
2039 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
2040 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
2041 ** Line tables representation has been added.
2042 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
2043 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
2044 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
2045
2046 * New targets
2047
2048 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
2049 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
2050 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
2051
2052 * Removed native configurations
2053
2054 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
2055 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
2056
2057 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2058 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2059 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
2060 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
2061 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2062 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2063 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2064
2065 * New commands:
2066 catch rethrow
2067 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
2068 maint check-psymtabs
2069 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
2070 maint check-symtabs
2071 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
2072 maint expand-symtabs
2073 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
2074
2075 show configuration
2076 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2077
2078 maint set|show per-command
2079 maint set|show per-command space
2080 maint set|show per-command time
2081 maint set|show per-command symtab
2082 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
2083
2084 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
2085 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
2086 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
2087 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
2088 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
2089
2090 info exceptions
2091 info exceptions REGEXP
2092 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
2093 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
2094 are listed.
2095
2096 * New options
2097
2098 set debug symfile off|on
2099 show debug symfile
2100 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
2101 symbol tables within those files
2102
2103 set print raw frame-arguments
2104 show print raw frame-arguments
2105 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
2106 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
2107
2108 set remote trace-status-packet
2109 show remote trace-status-packet
2110 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
2111
2112 set debug nios2
2113 show debug nios2
2114 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
2115
2116 set range-stepping
2117 show range-stepping
2118 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
2119
2120 set startup-with-shell
2121 show startup-with-shell
2122 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
2123 directly.
2124
2125 set code-cache
2126 show code-cache
2127 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
2128 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
2129
2130 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
2131 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
2132 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
2133 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
2134 "set height 0".
2135
2136 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
2137 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
2138 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
2139
2140 * New command-line options
2141 --configuration
2142 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2143
2144 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
2145 buffer in Common Trace Format.
2146
2147 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
2148 GDB command gcore.
2149
2150 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
2151
2152 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
2153 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
2154
2155 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
2156 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
2157
2158 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
2159 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
2160 due to an uncaught signal.
2161
2162 * MI changes
2163
2164 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
2165 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
2166 command, which should contain "language-option".
2167
2168 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
2169 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
2170
2171 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
2172 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
2173 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
2174 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2175 "undefined-command-error-code".
2176
2177 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
2178 Trace Format now.
2179
2180 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
2181
2182 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
2183 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
2184 are displayed.
2185
2186 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
2187 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
2188
2189 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
2190 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
2191 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
2192
2193 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
2194 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
2195 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
2196 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
2197 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2198 "exec-run-start-option".
2199
2200 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
2201 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
2202
2203 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
2204 the new "info exceptions" command.
2205
2206 * New system-wide configuration scripts
2207 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
2208 configuration scripts for the following systems:
2209 ** ElinOS
2210 ** Wind River Linux
2211
2212 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
2213 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
2214 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
2215 below.
2216
2217 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
2218 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
2219
2220 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
2221 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
2222 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
2223
2224 * New remote packets
2225
2226 vCont;r
2227
2228 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
2229 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
2230 involvemement at each single-step.
2231
2232 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
2233 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
2234 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
2235 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
2236 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
2237 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
2238 speedup.
2239
2240 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2241
2242 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
2243 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
2244
2245 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
2246 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
2247 trace state variables.
2248
2249 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
2250 target.
2251
2252 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
2253 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
2254
2255 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
2256
2257 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
2258 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
2259 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
2260 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2261
2262 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
2263
2264 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
2265 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
2266 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
2267 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
2268
2269 set|show record full insn-number-max
2270 set|show record full stop-at-limit
2271 set|show record full memory-query
2272
2273 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
2274 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
2275 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
2276 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
2277 This new recording method can be enabled using:
2278
2279 record btrace
2280
2281 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
2282 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
2283
2284 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
2285 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
2286 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
2287
2288 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
2289 instruction granularity
2290
2291 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
2292 function granularity
2293
2294 * New native configurations
2295
2296 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
2297 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
2298 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2299 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2300
2301 * New targets
2302
2303 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2304 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2305 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2306 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2307 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2308
2309 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2310 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2311 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2312 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2313 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2314 --data-directory command-line option.
2315
2316 * New command line options:
2317
2318 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2319 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2320
2321 * Removed command line options
2322
2323 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2324 Emacs.
2325
2326 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2327 type formatting.
2328
2329 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2330
2331 * Python scripting
2332
2333 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2334
2335 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2336
2337 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2338
2339 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2340
2341 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2342 of architecture in the Python API.
2343
2344 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2345 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2346
2347 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2348
2349 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2350 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2351 ** $_strlen(str)
2352 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2353
2354 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2355 given an argument.
2356
2357 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2358 default for GCC since November 2000.
2359
2360 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2361
2362 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2363 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2364
2365 * New configure options
2366
2367 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2368 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2369 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2370 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2371 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2372 options allow the user to override that default.
2373 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2374 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2375 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2376
2377 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2378
2379 catch signal
2380 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2381 conditions to be attached.
2382
2383 maint info bfds
2384 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2385
2386 python-interactive [command]
2387 pi [command]
2388 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2389 and print the result of expressions.
2390
2391 py [command]
2392 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2393
2394 enable type-printer [name]...
2395 disable type-printer [name]...
2396 Enable or disable type printers.
2397
2398 * Removed commands
2399
2400 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2401 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2402 instead.
2403
2404 * New options
2405
2406 set print type methods (on|off)
2407 show print type methods
2408 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2409 The default is to show them.
2410
2411 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2412 show print type typedefs
2413 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2414 The default is to show them.
2415
2416 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2417 show filename-display
2418 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2419 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
2420
2421 set trace-buffer-size
2422 show trace-buffer-size
2423 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
2424
2425 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
2426 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
2427 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
2428
2429 set debug aarch64
2430 show debug aarch64
2431 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
2432 The default is off.
2433
2434 set debug coff-pe-read
2435 show debug coff-pe-read
2436 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
2437 exported symbols.
2438
2439 set debug mach-o
2440 show debug mach-o
2441 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
2442 processing.
2443
2444 set debug notification
2445 show debug notification
2446 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
2447
2448 * MI changes
2449
2450 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
2451 "=cmd-param-changed".
2452 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
2453 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
2454 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
2455 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
2456 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
2457 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
2458 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
2459 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
2460 "=memory-changed".
2461 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
2462 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
2463 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
2464 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
2465 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
2466 library load/unload events.
2467 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
2468 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
2469 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
2470 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
2471 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
2472 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
2473 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
2474 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
2475
2476 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
2477 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
2478 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
2479 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
2480
2481 * New remote packets
2482
2483 QTBuffer:size
2484 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
2485 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2486
2487 Qbtrace:bts
2488 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
2489 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
2490 qSupported query.
2491
2492 Qbtrace:off
2493 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
2494 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2495
2496 qXfer:btrace:read
2497 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
2498 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2499
2500 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
2501
2502 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
2503 for more x32 ABI info.
2504
2505 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
2506
2507 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
2508
2509 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2510 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
2511 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
2512 "info os files" lists file descriptors
2513 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
2514 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
2515 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
2516 "info os msg" lists message queues
2517 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
2518
2519 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
2520 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
2521 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
2522 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
2523 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
2524 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
2525
2526 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
2527 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
2528 record/replay support.
2529
2530 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
2531
2532 * Python scripting
2533
2534 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
2535 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
2536
2537 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
2538
2539 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
2540 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
2541
2542 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
2543
2544 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
2545 the source at which the symbol was defined.
2546
2547 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
2548 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
2549 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
2550 symbol's value.
2551
2552 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
2553 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
2554
2555 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2556 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2557 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2558
2559 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2560 object associated with a PC value.
2561
2562 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2563 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2564
2565 * Go language support.
2566 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2567 language.
2568
2569 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2570 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2571
2572 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2573 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2574
2575 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2576 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2577 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2578 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2579 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2580 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
2581
2582 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
2583 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
2584 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
2585 build/libcpp/expr.c.
2586
2587 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
2588 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
2589
2590 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
2591 since December 2007.
2592
2593 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
2594 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
2595 command does. For instance:
2596
2597 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
2598
2599 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
2600 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
2601 created, using the "condition" command.
2602
2603 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
2604 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
2605
2606 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
2607
2608 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
2609 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
2610 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
2611 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
2612 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
2613 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
2614 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
2615 files with older .gdb_index sections.
2616
2617 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
2618 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
2619 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
2620 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
2621 the .gdb_index section.
2622
2623 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
2624
2625 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
2626 target.
2627
2628 * MI changes
2629
2630 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
2631
2632 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
2633
2634 * New commands
2635
2636 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2637 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2638 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
2639
2640 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
2641 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
2642
2643 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
2644 several hits.
2645
2646 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
2647 C++ and Java objects.
2648
2649 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
2650 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
2651 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
2652 configured with '--with-python'.
2653
2654 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
2655 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
2656 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
2657 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
2658 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
2659 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
2660 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
2661
2662 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
2663 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
2664 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
2665 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
2666
2667 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
2668 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
2669 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
2670 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
2671
2672 ** "set print symbol"
2673 "show print symbol"
2674 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
2675 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
2676 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
2677
2678 * Deprecated commands
2679
2680 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
2681 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
2682
2683 * New targets
2684
2685 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2686 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
2687
2688 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
2689 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
2690 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
2691 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
2692 evaluates to true.
2693
2694 * New options
2695
2696 set mips compression
2697 show mips compression
2698 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
2699 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
2700 mips16
2701 micromips
2702 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
2703
2704 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
2705 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
2706 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
2707 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
2708 available mode.
2709 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
2710 target.
2711
2712 set auto-load off
2713 Disable auto-loading globally.
2714
2715 show auto-load
2716 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
2717
2718 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
2719 show auto-load gdb-scripts
2720 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
2721
2722 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
2723 show auto-load python-scripts
2724 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
2725
2726 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
2727 show auto-load local-gdbinit
2728 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
2729
2730 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
2731 show auto-load libthread-db
2732 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
2733
2734 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2735 show auto-load scripts-directory
2736 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
2737 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
2738 of the directories listed by this option.
2739 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2740
2741 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2742 show auto-load safe-path
2743 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
2744 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2745
2746 set debug auto-load on|off
2747 show debug auto-load
2748 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
2749
2750 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
2751 show dprintf-style
2752 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
2753 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
2754 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
2755 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
2756
2757 set dprintf-function <expr>
2758 show dprintf-function
2759 set dprintf-channel <expr>
2760 show dprintf-channel
2761 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
2762 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
2763
2764 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
2765 show disconnected-dprintf
2766 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
2767 after GDB disconnects.
2768
2769 * New configure options
2770
2771 --with-auto-load-dir
2772 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
2773 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
2774 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
2775 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
2776 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
2777
2778 --with-auto-load-safe-path
2779 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
2780 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
2781
2782 --without-auto-load-safe-path
2783 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
2784 security feature.
2785
2786 * New remote packets
2787
2788 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
2789
2790 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
2791 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
2792 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
2793 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
2794
2795 QProgramSignals:
2796
2797 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
2798 program without GDB involvement.
2799
2800 * New command line options
2801
2802 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
2803 before loading inferior.
2804 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
2805 execute it before loading inferior.
2806
2807 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
2808
2809 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
2810 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
2811 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
2812 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
2813 inferior changes.
2814
2815 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
2816 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
2817
2818 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
2819 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
2820 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
2821 target hardware watchpoint.
2822
2823 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
2824 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
2825 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
2826 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
2827
2828 * Python scripting
2829
2830 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
2831 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
2832 existing one.
2833
2834 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
2835 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
2836 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
2837 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
2838 now "message", which just prints the error message without
2839 the stack trace.
2840
2841 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
2842 Python API.
2843
2844 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
2845 modules library. This module provides functionality for
2846 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
2847 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
2848 corresponding value.
2849
2850 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
2851 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
2852 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
2853 on GDB start-up.
2854
2855 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
2856 static_block will return the global and static blocks
2857 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
2858 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
2859
2860 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
2861
2862 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
2863 "gdb.breakpoints".
2864
2865 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
2866 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
2867 available in the CLI.
2868
2869 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
2870 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
2871 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
2872 "some_type.items()".
2873
2874 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
2875 new object file.
2876
2877 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
2878 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
2879 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
2880 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
2881 any anonymous fields.
2882
2883 * MI changes
2884
2885 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
2886 "solib-event".
2887
2888 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
2889 "=breakpoint-modified".
2890
2891 ** New command -ada-task-info.
2892
2893 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
2894 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
2895 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
2896 lives.
2897
2898 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
2899 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
2900 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
2901 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
2902 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
2903
2904 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
2905 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
2906
2907 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
2908 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
2909 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
2910 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
2911 use this option to specify where to find it.
2912
2913 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2914 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
2915 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
2916 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
2917 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
2918 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2919 section in the user manual for more details.
2920
2921 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
2922 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
2923 become available after that.
2924
2925 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
2926
2927 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
2928 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
2929 gcc version 4.7.
2930
2931 * New commands
2932
2933 !SHELL COMMAND
2934 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
2935 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
2936
2937 * Changed commands
2938
2939 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
2940 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
2941 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
2942
2943 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
2944 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
2945 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
2946
2947 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
2948 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
2949 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
2950 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
2951 name starts with a hyphen.
2952
2953 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
2954 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
2955 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
2956 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
2957 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
2958 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
2959 number of bytes that will be collected.
2960
2961 tstart [NOTES]
2962 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
2963 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
2964 setting the variable trace-notes.
2965
2966 tstop [NOTES]
2967 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
2968 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
2969 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
2970 trace-stop-notes.
2971
2972 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
2973 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
2974 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
2975 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
2976 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
2977 is running.
2978
2979 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
2980 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
2981 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
2982
2983 * New options
2984
2985 set debug dwarf2-read
2986 show debug dwarf2-read
2987 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
2988 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
2989
2990 set debug symtab-create
2991 show debug symtab-create
2992 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
2993 creation. The default is off.
2994
2995 set extended-prompt
2996 show extended-prompt
2997 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
2998 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
2999 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
3000 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
3001 prompt is displayed.
3002
3003 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
3004 show print entry-values
3005 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
3006 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
3007 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
3008
3009 set debug entry-values
3010 show debug entry-values
3011 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
3012 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
3013
3014 set basenames-may-differ
3015 show basenames-may-differ
3016 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
3017 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
3018 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
3019 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
3020 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
3021 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
3022 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
3023 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
3024
3025 set trace-user
3026 show trace-user
3027 set trace-notes
3028 show trace-notes
3029 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
3030 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
3031 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
3032 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
3033
3034 set trace-stop-notes
3035 show trace-stop-notes
3036 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
3037 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
3038 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
3039 started by someone else.
3040
3041 * New remote packets
3042
3043 QTEnable
3044
3045 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3046
3047 QTDisable
3048
3049 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3050
3051 QTNotes
3052
3053 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
3054
3055 qTP
3056
3057 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
3058
3059 qTMinFTPILen
3060
3061 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
3062 be placed.
3063
3064 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
3065 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
3066
3067 * New targets
3068
3069 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
3070
3071 * New Simulators
3072
3073 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3074
3075 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
3076
3077 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
3078
3079 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
3080
3081 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
3082 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
3083 matches the given regular expression.
3084
3085 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
3086
3087 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
3088 dumping the instruction opcodes.
3089
3090 * New command line options
3091
3092 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
3093 This is mostly for testing purposes.
3094
3095 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
3096 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
3097
3098 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
3099 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
3100 source path list instead of augmenting it.
3101
3102 * GDB now understands thread names.
3103
3104 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
3105 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
3106
3107 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
3108 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
3109
3110 * OpenCL C
3111 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
3112 has been integrated into GDB.
3113
3114 * Python scripting
3115
3116 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
3117 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
3118 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
3119
3120 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3121 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
3122 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
3123 and allows for more dynamic content.
3124
3125 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
3126 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
3127 have an is_valid method.
3128
3129 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3130 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
3131 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
3132
3133 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
3134
3135 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
3136 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
3137 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
3138 that function like so:
3139
3140 result = some_value (10,20)
3141
3142 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
3143 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
3144 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
3145
3146 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
3147 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
3148 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
3149 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
3150 New function: register_pretty_printer.
3151
3152 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
3153 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
3154
3155 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
3156
3157 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
3158 selected thread.
3159
3160 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
3161 holds the thread's name.
3162
3163 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
3164 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
3165 occurring in the process being debugged.
3166 The following events are currently supported:
3167 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
3168 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
3169 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
3170
3171 * C++ Improvements:
3172
3173 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
3174 instantiation. For example, if you have:
3175
3176 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
3177
3178 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
3179 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
3180 was added to GCC 4.5.
3181
3182 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
3183 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
3184 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
3185 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
3186 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
3187 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
3188
3189 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
3190 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
3191 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
3192 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
3193 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
3194
3195 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
3196 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
3197 execution to a label.
3198
3199 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
3200 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
3201 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
3202 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
3203
3204 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
3205 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
3206 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
3207 of scope.
3208
3209 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
3210
3211 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
3212 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
3213 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
3214 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
3215 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
3216 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
3217
3218 (gdb) info threads
3219 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
3220
3221 While now you see this:
3222
3223 (gdb) info threads
3224 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
3225
3226 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
3227 dumps.
3228
3229 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
3230 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
3231 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
3232 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
3233
3234 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3235 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
3236 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
3237 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3238 section in the user manual for more details.
3239
3240 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3241
3242 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
3243 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
3244
3245 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
3246
3247 * New native configurations
3248
3249 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3250
3251 * New targets:
3252
3253 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
3254
3255 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
3256 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
3257 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
3258 in the GDB user manual.
3259
3260 * Guile support was removed.
3261
3262 * New features in the GNU simulator
3263
3264 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
3265
3266 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
3267
3268 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
3269
3270 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
3271
3272 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
3273 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
3274 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
3275 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
3276 was always disabled for such configurations.
3277
3278 * C++ Improvements:
3279
3280 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
3281
3282 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
3283 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
3284 For example:
3285 namespace A
3286 {
3287 class B { };
3288 void foo (B) { }
3289 }
3290 ...
3291 A::B b
3292 foo(b)
3293 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
3294 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
3295 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
3296
3297 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
3298
3299 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
3300 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
3301 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
3302 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3303 entry.
3304 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3305 mentioned flavors of operators.
3306
3307 ** static const class members
3308
3309 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3310 class definition has been fixed.
3311
3312 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3313
3314 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3315 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3316 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3317 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3318 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3319 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3320
3321 * Static tracepoints
3322
3323 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3324 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3325 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3326 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3327 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3328 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3329 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3330 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3331 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3332 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3333 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3334 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3335 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3336 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3337 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3338 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3339 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3340 the "New remote packets" section below.
3341
3342 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3343
3344 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3345 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3346 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3347 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3348
3349 * Observer mode
3350
3351 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3352 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3353 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3354 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3355 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3356 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3357 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3358
3359 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3360 current thread.
3361
3362 * New remote packets
3363
3364 qGetTIBAddr
3365
3366 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3367
3368 qRelocInsn
3369
3370 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3371 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3372 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3373 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3374 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3375 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3376
3377 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
3378
3379 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3380
3381 qTSTMat
3382
3383 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3384 program.
3385
3386 qXfer:statictrace:read
3387
3388 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3389 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3390 to gdb's qSupported query.
3391
3392 QAllow
3393
3394 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3395
3396 QTDPsrc
3397
3398 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3399 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3400
3401 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3402 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3403 a directory.
3404
3405 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3406
3407 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3408 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3409 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3410 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3411
3412 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3413 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3414 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3415 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3416 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3417 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3418 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3419
3420 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
3421 for static tracepoints support.
3422
3423 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
3424
3425 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
3426 it understands register description.
3427
3428 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
3429
3430 * X86 general purpose registers
3431
3432 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
3433 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
3434 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
3435 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
3436 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
3437
3438 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
3439 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
3440 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
3441 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
3442 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
3443 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
3444
3445 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
3446 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
3447 in the specified file.
3448
3449 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
3450 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
3451 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
3452 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
3453 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
3454 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
3455 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
3456 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
3457 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
3458 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
3459
3460 * New commands
3461
3462 eval template, expressions...
3463 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
3464 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
3465
3466 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
3467 show target-file-system-kind
3468 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
3469 names.
3470
3471 save breakpoints <filename>
3472 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
3473 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
3474 definitions, use the `source' command.
3475
3476 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
3477 is now deprecated.
3478
3479 info static-tracepoint-markers
3480 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
3481
3482 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
3483 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
3484 function, line, address, or marker ID.
3485
3486 set observer on|off
3487 show observer
3488 Enable and disable observer mode.
3489
3490 set may-write-registers on|off
3491 set may-write-memory on|off
3492 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
3493 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
3494 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
3495 set may-interrupt on|off
3496 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
3497 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
3498 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
3499 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
3500 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
3501 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
3502 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
3503
3504 set record memory-query on|off
3505 show record memory-query
3506 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
3507 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
3508
3509 * Changed commands
3510
3511 disassemble
3512 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
3513
3514 * Python scripting
3515
3516 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
3517 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
3518 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
3519 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
3520 GDB using Python' in the manual.
3521
3522 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
3523 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
3524 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
3525 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
3526
3527 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
3528 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
3529
3530 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
3531
3532 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
3533
3534 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
3535
3536 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
3537 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
3538 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
3539
3540 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
3541 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
3542 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
3543 regular breakpoints.
3544
3545 * New targets
3546
3547 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
3548
3549 * D language support.
3550 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
3551 language.
3552
3553 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
3554 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
3555 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3556 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3557 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3558
3559 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3560 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3561 conditions of the form:
3562
3563 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3564
3565 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3566 interface mentioned above.
3567
3568 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
3569
3570 * C++ Improvements
3571
3572 ** Namespace Support
3573
3574 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3575 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3576 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3577 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3578 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3579
3580 ** Bug Fixes
3581
3582 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
3583 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
3584 qualified name.
3585
3586 ** Cast Operators
3587
3588 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
3589 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
3590
3591 * New targets
3592
3593 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
3594 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
3595
3596 * New Simulators
3597
3598 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
3599 Renesas RX rx
3600
3601 * Multi-program debugging.
3602
3603 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
3604 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
3605 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
3606 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
3607 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
3608 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
3609 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
3610 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
3611
3612 * New tracing features
3613
3614 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
3615
3616 ** Trace state variables
3617
3618 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
3619 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
3620 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
3621 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
3622 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
3623 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
3624 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
3625 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
3626 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
3627 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
3628
3629 ** Fast tracepoints
3630
3631 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
3632 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
3633 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
3634 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
3635 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
3636 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
3637 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
3638 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
3639 the regular trace command.
3640
3641 ** Disconnected tracing
3642
3643 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
3644 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
3645 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
3646 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
3647 connection is lost unexpectedly.
3648
3649 ** Trace files
3650
3651 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
3652 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
3653 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
3654 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
3655 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
3656 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
3657 <name>".
3658
3659 ** Circular trace buffer
3660
3661 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
3662 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
3663 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
3664 not be available for all target agents.
3665
3666 * Changed commands
3667
3668 disassemble
3669 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
3670 the arguments to be comma-separated.
3671
3672 info variables
3673 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
3674 which only declare a variable are not shown.
3675
3676 source
3677 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
3678 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
3679 support.
3680
3681 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
3682 "set script-extension" (see below).
3683
3684 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3685
3686 record save [<FILENAME>]
3687 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
3688 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
3689
3690 record restore <FILENAME>
3691 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
3692 earlier time, for replay debugging.
3693
3694 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
3695 Add a new inferior.
3696
3697 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
3698 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
3699 inferior has loaded.
3700
3701 remove-inferior ID
3702 Remove an inferior.
3703
3704 maint info program-spaces
3705 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
3706
3707 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
3708 show remote interrupt-sequence
3709 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
3710 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
3711 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
3712 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
3713 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
3714
3715 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
3716 show remote interrupt-on-connect
3717 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
3718 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
3719 Linux kernel.
3720
3721 set remotebreak [on | off]
3722 show remotebreak
3723 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
3724
3725 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
3726 Create or modify a trace state variable.
3727
3728 info tvariables
3729 List trace state variables and their values.
3730
3731 delete tvariable $NAME ...
3732 Delete one or more trace state variables.
3733
3734 teval EXPR, ...
3735 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
3736 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
3737
3738 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
3739 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
3740
3741 * New expression syntax
3742
3743 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
3744 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
3745
3746 * New options
3747
3748 set follow-exec-mode new|same
3749 show follow-exec-mode
3750 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
3751 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
3752 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
3753
3754 set default-collect EXPR, ...
3755 show default-collect
3756 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
3757 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
3758 such as registers or a critical global variable.
3759
3760 set disconnected-tracing
3761 show disconnected-tracing
3762 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
3763 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
3764 upon disconnection.
3765
3766 set circular-trace-buffer
3767 show circular-trace-buffer
3768 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
3769 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
3770 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
3771 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
3772
3773 set script-extension off|soft|strict
3774 show script-extension
3775 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
3776 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
3777 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
3778 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
3779 evaluation failed.
3780 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
3781
3782 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
3783 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
3784 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
3785 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
3786 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
3787 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
3788 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
3789 is on.
3790
3791 * Python API Improvements
3792
3793 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
3794 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
3795 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
3796
3797 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
3798 `is_base_class' attribute.
3799
3800 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
3801
3802 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
3803 evaluate an expression.
3804
3805 * New remote packets
3806
3807 QTDV
3808 Define a trace state variable.
3809
3810 qTV
3811 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
3812
3813 QTDisconnected
3814 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
3815
3816 QTBuffer:circular
3817 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
3818
3819 qTfP, qTsP
3820 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
3821
3822 * Bug fixes
3823
3824 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
3825
3826 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
3827 much more reliable. In particular:
3828 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
3829 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
3830 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
3831 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
3832 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
3833 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
3834 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
3835 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
3836 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
3837 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
3838 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
3839 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
3840 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
3841 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
3842 non-threaded programs.
3843
3844 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
3845 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
3846 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
3847 executable program.
3848
3849 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
3850
3851 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
3852 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
3853 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
3854 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
3855 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
3856
3857 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
3858 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
3859 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
3860 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
3861 for tracepoint actions.
3862
3863 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
3864 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
3865 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
3866
3867 * Process record and replay
3868
3869 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
3870 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
3871 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
3872 execute commands.
3873
3874 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
3875 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
3876 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
3877 reverse execution.
3878
3879 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
3880 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
3881 2.6.28 or later.
3882
3883 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
3884 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
3885 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
3886 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
3887 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
3888 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
3889 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
3890 the installation instructions for more information.
3891
3892 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
3893 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
3894 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
3895 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
3896
3897 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
3898 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
3899
3900 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
3901 now complete on file names.
3902
3903 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
3904 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
3905 For instance, consider:
3906
3907 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
3908 # struct example variable;
3909 (gdb) p variable.
3910
3911 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
3912 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
3913
3914 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
3915 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
3916
3917 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
3918 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
3919 macros.
3920
3921 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
3922 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
3923 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
3924
3925 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
3926 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
3927 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
3928 and simulator targets may also provide them.
3929
3930 * New remote packets
3931
3932 qSearch:memory:
3933 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3934
3935 QStartNoAckMode
3936 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
3937 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
3938 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
3939
3940 vKill
3941 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
3942 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
3943
3944 qXfer:osdata:read
3945 Obtains additional operating system information
3946
3947 qXfer:siginfo:read
3948 qXfer:siginfo:write
3949 Read or write additional signal information.
3950
3951 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
3952
3953 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
3954 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
3955 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
3956
3957 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
3958 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
3959
3960 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
3961 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
3962 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
3963
3964 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
3965 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
3966
3967 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
3968
3969 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
3970
3971 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
3972 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
3973
3974 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
3975 list of section offsets.
3976
3977 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
3978 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
3979 have also been fixed.
3980
3981 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
3982 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
3983 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
3984
3985 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
3986 example, given:
3987
3988 template<typename T> class C { };
3989 C<char const *> c;
3990
3991 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
3992
3993 ptype C<char const *>
3994 ptype C<char const*>
3995 ptype C<const char *>
3996 ptype C<const char*>
3997
3998 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
3999
4000 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
4001 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4002
4003 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
4004 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4005 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
4006
4007 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
4008 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
4009
4010 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
4011 gdbserver.
4012
4013 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
4014 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4015
4016 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
4017 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
4018 as appropriate.
4019
4020 * Python scripting
4021
4022 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
4023 available is determined at configure time.
4024
4025 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
4026
4027 * Ada tasking support
4028
4029 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
4030 been introduced:
4031
4032 info tasks
4033 Print the list of Ada tasks.
4034 info task N
4035 Print detailed information about task number N.
4036 task
4037 Print the task number of the current task.
4038 task N
4039 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
4040
4041 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
4042 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
4043
4044 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
4045
4046 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
4047 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
4048 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
4049 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
4050 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
4051 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
4052 below.
4053
4054 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
4055 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
4056 information.
4057
4058 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
4059 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
4060 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
4061 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
4062 more information.
4063
4064 * Multi-architecture debugging.
4065
4066 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
4067 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
4068 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
4069 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
4070 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
4071
4072 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
4073 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
4074 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
4075 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
4076 --enable-targets configure option.
4077
4078 * Non-stop mode debugging.
4079
4080 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
4081 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
4082 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
4083 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
4084 section in the user manual for more information.
4085
4086 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
4087 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
4088 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
4089 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
4090 extensions on linux targets.
4091
4092 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4093
4094 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
4095 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
4096 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
4097 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
4098 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
4099 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
4100 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
4101 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
4102 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
4103
4104 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
4105 val1 [, val2, ...]
4106 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4107
4108 maint set python print-stack
4109 maint show python print-stack
4110 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
4111
4112 python [CODE]
4113 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
4114
4115 macro define
4116 macro list
4117 macro undef
4118 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
4119 interactively.
4120
4121 info os processes
4122 Show operating system information about processes.
4123
4124 info inferiors
4125 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
4126
4127 inferior NUM
4128 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
4129
4130 detach inferior NUM
4131 Detach from inferior number NUM.
4132
4133 kill inferior NUM
4134 Kill inferior number NUM.
4135
4136 * New options
4137
4138 set spu stop-on-load
4139 show spu stop-on-load
4140 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4141
4142 set spu auto-flush-cache
4143 show spu auto-flush-cache
4144 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
4145 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4146
4147 set sh calling-convention
4148 show sh calling-convention
4149 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
4150
4151 set debug timestamp
4152 show debug timestamp
4153 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
4154
4155 set disassemble-next-line
4156 show disassemble-next-line
4157 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
4158 the debuggee stops.
4159
4160 set remote noack-packet
4161 show remote noack-packet
4162 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
4163 under "New remote packets."
4164
4165 set remote query-attached-packet
4166 show remote query-attached-packet
4167 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
4168
4169 set remote read-siginfo-object
4170 show remote read-siginfo-object
4171 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
4172 packet.
4173
4174 set remote write-siginfo-object
4175 show remote write-siginfo-object
4176 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
4177 packet.
4178
4179 set remote reverse-continue
4180 show remote reverse-continue
4181 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
4182
4183 set remote reverse-step
4184 show remote reverse-step
4185 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
4186
4187 set displaced-stepping
4188 show displaced-stepping
4189 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
4190 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
4191 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
4192
4193 set debug displaced
4194 show debug displaced
4195 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
4196
4197 maint set internal-error
4198 maint show internal-error
4199 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
4200
4201 maint set internal-warning
4202 maint show internal-warning
4203 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
4204
4205 set exec-wrapper
4206 show exec-wrapper
4207 unset exec-wrapper
4208 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4209
4210 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
4211 show multiple-symbols
4212 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
4213 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
4214 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
4215
4216 set breakpoint always-inserted
4217 show breakpoint always-inserted
4218 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
4219 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
4220 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
4221
4222 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4223 show arm fallback-mode
4224 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4225 show arm force-mode
4226 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
4227 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
4228 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
4229 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
4230
4231 set disable-randomization
4232 show disable-randomization
4233 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
4234 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
4235 multiple debugging sessions.
4236
4237 set non-stop
4238 show non-stop
4239 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
4240 a breakpoint.
4241
4242 set target-async
4243 show target-async
4244 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
4245 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
4246 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
4247 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
4248
4249 set target-wide-charset
4250 show target-wide-charset
4251 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
4252 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
4253
4254 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
4255 show tcp auto-retry
4256 set tcp connect-timeout
4257 show tcp connect-timeout
4258 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
4259 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
4260 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
4261
4262 set libthread-db-search-path
4263 show libthread-db-search-path
4264 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
4265 libthread_db.
4266
4267 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
4268 show schedule-multiple
4269 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
4270 the current process.
4271
4272 set stack-cache
4273 show stack-cache
4274 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
4275 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
4276 affecting correctness.
4277
4278 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
4279 show interactive-mode
4280 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
4281 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
4282 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
4283 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
4284 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
4285
4286 * Removed commands
4287
4288 info forks
4289 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
4290 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
4291 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
4292 command.
4293
4294 fork NUM
4295 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
4296 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
4297 alias for the `fork' command.
4298
4299 process PID
4300 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
4301 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
4302 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4303
4304 delete fork NUM
4305 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4306 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4307 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4308 fork' command.
4309
4310 detach fork NUM
4311 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4312 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4313 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4314 fork' command.
4315
4316 * New native configurations
4317
4318 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4319
4320 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4321
4322 * New targets
4323
4324 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4325 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4326 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4327 S+core 3 score-*-*
4328
4329 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4330 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4331
4332 * Removed commands
4333
4334 catch load
4335 catch unload
4336 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4337
4338 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4339
4340 * New native configurations
4341
4342 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4343 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4344
4345 * New targets
4346
4347 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4348 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
4349
4350 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4351
4352 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4353 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4354 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4355 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4356
4357 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4358 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4359
4360 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4361 is resolved.
4362
4363 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4364 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4365 and in inlined functions.
4366
4367 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4368 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4369 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4370
4371 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4372
4373 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4374 registers on PowerPC targets.
4375
4376 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4377 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4378
4379 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4380 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4381
4382 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4383 extended-remote mode.
4384
4385 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4386 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4387 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4388 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4389
4390 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4391 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4392 target architectures.
4393
4394 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4395 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4396 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4397 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4398
4399 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4400 breakpoints now.
4401
4402 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4403 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4404 include:
4405 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4406 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4407 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4408 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4409 of an assignment
4410 - Improved command completion in Ada
4411 - Several bug fixes
4412
4413 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4414 process.
4415
4416 * New commands
4417
4418 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4419 show print frame-arguments
4420 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
4421 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
4422
4423 remote put
4424 remote get
4425 remote delete
4426 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4427
4428 * New MI commands
4429
4430 -target-file-put
4431 -target-file-get
4432 -target-file-delete
4433 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4434
4435 * New remote packets
4436
4437 vFile:open:
4438 vFile:close:
4439 vFile:pread:
4440 vFile:pwrite:
4441 vFile:unlink:
4442 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
4443
4444 vAttach
4445 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
4446 mode.
4447
4448 vRun
4449 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
4450
4451 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
4452
4453 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
4454 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
4455 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
4456
4457 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
4458 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
4459 -Bsymbolic linker option.
4460
4461 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
4462 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
4463 is not supported.
4464
4465 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
4466 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
4467
4468 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
4469 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
4470
4471 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
4472
4473 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
4474 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
4475 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
4476
4477 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
4478 automatically displayed as character or string data.
4479
4480 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
4481 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
4482 as strings.
4483
4484 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
4485 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
4486 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
4487
4488 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
4489 iWMMXt coprocessor.
4490
4491 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
4492 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
4493 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
4494
4495 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
4496
4497 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
4498
4499 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
4500 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
4501 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
4502
4503 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
4504 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
4505
4506 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
4507 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
4508 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
4509 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
4510 Windows and SymbianOS).
4511
4512 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
4513 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
4514
4515 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
4516 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
4517
4518 * New commands
4519
4520 set remoteflow
4521 show remoteflow
4522 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
4523 when debugging using remote targets.
4524
4525 set mem inaccessible-by-default
4526 show mem inaccessible-by-default
4527 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4528 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4529 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
4530 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
4531 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
4532
4533 set breakpoint auto-hw
4534 show breakpoint auto-hw
4535 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4536 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4537 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
4538 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
4539 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
4540 including "next" and "finish".
4541
4542 catch exception
4543 catch exception unhandled
4544 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
4545
4546 catch assert
4547 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
4548
4549 set sysroot
4550 show sysroot
4551 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
4552 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
4553 an alias to "set sysroot".
4554
4555 info spu
4556 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4557 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4558 architecture.
4559
4560 * New native configurations
4561
4562 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4563
4564 set tdesc filename
4565 unset tdesc filename
4566 show tdesc filename
4567 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4568 not query the target for its built-in description.
4569
4570 * New targets
4571
4572 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4573 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4574 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4575
4576 * New remote packets
4577
4578 QPassSignals:
4579 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4580 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4581
4582 qXfer:features:read:
4583 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
4584 features.
4585
4586 qXfer:spu:read:
4587 qXfer:spu:write:
4588 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
4589 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
4590
4591 qXfer:libraries:read:
4592 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
4593 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
4594 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
4595 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
4596
4597 * Removed targets
4598
4599 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
4600
4601 alpha*-*-osf1*
4602 alpha*-*-osf2*
4603 d10v-*-*
4604 hppa*-*-hiux*
4605 i[34567]86-ncr-*
4606 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
4607 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
4608 i[34567]86-*-netware*
4609 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
4610 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
4611 i[34567]86-*-sco*
4612 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
4613 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
4614 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
4615 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
4616 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
4617 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
4618 i[34567]86-*-isc*
4619 m68*-cisco*-*
4620 m68*-tandem-*
4621 mips*-*-pe
4622 rs6000-*-lynxos*
4623 sh*-*-pe
4624
4625 * Other removed features
4626
4627 target abug
4628 target cpu32bug
4629 target est
4630 target rom68k
4631
4632 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
4633
4634 target hms
4635 target e7000
4636 target sh3
4637 target sh3e
4638
4639 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
4640 H8/300.
4641
4642 target ocd
4643
4644 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
4645 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
4646 interfaces.
4647
4648 DWARF 1 support
4649
4650 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
4651 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
4652
4653 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
4654
4655 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
4656 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
4657 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
4658 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
4659
4660 MIPS ".pdr" sections
4661
4662 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
4663 in debugging information.
4664
4665 Scheme support
4666
4667 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
4668 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
4669
4670 set mips stack-arg-size
4671 set mips saved-gpreg-size
4672
4673 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
4674
4675 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
4676
4677 * New targets
4678
4679 Xtensa xtensa-elf
4680 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
4681
4682 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
4683 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
4684 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
4685
4686 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
4687 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
4688 supported.
4689
4690 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
4691 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
4692
4693 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
4694 stub provides the required support.
4695
4696 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
4697 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
4698
4699 * New commands
4700
4701 set substitute-path
4702 unset substitute-path
4703 show substitute-path
4704 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
4705 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
4706 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
4707 between compilation and debugging.
4708
4709 set trace-commands
4710 show trace-commands
4711 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
4712 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
4713 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
4714
4715 * REMOVED features
4716
4717 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
4718
4719 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
4720 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
4721
4722 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
4723
4724 * New remote packets
4725
4726 qSupported:
4727 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
4728 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
4729 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
4730 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
4731 target.
4732
4733 qXfer:auxv:read:
4734 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
4735 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
4736
4737 qXfer:memory-map:read:
4738 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
4739 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
4740
4741 vFlashErase:
4742 vFlashWrite:
4743 vFlashDone:
4744 Erase and program a flash memory device.
4745
4746 * Removed remote packets
4747
4748 qPart:auxv:read:
4749 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
4750 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
4751
4752 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
4753
4754 * New targets
4755
4756 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
4757
4758 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4759
4760 * New commands
4761
4762 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
4763 only if it doesn't already have a value.
4764
4765 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
4766
4767 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
4768
4769 restart <n> Return the program state to a
4770 previously saved state.
4771
4772 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
4773
4774 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
4775
4776 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
4777 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
4778
4779 info forks List forks of the user program that
4780 are available to be debugged.
4781
4782 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
4783 forks of the user program that are
4784 available to be debugged.
4785
4786 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4787 that are available to be debugged (and
4788 kill the forked process).
4789
4790 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4791 that are available to be debugged (and
4792 allow the process to continue).
4793
4794 * New architecture
4795
4796 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
4797
4798 * Improved Windows host support
4799
4800 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
4801 native console support, and remote communications using either
4802 network sockets or serial ports.
4803
4804 * Improved Modula-2 language support
4805
4806 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
4807 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
4808 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
4809 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
4810 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
4811 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
4812
4813 * REMOVED features
4814
4815 The ARM rdi-share module.
4816
4817 The Netware NLM debug server.
4818
4819 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
4820
4821 * New native configurations
4822
4823 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
4824 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
4825
4826 * New targets
4827
4828 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4829
4830 * New command line options
4831
4832 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
4833 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
4834 the child (debugged) program exited with.
4835 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
4836 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
4837 specified multiple times and in conjunction
4838 with the --command (-x) option.
4839
4840 * Deprecated commands removed
4841
4842 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
4843 removed:
4844
4845 Command Replacement
4846 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
4847 othernames set arm disassembler
4848 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
4849 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
4850 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
4851 regs info registers
4852
4853 * New BSD user-level threads support
4854
4855 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
4856 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
4857 configurations are:
4858
4859 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4860 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
4861 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
4862
4863 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
4864 are not yet supported.
4865
4866 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
4867 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
4868
4869 * REMOVED configurations and files
4870
4871 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
4872 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4873 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
4874
4875 * New "set print array-indexes" command
4876
4877 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
4878 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
4879 behavior.
4880
4881 * VAX floating point support
4882
4883 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
4884
4885 * User-defined command support
4886
4887 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
4888 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
4889 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
4890
4891 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
4892
4893 * New command line option
4894
4895 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
4896 debugging.
4897
4898 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
4899
4900 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
4901 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
4902 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
4903 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
4904 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
4905
4906 * Internationalization
4907
4908 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
4909 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
4910 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
4911
4912 * Ada
4913
4914 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
4915 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
4916 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
4917
4918 * New native configurations
4919
4920 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
4921
4922 * Remote 'p' packet
4923
4924 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
4925 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
4926
4927 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
4928
4929 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4930 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
4931 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
4932 i386 application).
4933
4934 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
4935 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
4936 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
4937 configurations:
4938
4939 hppa-*-hpux
4940 ia64-*-aix
4941 mips-*-irix*
4942 *-*-lynx
4943 mips-*-linux-gnu
4944 sds protocol
4945 xdr protocol
4946 powerpc bdm protocol
4947
4948 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4949 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
4950
4951 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4952
4953 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4954 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4955 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4956 permanently REMOVED.
4957
4958 h8300-*-*
4959 mcore-*-*
4960 mn10300-*-*
4961 ns32k-*-*
4962 sh64-*-*
4963 v850-*-*
4964
4965 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
4966
4967 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
4968
4969 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
4970 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
4971 been fixed.
4972
4973 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
4974
4975 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
4976 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
4977 IRIX long double values).
4978
4979 * VAX and "next"
4980
4981 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
4982 command. This problem has been fixed.
4983
4984 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
4985
4986 * Fix for ``many threads''
4987
4988 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
4989 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
4990 error message:
4991
4992 ptrace: No such process.
4993 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
4994
4995 This problem has been fixed.
4996
4997 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
4998
4999 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
5000 GDB to dump core).
5001
5002 * New ``start'' command.
5003
5004 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
5005
5006 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
5007
5008 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
5009 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
5010 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
5011
5012 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5013 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
5014 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
5015 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
5016 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
5017 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5018 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
5019 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
5020 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5021
5022 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
5023
5024 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
5025 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
5026 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
5027 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
5028 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
5029
5030 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
5031 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
5032 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
5033
5034 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
5035
5036 * New native configurations
5037
5038 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
5039 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
5040 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
5041 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
5042 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
5043 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
5044 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
5045
5046 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
5047
5048 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5049 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
5050 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
5051 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
5052 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
5053 work, was also included.
5054
5055 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
5056 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
5057
5058 h8300-*-*
5059 mcore-*-*
5060 mn10300-*-*
5061 ns32k-*-*
5062 sh64-*-*
5063 v850-*-*
5064 xstormy16-*-*
5065
5066 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5067 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
5068
5069 * REMOVED configurations and files
5070
5071 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5072 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5073 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5074 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5075 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5076 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5077 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5078 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5079 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5080 sonymips mips-sony-*
5081 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5082
5083 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
5084
5085 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
5086
5087 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
5088 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
5089 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
5090 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
5091 with GDB".
5092
5093 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
5094
5095 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
5096 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
5097 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
5098 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
5099 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
5100 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
5101 are created.
5102
5103 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
5104
5105 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
5106
5107 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
5108 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
5109 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
5110
5111 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
5112
5113 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
5114 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
5115
5116 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
5117
5118 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
5119 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
5120 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
5121
5122 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
5123
5124 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
5125 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
5126
5127 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
5128
5129 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
5130 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
5131 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
5132
5133 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
5134
5135 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
5136 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
5137 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
5138
5139 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
5140
5141 * Removed --with-mmalloc
5142
5143 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
5144 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
5145
5146 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
5147
5148 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
5149 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
5150 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
5151 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
5152
5153 * Revised SPARC target
5154
5155 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
5156 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
5157 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
5158 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
5159 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
5160
5161 * New C++ demangler
5162
5163 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
5164 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
5165 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
5166 programs.
5167
5168 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5169
5170 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
5171 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
5172 encountered these.
5173
5174 * C++ nested types and namespaces
5175
5176 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
5177 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
5178 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
5179 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
5180 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
5181 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
5182 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
5183 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
5184 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
5185
5186 * New native configurations
5187
5188 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
5189 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5190 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
5191 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5192 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
5193
5194 * New debugging protocols
5195
5196 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
5197
5198 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
5199
5200 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
5201 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
5202 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
5203
5204 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5205
5206 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5207 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5208 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5209 permanently REMOVED.
5210
5211 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5212 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5213 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5214 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5215 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5216 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5217 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5218 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5219 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5220 sonymips mips-sony-*
5221 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5222
5223 * REMOVED configurations and files
5224
5225 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5226 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5227 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5228 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5229 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5230 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5231 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5232 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5233 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5234 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
5235 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5236 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5237 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5238 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
5239 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
5240 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5241 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5242
5243 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
5244
5245 * Objective-C
5246
5247 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
5248 integrated into GDB.
5249
5250 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
5251
5252 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
5253 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
5254 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
5255 backtraces.
5256
5257 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
5258 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
5259 DWARF 2 CFI support.
5260
5261 * Hosted file I/O.
5262
5263 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
5264 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
5265 remote protocol documentation for details.
5266
5267 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
5268
5269 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
5270 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
5271 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
5272 ppc32 on ppc64).
5273
5274 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
5275
5276 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
5277 per-thread variables.
5278
5279 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
5280
5281 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
5282 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
5283
5284 * Separate debug info.
5285
5286 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
5287 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
5288 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
5289 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
5290 and optional debug files.
5291
5292 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5293
5294 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
5295 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
5296 debugger.
5297
5298 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
5299 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5300
5301 * Java
5302
5303 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5304 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5305 considered "useable".
5306
5307 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5308
5309 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5310 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5311 kernel.
5312
5313 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5314
5315 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5316 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5317
5318 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5319
5320 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5321 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5322 command.
5323
5324 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5325
5326 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5327 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5328
5329 * Profiling support
5330
5331 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5332 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5333 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5334 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5335 data, for more informative profiling results.
5336
5337 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5338
5339 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5340 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5341 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5342
5343 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5344 removed.
5345
5346 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5347 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5348 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5349 in a subsequent -var-update.
5350
5351 * New native configurations.
5352
5353 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5354
5355 * Multi-arched targets.
5356
5357 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5358 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5359
5360 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5361
5362 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5363 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5364 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5365 permanently REMOVED.
5366
5367 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5368 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5369 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5370 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5371 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5372 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5373 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5374 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5375 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5376 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5377 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5378 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5379
5380 * REMOVED configurations and files
5381
5382 V850EA ISA
5383 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5384 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5385 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5386 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5387 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5388 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5389 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
5390 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5391 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5392 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5393 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5394 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5395 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5396
5397 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5398
5399 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5400 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5401 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5402 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5403 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5404
5405 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5406
5407 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5408
5409 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5410 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5411 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5412 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5413 shared libs like mad''.
5414
5415 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5416
5417 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5418 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5419 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5420 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
5421
5422 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
5423
5424 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
5425 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
5426 they expand.
5427
5428 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
5429 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
5430
5431 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
5432 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
5433
5434 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
5435 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
5436 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
5437 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
5438
5439 * Multi-arched targets.
5440
5441 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
5442 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
5443 NEC V850 v850-*-*
5444 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
5445 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
5446 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5447
5448 * New targets.
5449
5450 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
5451
5452
5453 * New native configurations
5454
5455 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
5456 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
5457 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
5458 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
5459
5460 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5461
5462 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5463 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5464 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5465 permanently REMOVED.
5466
5467 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5468 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5469 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5470 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5471 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5472 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5473 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5474 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5475 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5476 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5477 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
5478 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5479 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5480
5481 * OBSOLETE languages
5482
5483 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
5484
5485 * REMOVED configurations and files
5486
5487 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5488 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5489 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5490 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5491 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5492
5493 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5494
5495 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
5496
5497 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
5498 commands. The default is 1024.
5499
5500 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
5501
5502 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
5503
5504 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
5505
5506 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
5507 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
5508 from a file into memory (restore).
5509
5510 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
5511
5512 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
5513 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
5514 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
5515
5516 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
5517
5518 * New targets.
5519
5520 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
5521
5522 * Bug fixes
5523
5524 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
5525 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
5526 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
5527
5528 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
5529 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
5530 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
5531
5532 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
5533 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
5534 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
5535
5536 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
5537 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
5538 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
5539
5540 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
5541
5542 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
5543
5544 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
5545 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
5546 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
5547 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
5548 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
5549 (notably embedded) targets.
5550
5551 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
5552
5553 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
5554 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
5555 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5556 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5557
5558 * New command line option
5559
5560 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5561
5562 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5563
5564 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5565 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5566 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5567 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5568 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5569 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5570 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5571 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5572 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5573 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5574
5575 * Changes in ARM configurations.
5576
5577 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5578 configuration is fully multi-arch.
5579
5580 * New native configurations
5581
5582 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
5583 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
5584 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
5585 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
5586
5587 * New targets
5588
5589 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
5590
5591 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5592
5593 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5594 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5595 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5596 permanently REMOVED.
5597
5598 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5599 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5600 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5601 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5602 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5603
5604 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5605
5606 * REMOVED configurations and files
5607
5608 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5609 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5610 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5611 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5612 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5613 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5614 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5615 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5616 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5617 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5618 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5619 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5620 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
5621
5622 * Changes to command line processing
5623
5624 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
5625 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
5626
5627 * Changes to key bindings
5628
5629 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
5630
5631 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
5632
5633 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
5634
5635 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
5636 corrupted.
5637
5638 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
5639
5640 Numerous documentation fixes.
5641
5642 Numerous testsuite fixes.
5643
5644 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
5645
5646 * New native configurations
5647
5648 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
5649 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
5650 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
5651 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5652 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
5653 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
5654
5655 * New targets
5656
5657 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
5658 CRIS cris-axis
5659 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
5660
5661 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5662
5663 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
5664 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5665 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5666 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5667 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5668 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5669 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5670 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5671 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5672 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5673 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5674 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5675 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5676 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
5677
5678 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
5679 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
5680
5681 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5682 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5683 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5684 permanently REMOVED.
5685
5686 * REMOVED configurations and files
5687
5688 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5689 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5690 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
5691 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5692 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
5693 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
5694
5695 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
5696
5697 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
5698 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
5699 present.
5700
5701 * Other news:
5702
5703 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
5704
5705 * The MI enabled by default.
5706
5707 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
5708 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
5709 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
5710 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
5711 which is now deprecated.
5712
5713 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
5714
5715 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
5716 main features are supported:
5717
5718 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
5719
5720 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
5721 extension;
5722
5723 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
5724
5725 - a Pascal expression parser.
5726
5727 However, some important features are not yet supported.
5728
5729 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
5730
5731 - there are some problems with boolean types;
5732
5733 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
5734 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
5735
5736 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
5737
5738 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
5739
5740 * Changes in completion.
5741
5742 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
5743 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
5744 users expect at the shell prompt.
5745
5746 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
5747 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
5748 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
5749 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
5750 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
5751 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
5752 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
5753
5754 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
5755
5756 * New platform-independent commands:
5757
5758 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
5759 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
5760 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
5761
5762 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
5763
5764 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
5765 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
5766 many threads as your system allows you to have.
5767
5768 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
5769
5770 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
5771 multi-threaded programs though.
5772
5773 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
5774
5775 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
5776
5777 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
5778 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
5779 supported.)
5780
5781 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
5782
5783 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
5784 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
5785 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
5786 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
5787 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
5788 registers.
5789
5790 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
5791 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
5792 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
5793
5794 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
5795
5796 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
5797 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
5798
5799 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
5800 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
5801 IDT.
5802
5803 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
5804 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
5805 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
5806 a given linear address.
5807
5808 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
5809 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
5810 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
5811
5812 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
5813
5814 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
5815
5816 * Changes in documentation.
5817
5818 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
5819 Documentation License.
5820
5821 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5822 manual.
5823
5824 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
5825
5826 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5827 manual.
5828
5829 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
5830 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
5831 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
5832
5833 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
5834
5835 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
5836 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
5837 contents of this file.
5838
5839 * gdba.el deleted
5840
5841 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
5842
5843 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
5844
5845 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
5846
5847 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
5848 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
5849 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
5850 greater level of detail.
5851
5852 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
5853
5854 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
5855 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
5856 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
5857 written.
5858
5859 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
5860
5861 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
5862 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
5863 machines ``out of the box''.
5864
5865 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
5866 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
5867 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
5868 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
5869 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
5870
5871 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
5872 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
5873 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
5874 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
5875 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
5876
5877 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
5878 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
5879 also works.
5880
5881 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
5882 GDB.
5883
5884 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
5885 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
5886 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
5887 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
5888
5889 * New native configurations
5890
5891 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
5892 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5893
5894 * New targets
5895
5896 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
5897 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
5898 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
5899 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5900
5901 * OBSOLETE configurations
5902
5903 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5904 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5905 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
5906 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5907 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
5908
5909 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5910 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5911 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5912 be permanently REMOVED.
5913
5914 * Gould support removed
5915
5916 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
5917
5918 * New features for SVR4
5919
5920 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
5921 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
5922 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
5923
5924 * Many C++ enhancements
5925
5926 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
5927 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
5928
5929 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
5930
5931 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
5932 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
5933 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
5934 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
5935
5936 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
5937 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
5938
5939 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
5940
5941 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
5942 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
5943 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
5944
5945 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
5946 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
5947
5948 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
5949
5950 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
5951 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
5952 include ``set remote P-packet''.
5953
5954 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
5955
5956 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
5957 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
5958 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
5959
5960 * ``apropos'' command added.
5961
5962 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
5963 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
5964 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
5965
5966 * New MI interface
5967
5968 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
5969 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
5970 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
5971 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
5972 enabled by configuring with:
5973
5974 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
5975
5976 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
5977
5978 * New native configurations
5979
5980 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
5981 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
5982 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
5983
5984 * New targets
5985
5986 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5987 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
5988 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5989
5990 * OBSOLETE configurations
5991
5992 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
5993
5994 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5995 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5996 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5997 be permanently REMOVED.
5998
5999 * ANSI/ISO C
6000
6001 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
6002 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
6003 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
6004 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
6005 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
6006 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
6007 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
6008 already.
6009
6010 * Readline 2.2
6011
6012 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
6013
6014 * set extension-language
6015
6016 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
6017 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
6018 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
6019 set extension-language .c c++
6020 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
6021 and their associated languages.
6022
6023 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
6024
6025 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
6026 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
6027 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
6028
6029 set processor NAME
6030
6031 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
6032 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
6033
6034 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
6035 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
6036 403 IBM PowerPC 403
6037 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
6038 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
6039 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
6040 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
6041 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
6042 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
6043 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
6044 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
6045
6046 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
6047 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
6048 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
6049 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
6050
6051 * HP-UX support
6052
6053 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
6054 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
6055 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
6056 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
6057 for xdb and dbx commands.
6058
6059 * Catchpoints
6060
6061 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
6062 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
6063 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
6064
6065 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
6066 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
6067 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
6068
6069 * Debugging across forks
6070
6071 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
6072 in the inferior.
6073
6074 * TUI
6075
6076 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
6077 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
6078 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
6079
6080 * GDB remote protocol additions
6081
6082 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
6083 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
6084 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
6085 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
6086
6087 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
6088 full 64-bit address. The command
6089
6090 set remoteaddresssize 32
6091
6092 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
6093 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
6094 will be discarded.
6095
6096 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
6097 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
6098
6099 maint packet heythere
6100
6101 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
6102 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
6103 time.
6104
6105 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
6106 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
6107 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
6108
6109 * Tracing can collect general expressions
6110
6111 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
6112 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
6113 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
6114
6115 * mask-address variable for Mips
6116
6117 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
6118 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
6119 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
6120
6121 * Higher serial baud rates
6122
6123 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
6124 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
6125 to achieve all of these rates.)
6126
6127 * i960 simulator
6128
6129 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
6130 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
6131
6132
6133 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
6134
6135 * New native configurations
6136
6137 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
6138 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
6139 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6140 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6141 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6142 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
6143 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
6144
6145 * New targets
6146
6147 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6148 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
6149 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6150 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
6151 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
6152 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
6153 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
6154 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
6155 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6156 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6157 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
6158
6159 * New debugging protocols
6160
6161 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
6162 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
6163 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
6164 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6165 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6166 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6167
6168 * DWARF 2
6169
6170 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
6171 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
6172 information.
6173
6174 * Java frontend
6175
6176 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
6177 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
6178
6179 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
6180
6181 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
6182 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
6183 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
6184
6185 * Live range splitting
6186
6187 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
6188 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
6189 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
6190
6191 * Hurd support
6192
6193 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
6194 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
6195
6196 * ARM Thumb support
6197
6198 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
6199 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
6200 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
6201 accordingly.
6202
6203 * MIPS16 support
6204
6205 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
6206 instruction set.
6207
6208 * Overlay support
6209
6210 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
6211 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
6212 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
6213 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
6214 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
6215 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
6216
6217 * info symbol
6218
6219 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
6220 the symbol at the specified address.
6221
6222 * Trace support
6223
6224 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
6225 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
6226 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
6227 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
6228 file tracepoint.c for more details.
6229
6230 * MIPS simulator
6231
6232 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
6233 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
6234 of most MIPS variants.
6235
6236 * Sparc simulator
6237
6238 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
6239 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
6240 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
6241
6242 * set architecture
6243
6244 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
6245 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
6246 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
6247 the possible architectures.
6248
6249 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
6250
6251 * New native configurations
6252
6253 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
6254 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
6255 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
6256 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
6257 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6258 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
6259
6260 * New targets
6261
6262 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
6263 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6264 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
6265 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
6266 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
6267 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
6268 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6269
6270 * PowerPC simulator
6271
6272 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
6273 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
6274 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
6275 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
6276 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
6277
6278 * Solaris 2.5
6279
6280 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
6281
6282 * Windows 95/NT native
6283
6284 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
6285 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
6286 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
6287 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
6288 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
6289
6290 * dont-repeat command
6291
6292 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
6293 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
6294 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
6295 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
6296
6297 * Send break instead of ^C
6298
6299 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
6300 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
6301 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6302
6303 * Remote protocol timeout
6304
6305 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6306 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6307 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6308
6309 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6310
6311 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6312 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6313 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6314 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6315 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6316
6317 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6318 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6319 automatically on hpux10.
6320
6321 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6322
6323 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6324
6325 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6326
6327 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6328 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6329 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6330 every character. The default value is 1050.
6331
6332 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6333
6334 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6335 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6336 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6337 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6338 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6339 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6340
6341 * Speedups for remote debugging
6342
6343 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6344 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6345 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6346
6347 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6348
6349 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6350 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6351
6352 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6353
6354 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6355
6356 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6357 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6358
6359 * Remote targets use caching
6360
6361 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6362 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6363 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6364 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6365 off' turns the the data cache off.
6366
6367 * Remote targets may have threads
6368
6369 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6370 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6371 gdb/remote.c for details.
6372
6373 * NetROM support
6374
6375 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6376 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6377 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6378 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6379 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6380 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6381 sequence is something like
6382
6383 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6384 load <prog>
6385 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6386
6387 * Macintosh host
6388
6389 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6390 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6391 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6392 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6393 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6394 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6395 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6396 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6397
6398 * Autoconf
6399
6400 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6401 but does simplify configuration and building.
6402
6403 * hpux10
6404
6405 GDB now supports hpux10.
6406
6407 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6408
6409 * New native configurations
6410
6411 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6412 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6413 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6414 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6415
6416 * New targets
6417
6418 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6419 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6420 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
6421 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
6422 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6423
6424 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
6425
6426 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
6427 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
6428 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
6429 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
6430 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
6431
6432 * Arguments to user-defined commands
6433
6434 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
6435 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
6436 trivial example:
6437 define adder
6438 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
6439
6440 To execute the command use:
6441 adder 1 2 3
6442
6443 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
6444 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
6445 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
6446
6447 * New `if' and `while' commands
6448
6449 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
6450 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
6451 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
6452 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
6453 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
6454 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
6455 if the expression is zero.
6456
6457 * Fortran source language mode
6458
6459 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
6460 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
6461 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
6462 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
6463 Fortran compilers.
6464
6465 * Better HPUX support
6466
6467 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
6468 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
6469 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
6470 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
6471 that behavior do the following before running the program:
6472
6473 adb -w a.out
6474 __dld_flags?W 0x5
6475 control-d
6476
6477 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
6478 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
6479
6480 adb -w a.out
6481 __dld_flags?W 0x4
6482 control-d
6483
6484 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
6485 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
6486 external linkage.
6487
6488 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
6489 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
6490
6491 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
6492
6493 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
6494 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
6495 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
6496 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
6497 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
6498 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
6499
6500 * New DOS host serial code
6501
6502 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
6503 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
6504 a PC's serial port.
6505
6506 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
6507
6508 * New "complete" command
6509
6510 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
6511 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
6512
6513 * Trailing space optional in prompt
6514
6515 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
6516 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
6517
6518 * Breakpoint hit counts
6519
6520 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
6521 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
6522 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
6523 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
6524 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
6525 that breakpoint.
6526
6527 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
6528
6529 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
6530 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
6531 arrays actually contain only short strings.
6532
6533 * Shared library breakpoints
6534
6535 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
6536 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
6537
6538 * Hardware watchpoints
6539
6540 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
6541 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
6542
6543 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
6544
6545 * Annotations
6546
6547 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
6548 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
6549
6550 * Improved Irix 5 support
6551
6552 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
6553
6554 * Improved HPPA support
6555
6556 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6557
6558 * New native configurations
6559
6560 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6561 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6562 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6563 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6564
6565 * New targets
6566
6567 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6568 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6569 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
6570
6571 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6572
6573 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6574 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6575
6576 * Fixes
6577
6578 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6579 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6580
6581 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6582
6583 * Irix 5 is now supported
6584
6585 * HPPA support
6586
6587 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
6588 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
6589 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
6590 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
6591 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
6592
6593
6594 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
6595
6596 * User visible changes:
6597
6598 * Remote Debugging
6599
6600 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
6601 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
6602 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
6603 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
6604 debugging info for the mips target).
6605
6606 * DEC Alpha native support
6607
6608 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
6609 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
6610 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
6611 Alpha-specific notes.
6612
6613 * Preliminary thread implementation
6614
6615 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
6616
6617 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
6618
6619 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
6620 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
6621 for details).
6622
6623 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
6624
6625 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
6626 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
6627 call methods, ...etc.
6628
6629 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
6630
6631 * User visible changes:
6632
6633 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
6634 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
6635 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
6636 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
6637
6638 Filename completion now works.
6639
6640 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
6641 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
6642 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
6643
6644 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
6645 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
6646 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
6647 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
6648 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
6649
6650 * DEC alpha support
6651
6652 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
6653 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
6654
6655
6656 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
6657
6658 * Testsuite
6659
6660 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
6661 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
6662 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
6663
6664 * C++ demangling
6665
6666 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
6667 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
6668 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
6669 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
6670 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
6671
6672 * Simulators
6673
6674 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
6675 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
6676 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
6677
6678 * New targets supported
6679
6680 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6681 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6682 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
6683 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6684 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
6685
6686 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
6687 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
6688 GO32 memory extender.
6689
6690 * New remote protocols
6691
6692 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
6693
6694 * New source languages supported
6695
6696 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
6697 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
6698 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
6699
6700
6701 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
6702
6703 * HP Precision Architecture supported
6704
6705 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
6706 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
6707 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
6708 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
6709 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
6710 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
6711
6712 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
6713
6714 * Faster and better demangling
6715
6716 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
6717 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
6718 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
6719 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
6720 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
6721 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
6722 symbol lookups.
6723
6724 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
6725 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
6726 compiler does not actually implement.
6727
6728 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
6729
6730 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
6731 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
6732 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
6733 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
6734 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
6735 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
6736 fix.
6737
6738 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
6739 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
6740
6741 * Improved configure script
6742
6743 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
6744 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
6745 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
6746 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
6747
6748 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
6749 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
6750 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
6751 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
6752 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
6753 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
6754
6755 * Documentation improvements
6756
6757 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
6758 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
6759 before submitting changes.
6760
6761 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
6762 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
6763 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
6764 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
6765 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
6766
6767 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
6768 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
6769 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
6770 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
6771 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
6772 around this problem.
6773
6774 * New features
6775
6776 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
6777 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
6778 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
6779 the target program.
6780
6781 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
6782 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
6783
6784 * New native hosts supported
6785
6786 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
6787 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
6788
6789 * New targets supported
6790
6791 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
6792
6793 * New file formats supported
6794
6795 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
6796 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
6797
6798 * Major bug fixes
6799
6800 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
6801
6802 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
6803 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
6804
6805 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
6806 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
6807 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
6808
6809 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
6810 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
6811
6812 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
6813 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
6814 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
6815 libraries.
6816
6817 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
6818 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
6819 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
6820 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
6821 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
6822
6823 * Internal improvements
6824
6825 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
6826 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
6827
6828 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
6829 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
6830 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
6831 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
6832 shared code that handles any of them.
6833
6834 * New command line options
6835
6836 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
6837
6838 * Mmalloc licensing
6839
6840 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
6841 General Public License.
6842
6843 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
6844
6845 * Host/native/target split
6846
6847 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
6848 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
6849 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
6850 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
6851 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
6852
6853 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
6854 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
6855 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
6856 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
6857 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
6858 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
6859 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
6860
6861 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
6862 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
6863 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
6864
6865 * New hosts supported
6866
6867 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
6868 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6869 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
6870
6871 * New targets supported
6872
6873 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6874 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
6875
6876 * New native hosts supported
6877
6878 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6879 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
6880 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
6881
6882 * New file formats supported
6883
6884 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
6885 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
6886 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
6887
6888 * New commands
6889
6890 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
6891 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
6892 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
6893
6894 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
6895
6896 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
6897 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
6898 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
6899 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
6900
6901 * C++ improvements
6902
6903 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
6904 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
6905 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
6906
6907 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
6908
6909 * Major bug fixes
6910
6911 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
6912 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
6913 by the compiler.
6914
6915 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
6916 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
6917
6918 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
6919 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
6920 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
6921 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
6922 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
6923 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
6924
6925 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
6926 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
6927 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
6928 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
6929
6930 * AMD 29k support
6931
6932 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
6933 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
6934 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
6935 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
6936 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
6937
6938 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
6939 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
6940 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
6941 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
6942
6943 * Remote interfaces
6944
6945 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
6946 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
6947 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
6948 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
6949 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
6950 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
6951 each instruction being stepped through.
6952
6953 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
6954 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
6955
6956 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
6957 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
6958 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
6959 processor with a serial port.
6960
6961 * Configuration
6962
6963 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
6964 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
6965 supported, and what files each one uses.
6966
6967 * Library changes
6968
6969 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
6970 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
6971 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
6972 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
6973
6974 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
6975 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
6976 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
6977 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
6978
6979 * Documentation
6980
6981 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
6982 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
6983 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
6984 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
6985 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
6986 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
6987
6988 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
6989
6990
6991 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
6992
6993 * Better support for C++ function names
6994
6995 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
6996 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
6997 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
6998 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
6999 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
7000
7001 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
7002 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
7003 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
7004 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
7005 for the list of formats.
7006
7007 * G++ symbol mangling problem
7008
7009 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
7010 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
7011 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
7012 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
7013 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
7014 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
7015 this problem.)
7016
7017 * New 'maintenance' command
7018
7019 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
7020 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
7021 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
7022
7023 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
7024 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
7025 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
7026 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
7027 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
7028 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
7029
7030 The following commands are new:
7031
7032 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
7033 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
7034 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
7035
7036 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
7037
7038 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
7039 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
7040 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
7041 read after argv processing.
7042
7043 * New hosts supported
7044
7045 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
7046
7047 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
7048
7049 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
7050 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
7051 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
7052 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
7053 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
7054 It costs extra.
7055
7056 * New targets supported
7057
7058 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7059
7060 * More smarts about finding #include files
7061
7062 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
7063 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
7064 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
7065 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
7066 the one that contains your sources.
7067
7068 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
7069 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
7070 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
7071
7072 * Interesting infernals change
7073
7074 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
7075 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
7076 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
7077 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
7078
7079 * Bug fixes (of course!)
7080
7081 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
7082 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
7083 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
7084
7085 See the ChangeLog for details.
7086
7087 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
7088
7089 * New machines supported (host and target)
7090
7091 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
7092
7093 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
7094
7095 * New malloc package
7096
7097 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
7098 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
7099 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
7100 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
7101 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
7102 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
7103
7104 * info proc
7105
7106 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
7107 'help info proc' for details.
7108
7109 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
7110
7111 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
7112 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
7113 possible.
7114
7115 * File name changes for MS-DOS
7116
7117 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
7118 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
7119 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
7120 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
7121 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
7122 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
7123
7124 * Cross byte order fixes
7125
7126 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
7127 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
7128
7129 * New -mapped and -readnow options
7130
7131 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
7132 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
7133 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
7134 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
7135 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
7136 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
7137 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
7138 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
7139 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
7140 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
7141
7142 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
7143 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
7144 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
7145 slower, but makes future operations faster.
7146
7147 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
7148 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
7149 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
7150 use is:
7151
7152 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
7153
7154 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
7155 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
7156 shared across multiple host platforms.
7157
7158 * longjmp() handling
7159
7160 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
7161 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
7162 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
7163 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
7164
7165 * Solaris 2.0
7166
7167 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
7168 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
7169 reading symbols.
7170
7171 * Bug fixes
7172
7173 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
7174 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
7175 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
7176
7177 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
7178
7179 * New machines supported (host and target)
7180
7181 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7182 (except core files)
7183 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
7184 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
7185
7186 * New machines supported (target)
7187
7188 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7189
7190 * C++ support
7191
7192 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
7193 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
7194 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
7195
7196 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
7197 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
7198 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
7199 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
7200 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
7201 released.
7202
7203 * New features for SVR4
7204
7205 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
7206 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
7207 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
7208
7209 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
7210 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
7211 it prints the address mappings of the process.
7212
7213 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
7214 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
7215
7216 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
7217
7218 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
7219 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
7220 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
7221 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
7222 same code linked statically.
7223
7224 * New Getopt
7225
7226 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
7227 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
7228 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
7229 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
7230 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
7231 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
7232
7233 * Bugs fixed
7234
7235 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7236 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7237 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7238
7239
7240 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
7241
7242 * New machines supported (host and target)
7243
7244 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
7245 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
7246 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7247
7248 * Almost SCO Unix support
7249
7250 We had hoped to support:
7251 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7252 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
7253 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
7254 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
7255
7256 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
7257
7258 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
7259 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
7260 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
7261 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
7262 reqired (if any).
7263
7264 * New Readline
7265
7266 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
7267 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
7268 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
7269
7270 * Bugs fixed
7271
7272 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7273 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7274 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7275
7276 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
7277
7278 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
7279 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
7280 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
7281
7282 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
7283 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
7284 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
7285 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
7286 version 2.
7287
7288 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
7289 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
7290 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
7291 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
7292 situation somewhat.
7293
7294 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
7295 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
7296 methods.
7297
7298 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
7299 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
7300 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7301
7302
7303 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7304
7305 * Improved configuration
7306
7307 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7308 Porting BFD is simpler.
7309
7310 * Stepping improved
7311
7312 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7313 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7314 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7315 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7316
7317 * Bug fixing
7318
7319 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7320
7321 * New host supported (not target)
7322
7323 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7324
7325
7326 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7327
7328 * Multiple source language support
7329
7330 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7331 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7332 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7333 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7334 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7335 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7336
7337 * GDB and Modula-2
7338
7339 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7340 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7341 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7342 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7343
7344 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7345 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7346 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7347
7348 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7349 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7350
7351 * set write on/off
7352
7353 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7354 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7355 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7356 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7357 effect immediately.
7358
7359 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7360
7361 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7362 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7363 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7364 examining core files.
7365
7366 * set listsize
7367
7368 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7369 The default is 10.
7370
7371 * New machines supported (host and target)
7372
7373 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7374 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7375 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7376
7377 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7378
7379 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7380
7381 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7382
7383 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7384 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7385 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7386
7387 * New remote interfaces
7388
7389 AMD 29000 Adapt
7390 AMD 29000 Minimon
7391
7392
7393 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7394
7395 * New Facilities
7396
7397 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7398
7399 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7400 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7401 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7402 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7403 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7404 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7405 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7406 stub on the target system.
7407
7408 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7409
7410 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7411 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7412 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7413
7414 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7415 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7416
7417
7418 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7419
7420 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
7421 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
7422
7423 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
7424 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
7425 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
7426
7427 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
7428 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
7429 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
7430 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
7431
7432 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
7433 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
7434 it is already running. Default is ON.
7435
7436 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
7437 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
7438 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
7439 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
7440 Default is ON.
7441
7442 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
7443 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
7444 or the value of the environment variable
7445 GDBHISTFILE.
7446
7447 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
7448 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
7449 HISTSIZE.
7450
7451 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
7452 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
7453 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
7454
7455 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
7456 history expansion will be performed on
7457 command line input. The default is OFF.
7458
7459 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
7460 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
7461 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
7462
7463 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
7464 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
7465 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7466 variable TERM.
7467
7468 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
7469 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
7470 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7471 variable TERM.
7472
7473 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
7474 ``set width'' instead.
7475
7476 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
7477 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
7478 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
7479 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
7480
7481 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
7482 is OFF.
7483
7484 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
7485 "raw" form if off.
7486
7487 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
7488 like instructions.
7489
7490 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
7491
7492
7493 * Support for Epoch Environment.
7494
7495 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
7496 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
7497 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
7498 window.
7499
7500
7501 * Support for Shared Libraries
7502
7503 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
7504 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
7505 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
7506 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
7507 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
7508 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
7509 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
7510 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
7511
7512 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
7513 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
7514 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
7515
7516 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
7517
7518
7519 * Watchpoints
7520
7521 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
7522 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
7523 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
7524 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
7525 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
7526 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
7527
7528 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
7529
7530 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
7531
7532 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7533 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7534 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7535
7536
7537 * C++ multiple inheritance
7538
7539 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
7540 for C++ programs.
7541
7542 * C++ exception handling
7543
7544 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
7545 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
7546 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
7547 handler's context).
7548
7549 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
7550 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
7551 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
7552
7553 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
7554 current stack frame.
7555
7556
7557 * Minor command changes
7558
7559 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7560 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7561 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7562
7563 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7564 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7565 frames without printing.
7566
7567 * New directory command
7568
7569 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7570 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7571 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7572 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7573 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7574
7575 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7576
7577 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7578 for more details.
7579
7580 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7581 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7582 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
7583 where the program that you are debugging will run.
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