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