Document define-prefix command and the use of . in command names.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 8.3
5
6 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
7
8 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
9 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
10 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
11 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
12 such as in system-wide init files.
13
14 * New built-in convenience functions $_gdb_setting, $_gdb_setting_str,
15 $_gdb_maint_setting and $_gdb_maint_setting_str provide access to values
16 of the GDB settings and the GDB maintenance settings. They are handy
17 for changing the logic of user defined commands depending on the
18 current GDB settings.
19
20 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
21 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
22 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
23 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
24
25 * Support for Pointer Authentication (PAC) on AArch64 Linux. Return
26 addresses that required unmasking are shown in the backtrace with the
27 postfix [PAC].
28
29 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
30 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
31
32 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
33 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
34 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
35
36 * The command define-prefix can now define user defined prefix commands.
37 User defined commands can now be defined using these user defined prefix
38 commands.
39
40 * Command names can now use the . character.
41
42 * The RX port now supports XML target descriptions.
43
44 * GDB now shows the Ada task names at more places, e.g. in task switching
45 messages.
46
47 * GDB can now be compiled with Python 3 on Windows.
48
49 * New convenience variable $_ada_exception holds the address of the
50 Ada exception being thrown. This is set by Ada-related catchpoints.
51
52 * GDB can now place breakpoints on nested functions and subroutines in
53 Fortran code. The '::' operator can be used between parent and
54 child scopes when placing breakpoints, for example:
55
56 (gdb) break outer_function::inner_function
57
58 The 'outer_function::' prefix is only needed if 'inner_function' is
59 not visible in the current scope.
60
61 * In addition to the system-wide gdbinit file, if configured with
62 --with-system-gdbinit-dir, GDB will now also load files in that directory
63 as system gdbinit files, unless the -nx or -n flag is provided. Files
64 with extensions .gdb, .py and .scm are supported as long as GDB was
65 compiled with support for that language.
66
67 * GDB now supports multithreaded symbol loading for higher performance.
68 This feature is still in testing, so it is disabled by default. You
69 can turn it on using 'maint set worker-threads unlimited'.
70
71 * Python API
72
73 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
74 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
75 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
76 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
77 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
78
79 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
80 type was defined in.
81
82 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
83 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
84 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
85 is given.
86
87 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
88 symbols with static linkage.
89
90 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbols can be used to look up
91 all static symbols with static linkage.
92
93 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
94 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
95
96 ** gdb.Block now supports the dictionary syntax for accessing symbols in
97 this block (e.g. block['local_variable']).
98
99 * New commands
100
101 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
102 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
103 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
104 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
105 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
106 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
107 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
108
109 define-prefix COMMAND
110 Define or mark a command as a user-defined prefix command.
111
112 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
113 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
114 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
115 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
116 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
117 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
118 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
119 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
120 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
121 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
122 of array elements to print.
123
124 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
125 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
126
127 set may-call-functions [on|off]
128 show may-call-functions
129 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
130 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
131 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
132 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
133 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
134 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
135 in the program.
136
137 set print finish [on|off]
138 show print finish
139 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
140 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
141 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
142 default is `on'.
143
144 set print max-depth
145 show print max-depth
146 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
147 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
148 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
149 the old behavior back.
150
151 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
152 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
153 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
154
155 set style title foreground COLOR
156 set style title background COLOR
157 set style title intensity VALUE
158 Control the styling of titles.
159
160 set style highlight foreground COLOR
161 set style highlight background COLOR
162 set style highlight intensity VALUE
163 Control the styling of highlightings.
164
165 maint set worker-threads
166 maint show worker-threads
167 Control the number of worker threads that can be used by GDB. The
168 default is 0. "unlimited" lets GDB choose a number that is
169 reasonable. Currently worker threads are only used when demangling
170 the names of linker symbols.
171
172 maint set test-settings KIND
173 maint show test-settings KIND
174 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
175 infrastructure.
176
177 maint set tui-resize-message [on|off]
178 maint show tui-resize-message
179 Control whether GDB prints a message each time the terminal is
180 resized when in TUI mode. This is primarily useful for testing the
181 TUI.
182
183 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
184 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
185 show print frame-info
186 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
187 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
188 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
189 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
190
191 info modules [-q] [REGEXP]
192 Return a list of Fortran modules matching REGEXP, or all modules if
193 no REGEXP is given.
194
195 info module functions [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
196 Return a list of functions within all modules, grouped by module.
197 The list of functions can be restricted with the optional regular
198 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
199 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the function type signature, and REGEXP
200 matches against the function name.
201
202 info module variables [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
203 Return a list of variables within all modules, grouped by module.
204 The list of variables can be restricted with the optional regular
205 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
206 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the variable type, and REGEXP matches
207 against the variable name.
208
209 set debug remote-packet-max-chars
210 show debug remote-packet-max-chars
211 Controls the number of characters to output in a remote packet when using
212 "set debug remote".
213 The default is 512 bytes.
214
215 * Changed commands
216
217 help
218 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
219 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
220 command names.
221
222 apropos [-v] REGEXP
223 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
224 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
225 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
226 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
227 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
228
229 printf
230 eval
231 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
232 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
233 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
234 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
235
236 info sources [-dirname | -basename] [--] [REGEXP]
237 This command has now optional arguments to only print the files
238 whose names match REGEXP. The arguments -dirname and -basename
239 allow to restrict matching respectively to the dirname and basename
240 parts of the files.
241
242 show style
243 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
244 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
245 the user visualize the different styles.
246
247 set print frame-arguments
248 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
249 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
250
251 set print raw-frame-arguments
252 show print raw-frame-arguments
253
254 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
255 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
256 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
257 release.
258
259 maint test-options require-delimiter
260 maint test-options unknown-is-error
261 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
262 maint show test-options-completion-result
263 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
264 framework.
265
266 focus, winheight, +, -, >, <
267 These commands are now case-sensitive.
268
269 * New command options, command completion
270
271 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
272 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
273 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
274 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
275 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
276 number of commands got support for new command options in this
277 release:
278
279 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
280 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
281 set by "set print" subcommands:
282
283 -address [on|off]
284 -array [on|off]
285 -array-indexes [on|off]
286 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
287 -null-stop [on|off]
288 -object [on|off]
289 -pretty [on|off]
290 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
291 -static-members [on|off]
292 -symbol [on|off]
293 -union [on|off]
294 -vtbl [on|off]
295
296 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
297 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
298 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
299 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
300
301 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
302 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
303 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
304
305 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
306 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
307 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
308 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
309 |location-and-address|short-location
310 -past-main [on|off]
311 -past-entry [on|off]
312
313 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
314 exposed as command options too:
315
316 -full
317 -no-filters
318 -hide
319
320 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
321 support the following options:
322
323 -past-main [on|off]
324 -past-entry [on|off]
325
326 ** The new "info sources" options -dirname and -basename options
327 are using the standard '-OPT' infrastructure.
328
329 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
330 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
331 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
332 like for example:
333
334 (gdb) p -r -p -o 0 -- *myptr
335
336 The above is equivalent to:
337
338 (gdb) print -raw -pretty -object off -- *myptr
339
340 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
341 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
342 variables" and "info functions".
343
344 ** The "info variables", "info functions", and "whereis" commands
345 now take a '-n' flag that excludes non-debug symbols (symbols
346 from the symbol table, not from the debug info such as DWARF)
347 from the results.
348
349 * Completion improvements
350
351 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
352 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
353 abbreviated.
354
355 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
356 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
357 commands.
358
359 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
360 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
361 completes on filenames.
362
363 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
364 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
365
366 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
367
368 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
369 elements unlimited".
370
371 * New MI commands
372
373 -complete
374 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
375 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
376 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
377
378 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
379 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
380 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
381
382 -symbol-info-functions, -symbol-info-types, and -symbol-info-variables
383 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
384 functions', 'info types', and 'info variables' respectively.
385
386 -symbol-info-modules, this is the MI equivalent of the CLI 'info
387 modules' command.
388
389 * Other MI changes
390
391 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
392
393 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
394 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
395 the following commands and events:
396
397 - -break-insert
398 - -break-info
399 - =breakpoint-created
400 - =breakpoint-modified
401
402 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
403 this behavior with previous MI versions.
404
405 ** Backtraces and frames include a new optional field addr_flags which is
406 given after the addr field. On AArch64 this contains PAC if the address
407 has been masked in the frame. On all other targets the field is not
408 present.
409
410 * Testsuite
411
412 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
413 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
414 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
415 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
416
417 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.82.
418
419 Using another implementation of the make program or an earlier version of
420 GNU make to build GDB or GDBserver is not supported.
421
422 * Building GDB now requires GNU readline >= 7.0.
423
424 GDB now bundles GNU readline 8.0, but if you choose to use
425 --with-system-readline, only readline >= 7.0 can be used.
426
427 * The TUI SingleKey keymap is now named "SingleKey". This can be used
428 from .inputrc to bind keys in this keymap. This feature is only
429 available when gdb is built against GNU readline 8.0 or later.
430
431 * Removed targets and native configurations
432
433 GDB no longer supports debugging the Cell Broadband Engine. This includes
434 both debugging standalone Cell/B.E. SPU applications and integrated debugging
435 of Cell/B.E. applications that use both the PPU and SPU architectures.
436
437 * New Simulators
438
439 TI PRU pru-*-elf
440
441 * Removed targets and native configurations
442
443 Solaris 10 i?86-*-solaris2.10, x86_64-*-solaris2.10,
444 sparc*-*-solaris2.10
445
446 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
447
448 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
449 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
450 HTM registers.
451
452 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
453 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
454 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
455 and operators.
456
457 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
458 (the C++ plug-in).
459
460 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
461 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
462 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
463
464 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
465 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
466
467 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
468 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
469 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
470 in the GDB user manual.
471
472 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
473 executed failed.
474
475 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
476
477 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
478 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
479 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
480 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
481 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
482 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
483 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
484 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
485 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
486 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
487 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
488 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
489
490 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
491 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
492 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
493 information.
494
495 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
496 lucid.
497
498 * New commands
499
500 set debug compile-cplus-types
501 show debug compile-cplus-types
502 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
503 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiliong
504 for other languages.
505
506 set debug skip
507 show debug skip
508 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
509 displayed.
510
511 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
512 Apply a command to some frames.
513 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
514 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
515
516 taas COMMAND
517 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
518 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
519
520 faas COMMAND
521 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
522 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
523
524 tfaas COMMAND
525 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
526 output).
527 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
528
529 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
530 maint show dwarf unwinders
531 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
532
533 info proc files
534 Display a list of open files for a process.
535
536 * Changed commands
537
538 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
539 These commands all now take a frame specification which
540 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
541 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
542 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
543 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
544 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
545
546 target remote FILENAME
547 target extended-remote FILENAME
548 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
549 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
550
551 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
552 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
553 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
554 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
555 These commands can now print only the searched entities
556 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
557 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
558 printing headers or informations messages.
559
560 info functions
561 info types
562 info variables
563 rbreak
564 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
565 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
566 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
567 the shown entities.
568
569 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
570 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
571 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
572 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
573
574 set tui tab-width NCHARS
575 show tui tab-width NCHARS
576 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
577
578 set style enabled [on|off]
579 show style enabled
580 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
581 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
582
583 set style sources [on|off]
584 show style sources
585 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
586 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
587 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
588
589 set style filename foreground COLOR
590 set style filename background COLOR
591 set style filename intensity VALUE
592 Control the styling of file names.
593
594 set style function foreground COLOR
595 set style function background COLOR
596 set style function intensity VALUE
597 Control the styling of function names.
598
599 set style variable foreground COLOR
600 set style variable background COLOR
601 set style variable intensity VALUE
602 Control the styling of variable names.
603
604 set style address foreground COLOR
605 set style address background COLOR
606 set style address intensity VALUE
607 Control the styling of addresses.
608
609 * MI changes
610
611 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
612 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
613 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
614 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
615 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
616
617 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
618 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
619
620 * New native configurations
621
622 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
623 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
624
625 * New targets
626
627 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
628 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
629 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
630 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
631 NXP S12Z s12z-*-elf
632 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
633
634 * Removed targets
635
636 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
637 before Windows XP.
638
639 * Python API
640
641 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
642
643 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
644 space associated to that inferior.
645
646 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
647 of objfiles associated to that program space.
648
649 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
650 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
651 the gdb core.
652
653 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
654 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
655 correct and did not work properly.
656
657 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
658 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
659
660 * Configure changes
661
662 --enable-ubsan
663
664 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
665 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
666 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
667 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
668 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
669
670 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
671
672 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
673 for the MIPS target.
674
675 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
676 offset to all sections.
677
678 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
679 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
680 address of individual sections using '-s'.
681
682 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
683 (address of the text section).
684
685 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
686 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
687 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
688 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
689 default.
690
691 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
692 for the rest of the current command.
693
694 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
695 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
696
697 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
698 files created on FreeBSD systems.
699
700 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
701 alignof.
702
703 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
704 the vector length while the process is running.
705
706 * New commands
707
708 set debug fbsd-nat
709 show debug fbsd-nat
710 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
711
712 set|show varsize-limit
713 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
714 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
715 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
716
717 set|show record btrace cpu
718 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
719 branch trace decode.
720
721 maint check libthread-db
722 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
723 library
724
725 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
726 maint show check-libthread-db
727 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
728 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
729 perform such checks.
730
731 * Python API
732
733 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
734
735 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
736 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
737
738 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
739
740 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
741 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
742 of convenience variables.
743
744 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
745 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
746 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
747
748 * New targets
749
750 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
751
752 * Removed targets and native configurations
753
754 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
755 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
756 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
757 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
758
759 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
760
761 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
762 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
763 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
764 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
765 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
766 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
767 reported.
768
769 * Configure changes
770
771 --enable-codesign=CERT
772 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
773 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
774 gdb to work properly.
775
776 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
777 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
778
779 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
780
781 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
782 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
783 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
784
785 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
786 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
787
788 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
789 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
790 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
791 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
792 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
793
794 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
795 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
796 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
797 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
798
799 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
800 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
801
802 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
803 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
804 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
805
806 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
807 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
808 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
809
810 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
811 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
812 environment" command.
813
814 * Completion improvements
815
816 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
817 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
818 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
819 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
820 correctly:
821
822 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
823 (gdb) b function(int)
824
825 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
826 C++ anonymous namespaces:
827
828 (gdb) b (anon[TAB]
829 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
830 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
831 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
832
833 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
834 completion support, that better understands what you're
835 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
836 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
837 setting a breakpoint.
838
839 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
840
841 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
842
843 * New command line options (gcore)
844
845 -a
846 Dump all memory mappings.
847
848 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
849
850 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
851 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
852 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
853
854 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
855
856 A::B::func()
857 B::func()
858
859 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
860 on both symbols.
861
862 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
863 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
864 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
865 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
866 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
867 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
868 a breakpoint from Python.
869
870 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
871
872 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
873 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
874 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
875
876 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
877
878 function[abi:cxx11](int)
879 ^^^^^^^^^^^
880
881 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
882 no tag, like:
883
884 (gdb) b function(int)
885
886 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
887
888 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
889
890 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
891
892 * Python Scripting
893
894 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
895 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
896 description of these.
897
898 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
899 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
900 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
901
902 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
903 manual for a further description of this feature.
904
905
906 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
907
908 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
909 specified initial working directory.
910
911 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
912 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
913
914 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
915 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
916
917 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
918 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
919
920 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
921 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
922 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
923 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
924 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
925
926 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
927 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
928 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
929
930 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
931 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
932 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
933 in the *stopped notification.
934
935 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
936 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
937
938 * New remote packets
939
940 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
941 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
942 the inferior when starting it.
943
944 QEnvironmentUnset
945 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
946 before starting the remote inferior.
947
948 QEnvironmentReset
949 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
950 user-set environment variables should be unset).
951
952 QStartupWithShell
953 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
954
955 QSetWorkingDir
956 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
957 working directory.
958
959 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
960 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
961
962 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
963 filter the tests to be run.
964
965 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
966 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
967
968 * New commands
969
970 set|show cwd
971 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
972
973 set|show compile-gcc
974 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
975 with the 'compile' commands.
976
977 set debug separate-debug-file
978 show debug separate-debug-file
979 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
980
981 set dump-excluded-mappings
982 show dump-excluded-mappings
983 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
984 dumped when generating a core file.
985
986 maint info selftests
987 List the registered selftests.
988
989 starti
990 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
991
992 set|show debug or1k
993 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
994
995 set|show print type nested-type-limit
996 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
997 type printer will show.
998
999 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
1000 `o' for nexti.
1001
1002 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
1003
1004 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
1005 'int'.
1006
1007 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
1008 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
1009 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
1010 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
1011
1012 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
1013 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
1014 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
1015 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
1016 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
1017 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
1018
1019 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
1020 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
1021 unless you tell it the variable's type:
1022
1023 (gdb) p var
1024 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
1025 (gdb) p (float) var
1026 $3 = 3.14
1027
1028 * New native configurations
1029
1030 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
1031 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
1032
1033 * New targets
1034
1035 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
1036 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
1037 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
1038
1039 * Removed targets and native configurations
1040
1041 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
1042
1043 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
1044
1045 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
1046 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
1047 available in future Intel CPUs.
1048
1049 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
1050
1051 * Python Scripting
1052
1053 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
1054 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
1055
1056 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
1057 instructions.
1058
1059 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
1060
1061 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
1062
1063 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
1064 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
1065 removed.
1066
1067 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
1068
1069 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
1070 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
1071
1072 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
1073
1074 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
1075 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
1076 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
1077 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
1078 features.
1079
1080 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
1081
1082 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
1083 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
1084 debugger.
1085
1086 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
1087
1088 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
1089 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
1090
1091 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
1092
1093 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
1094
1095 define mycommand
1096 set $i = 0
1097 while $i < $argc
1098 eval "print $arg%d", $i
1099 set $i = $i + 1
1100 end
1101 end
1102
1103 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
1104
1105 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
1106 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
1107
1108 * New native configurations
1109
1110 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1111
1112 * New targets
1113
1114 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
1115 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1116
1117 * Removed targets and native configurations
1118
1119 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1120 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
1121
1122 * New commands
1123
1124 flash-erase
1125 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
1126
1127 maint print arc arc-instruction address
1128 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
1129
1130 * New options
1131
1132 set disassembler-options
1133 show disassembler-options
1134 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
1135 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
1136 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
1137 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
1138 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
1139
1140 * New MI commands
1141
1142 -target-flash-erase
1143 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
1144 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
1145
1146 -file-list-shared-libraries
1147 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
1148 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
1149
1150 -catch-handlers
1151 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
1152 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
1153
1154 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
1155
1156 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
1157
1158 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
1159 default. One must now explicitly configure with
1160 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
1161 option will be removed in a future release.
1162
1163 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
1164 GDB connection.
1165
1166 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
1167 memory backward from the given address. For example:
1168
1169 (gdb) bt
1170 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
1171 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
1172 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
1173 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
1174 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
1175 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
1176 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
1177 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
1178 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
1179
1180 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
1181 arrays of dynamic types.
1182
1183 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
1184 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1185 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1186 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1187 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1188 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
1189
1190 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
1191 descriptions.
1192
1193 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
1194 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
1195 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
1196
1197 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
1198
1199 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
1200 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
1201 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
1202 signal received and code location.
1203
1204 For example:
1205
1206 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
1207 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
1208 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
1209 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
1210
1211 * Rust language support.
1212 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
1213 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
1214 Rust.
1215
1216 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
1217
1218 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
1219 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
1220 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
1221 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
1222 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
1223 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
1224 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
1225 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
1226 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
1227 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
1228 line.
1229
1230 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
1231
1232 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
1233 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
1234
1235 * New commands
1236
1237 skip -file file
1238 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
1239 skip -function function
1240 skip -rfunction regular-expression
1241 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
1242 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
1243 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
1244
1245 maint info line-table REGEXP
1246 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data struture.
1247
1248 maint selftest
1249 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
1250
1251 new-ui INTERP TTY
1252 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
1253 using the TTY file for input/output.
1254
1255 * Python Scripting
1256
1257 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
1258 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
1259 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
1260 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
1261 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
1262
1263 signal-event EVENTID
1264 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
1265 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
1266 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
1267 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
1268 signalling an event.
1269
1270 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
1271 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
1272 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
1273
1274 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
1275 been removed:
1276
1277 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
1278 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
1279 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
1280 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
1281 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
1282 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
1283
1284 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
1285 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
1286 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
1287 bytecode into native code.
1288
1289 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
1290 recording. For example:
1291
1292 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
1293
1294 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
1295
1296 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
1297
1298 * New targets
1299
1300 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
1301
1302 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
1303
1304 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
1305
1306 * Per-inferior thread numbers
1307
1308 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
1309 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
1310 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
1311
1312 (gdb) info threads
1313 Id Target Id Frame
1314 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
1315 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
1316 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
1317 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
1318
1319 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
1320 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
1321 are no longer unique between inferiors.
1322
1323 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
1324 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
1325 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
1326
1327 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
1328 IDs.
1329
1330 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
1331 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
1332
1333 (gdb) thread 2.1
1334 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
1335 (gdb)
1336
1337 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
1338 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
1339 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
1340 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
1341 threads 2.*".
1342
1343 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
1344 all threads.
1345
1346 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
1347 the current thread.
1348
1349 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
1350 current inferior.
1351
1352 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
1353 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
1354 example:
1355
1356 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
1357 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
1358
1359 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
1360
1361 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
1362
1363 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
1364 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
1365
1366 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
1367 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
1368 clients.
1369
1370 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1371 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
1372 at the same time.
1373
1374 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
1375 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
1376 into native code.
1377
1378 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1379
1380 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
1381 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
1382 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
1383
1384 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
1385 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
1386
1387 * New commands
1388
1389 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
1390 maint show target-non-stop
1391 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
1392 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
1393 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
1394
1395 maint set bfd-sharing
1396 maint show bfd-sharing
1397 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
1398
1399 set debug bfd-cache
1400 show debug bfd-cache
1401 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
1402
1403 set debug fbsd-lwp
1404 show debug fbsd-lwp
1405 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
1406
1407 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1408 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1409 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
1410
1411 set remote thread-events
1412 show remote thread-events
1413 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
1414
1415 set ada print-signatures on|off
1416 show ada print-signatures"
1417 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
1418 selection menus. It is activaled (@code{on}) by default.
1419
1420 set max-value-size
1421 show max-value-size
1422 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
1423 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
1424 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
1425
1426 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1427 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
1428 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
1429 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
1430 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
1431 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
1432
1433 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1434 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
1435
1436 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
1437 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
1438
1439 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
1440
1441 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
1442 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
1443 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
1444 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
1445 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
1446 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
1447
1448 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
1449 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1450
1451 catch handlers
1452 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1453
1454 * New remote packets
1455
1456 exec stop reason
1457 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1458
1459 exec-events feature in qSupported
1460 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1461 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1462 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1463 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1464
1465 vCtrlC
1466 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1467 non-stop mode.
1468
1469 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1470 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1471
1472 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1473 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1474
1475 QThreadEvents
1476 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1477 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1478 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1479 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1480 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1481 stop for that same thread.
1482
1483 N stop reply
1484 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1485 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1486 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1487
1488 QCatchSyscalls
1489 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1490 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1491
1492 syscall_entry stop reason
1493 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1494
1495 syscall_return stop reason
1496 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1497
1498 * Extended-remote exec events
1499
1500 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1501 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1502 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1503
1504 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1505 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1506 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1507
1508 * Thread names in remote protocol
1509
1510 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1511 thread.
1512
1513 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1514
1515 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1516 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1517 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1518 fork and exec catchpoints.
1519
1520 * Remote syscall events
1521
1522 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1523 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1524
1525 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1526 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1527 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1528
1529 * MI changes
1530
1531 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1532 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1533 left.
1534
1535 * Python Scripting
1536
1537 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1538 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1539 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1540 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1541 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1542 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1543
1544 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1545
1546 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1547 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1548 including advance SIMD instructions.
1549
1550 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1551
1552 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1553 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1554 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1555 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1556 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1557 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1558 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1559
1560 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1561 cpu information :
1562 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1563
1564 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1565 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1566 remote serial I/O.
1567
1568 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1569 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
1570 and may include things like its command line arguments.
1571
1572 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
1573 is now available on all platforms.
1574
1575 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
1576 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
1577 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
1578 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
1579 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
1580 backward compatibility.
1581
1582 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
1583 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
1584 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
1585 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
1586
1587 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
1588 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
1589 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
1590 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
1591 packets" below.
1592
1593 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
1594
1595 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
1596
1597 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
1598 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
1599 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
1600 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
1601 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
1602 See "New remote packets" below.
1603
1604 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
1605 available register groups, including target specific groups.
1606
1607 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
1608 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
1609 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
1610 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
1611 are ignored.
1612
1613 * Guile Scripting
1614
1615 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
1616
1617 * Python Scripting
1618
1619 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
1620 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
1621 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
1622 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
1623 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
1624 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
1625 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
1626 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
1627 "const" version of the value respectively.
1628
1629 * New commands
1630
1631 maint print symbol-cache
1632 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
1633
1634 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
1635 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
1636
1637 maint flush-symbol-cache
1638 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
1639
1640 record btrace bts
1641 record bts
1642 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
1643
1644 compile print
1645 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
1646
1647 tui enable
1648 tui disable
1649 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
1650
1651 show mpx bound
1652 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
1653 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
1654
1655 record btrace pt
1656 record pt
1657 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
1658
1659 maint info btrace
1660 Print information about branch tracing internals.
1661
1662 maint btrace packet-history
1663 Print the raw branch tracing data.
1664
1665 maint btrace clear-packet-history
1666 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
1667
1668 maint btrace clear
1669 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
1670 anew by the next "record" command.
1671
1672 * New options
1673
1674 set debug dwarf-die
1675 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
1676 show debug dwarf-die
1677 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
1678
1679 set debug dwarf-read
1680 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
1681 show debug dwarf-read
1682 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
1683
1684 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
1685 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1686 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
1687 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1688
1689 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
1690 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1691 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
1692 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1693
1694 set debug dwarf-line
1695 show debug dwarf-line
1696 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
1697
1698 set max-completions
1699 show max-completions
1700 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
1701 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
1702 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
1703 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
1704
1705 set history remove-duplicates
1706 show history remove-duplicates
1707 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1708
1709 maint set symbol-cache-size
1710 maint show symbol-cache-size
1711 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1712
1713 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1714 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1715 BTS format.
1716 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1717 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1718
1719 set debug linux-namespaces
1720 show debug linux-namespaces
1721 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1722
1723 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1724 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1725 Intel Processor Trace format.
1726 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1727 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1728
1729 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1730 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1731 packet history.
1732
1733 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
1734 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
1735
1736 * Python/Guile scripting
1737
1738 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
1739 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
1740
1741 * New remote packets
1742
1743 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
1744 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
1745
1746 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
1747 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
1748
1749 Qbtrace:pt
1750 Enable Intel Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
1751 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
1752 qSupported query.
1753
1754 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
1755 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
1756 Trace format.
1757
1758 swbreak stop reason
1759 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
1760 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
1761 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
1762 mode operation.
1763
1764 hwbreak stop reason
1765 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
1766 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
1767
1768 vFile:fstat:
1769 Return information about files on the remote system.
1770
1771 qXfer:exec-file:read
1772 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
1773 create a process running on the remote system.
1774
1775 vFile:setfs:
1776 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
1777 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
1778 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
1779 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
1780
1781 fork stop reason
1782 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
1783
1784 vfork stop reason
1785 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
1786
1787 vforkdone stop reason
1788 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
1789 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
1790
1791 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
1792 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
1793 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
1794 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
1795 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
1796 whether these features are enabled.
1797
1798 * Extended-remote fork events
1799
1800 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
1801 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
1802 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
1803 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
1804
1805 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
1806 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
1807 the btrace record target.
1808 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
1809
1810 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
1811 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
1812
1813 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
1814 targets.
1815
1816 * Removed command line options
1817
1818 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
1819
1820 * Removed targets and native configurations
1821
1822 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
1823 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1824
1825 * New configure options
1826
1827 --with-intel-pt
1828 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
1829 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
1830
1831 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
1832 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
1833 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
1834 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
1835
1836 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
1837
1838 * Python Scripting
1839
1840 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
1841
1842 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
1843
1844 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
1845
1846 * Python Scripting
1847
1848 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
1849 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
1850 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
1851 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
1852 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
1853 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
1854 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
1855 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
1856 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
1857 selecting a new file to debug.
1858 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
1859 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
1860
1861 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
1862 inferior.
1863
1864 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
1865 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
1866 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
1867 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
1868
1869 * New Python-based convenience functions:
1870
1871 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1872 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1873 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1874 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1875
1876 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
1877 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
1878 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
1879 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
1880 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
1881 interface with this new feature are:
1882
1883 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
1884 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
1885
1886 * New commands
1887
1888 demangle [-l language] [--] name
1889 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
1890 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
1891 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
1892 as "maint demangler-warning".
1893
1894 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
1895 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
1896
1897 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
1898 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
1899 scripts.
1900
1901 maint print user-registers
1902 List all currently available "user" registers.
1903
1904 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
1905 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
1906 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
1907
1908 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
1909 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
1910 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
1911 provided.
1912
1913 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
1914 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
1915 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
1916 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
1917 at resume time.
1918
1919 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
1920 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
1921 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
1922 switched threads meanwhile.
1923
1924 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
1925
1926 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
1927 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
1928 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
1929 is now the default mode.
1930
1931 * New options
1932
1933 set debug symbol-lookup
1934 show debug symbol-lookup
1935 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
1936
1937 * MI changes
1938
1939 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
1940 inferiors that have exited.
1941
1942 * New targets
1943
1944 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
1945
1946 * Removed targets
1947
1948 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1949
1950 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
1951 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
1952 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
1953 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
1954 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
1955
1956 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1957 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1958 its alias "share", instead.
1959
1960 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
1961
1962 * New command line options
1963
1964 -D data-directory
1965 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
1966
1967 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
1968 as specified in ISO C99.
1969
1970 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
1971 with or without disassembly.
1972
1973 * Guile scripting
1974
1975 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
1976 available is determined at configure time.
1977 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
1978 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
1979
1980 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1981
1982 guile [code]
1983 gu [code]
1984 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
1985
1986 guile-repl
1987 gr
1988 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
1989
1990 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
1991 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
1992
1993 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
1994 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
1995
1996 * New options
1997
1998 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
1999 show print symbol-loading
2000 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
2001 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
2002 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
2003 becomes less useful.
2004
2005 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
2006 show guile print-stack
2007 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
2008
2009 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
2010 show auto-load guile-scripts
2011 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
2012
2013 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
2014 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
2015 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
2016 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
2017 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
2018 usage of this option.
2019
2020 set auto-connect-native-target
2021
2022 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
2023 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
2024 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
2025
2026 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
2027 show record btrace replay-memory-access
2028 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
2029
2030 maint set target-async (on|off)
2031 maint show target-async
2032 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
2033 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
2034 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
2035 occurring only in synchronous mode.
2036
2037 set mi-async (on|off)
2038 show mi-async
2039 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
2040 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
2041
2042 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
2043 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
2044
2045 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
2046 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
2047 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
2048 "set target-async on" command.
2049
2050 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2051
2052 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
2053 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
2054 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
2055 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
2056 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
2057
2058 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
2059 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
2060 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
2061
2062 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
2063 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
2064 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
2065 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
2066 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
2067 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
2068 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
2069
2070 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
2071 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
2072
2073 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
2074 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
2075 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
2076
2077 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
2078 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
2079 memory or registers.
2080
2081 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
2082
2083 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
2084 remote. It now works with all targets.
2085
2086 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
2087 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
2088 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
2089 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
2090 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
2091 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
2092 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
2093 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
2094 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
2095 target-stack".
2096
2097 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
2098 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
2099 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
2100
2101 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
2102
2103 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
2104 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
2105 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
2106
2107 * New remote packets
2108
2109 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
2110 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
2111 branch trace incrementally.
2112
2113 * Python Scripting
2114
2115 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
2116 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
2117 available.
2118 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
2119 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
2120 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
2121 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
2122 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
2123
2124 * New targets
2125 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
2126
2127 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2128 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2129 its alias "share", instead.
2130
2131 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
2132 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
2133 instead.
2134
2135 * MI changes
2136
2137 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
2138 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
2139 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
2140 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
2141 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
2142 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
2143 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
2144 commands and CLI execution commands.
2145
2146 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
2147
2148 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
2149 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
2150 recording has been added.
2151
2152 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2153
2154 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
2155 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
2156
2157 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
2158 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
2159 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
2160 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
2161 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
2162 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
2163 "void".
2164
2165 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
2166
2167 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
2168
2169 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
2170 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
2171 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
2172 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
2173
2174 (gdb) p $rax
2175 $1 = <not saved>
2176
2177 (gdb) info registers rax
2178 rax <not saved>
2179
2180 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
2181 "*value not available*".
2182
2183 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
2184 to binaries.
2185
2186 * Python scripting
2187
2188 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
2189 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
2190 ** Line tables representation has been added.
2191 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
2192 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
2193 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
2194
2195 * New targets
2196
2197 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
2198 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
2199 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
2200
2201 * Removed native configurations
2202
2203 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
2204 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
2205
2206 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2207 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2208 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
2209 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
2210 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2211 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2212 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2213
2214 * New commands:
2215 catch rethrow
2216 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
2217 maint check-psymtabs
2218 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
2219 maint check-symtabs
2220 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
2221 maint expand-symtabs
2222 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
2223
2224 show configuration
2225 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2226
2227 maint set|show per-command
2228 maint set|show per-command space
2229 maint set|show per-command time
2230 maint set|show per-command symtab
2231 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
2232
2233 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
2234 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
2235 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
2236 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
2237 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
2238
2239 info exceptions
2240 info exceptions REGEXP
2241 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
2242 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
2243 are listed.
2244
2245 * New options
2246
2247 set debug symfile off|on
2248 show debug symfile
2249 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
2250 symbol tables within those files
2251
2252 set print raw frame-arguments
2253 show print raw frame-arguments
2254 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
2255 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
2256
2257 set remote trace-status-packet
2258 show remote trace-status-packet
2259 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
2260
2261 set debug nios2
2262 show debug nios2
2263 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
2264
2265 set range-stepping
2266 show range-stepping
2267 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
2268
2269 set startup-with-shell
2270 show startup-with-shell
2271 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
2272 directly.
2273
2274 set code-cache
2275 show code-cache
2276 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
2277 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
2278
2279 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
2280 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
2281 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
2282 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
2283 "set height 0".
2284
2285 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
2286 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
2287 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
2288
2289 * New command-line options
2290 --configuration
2291 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2292
2293 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
2294 buffer in Common Trace Format.
2295
2296 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
2297 GDB command gcore.
2298
2299 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
2300
2301 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
2302 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
2303
2304 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
2305 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
2306
2307 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
2308 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
2309 due to an uncaught signal.
2310
2311 * MI changes
2312
2313 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
2314 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
2315 command, which should contain "language-option".
2316
2317 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
2318 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
2319
2320 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
2321 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
2322 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
2323 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2324 "undefined-command-error-code".
2325
2326 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
2327 Trace Format now.
2328
2329 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
2330
2331 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
2332 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
2333 are displayed.
2334
2335 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
2336 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
2337
2338 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
2339 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
2340 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
2341
2342 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
2343 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
2344 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
2345 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
2346 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2347 "exec-run-start-option".
2348
2349 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
2350 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
2351
2352 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
2353 the new "info exceptions" command.
2354
2355 * New system-wide configuration scripts
2356 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
2357 configuration scripts for the following systems:
2358 ** ElinOS
2359 ** Wind River Linux
2360
2361 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
2362 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
2363 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
2364 below.
2365
2366 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
2367 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
2368
2369 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
2370 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
2371 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
2372
2373 * New remote packets
2374
2375 vCont;r
2376
2377 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
2378 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
2379 involvemement at each single-step.
2380
2381 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
2382 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
2383 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
2384 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
2385 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
2386 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
2387 speedup.
2388
2389 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2390
2391 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
2392 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
2393
2394 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
2395 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
2396 trace state variables.
2397
2398 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
2399 target.
2400
2401 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
2402 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
2403
2404 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
2405
2406 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
2407 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
2408 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
2409 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2410
2411 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
2412
2413 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
2414 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
2415 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
2416 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
2417
2418 set|show record full insn-number-max
2419 set|show record full stop-at-limit
2420 set|show record full memory-query
2421
2422 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
2423 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
2424 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
2425 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
2426 This new recording method can be enabled using:
2427
2428 record btrace
2429
2430 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
2431 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
2432
2433 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
2434 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
2435 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
2436
2437 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
2438 instruction granularity
2439
2440 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
2441 function granularity
2442
2443 * New native configurations
2444
2445 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
2446 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
2447 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2448 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2449
2450 * New targets
2451
2452 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2453 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2454 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2455 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2456 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2457
2458 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2459 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2460 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2461 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2462 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2463 --data-directory command-line option.
2464
2465 * New command line options:
2466
2467 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2468 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2469
2470 * Removed command line options
2471
2472 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2473 Emacs.
2474
2475 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2476 type formatting.
2477
2478 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2479
2480 * Python scripting
2481
2482 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2483
2484 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2485
2486 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2487
2488 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2489
2490 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2491 of architecture in the Python API.
2492
2493 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2494 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2495
2496 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2497
2498 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2499 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2500 ** $_strlen(str)
2501 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2502
2503 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2504 given an argument.
2505
2506 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2507 default for GCC since November 2000.
2508
2509 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2510
2511 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2512 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2513
2514 * New configure options
2515
2516 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2517 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2518 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2519 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2520 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2521 options allow the user to override that default.
2522 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2523 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2524 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2525
2526 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2527
2528 catch signal
2529 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2530 conditions to be attached.
2531
2532 maint info bfds
2533 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2534
2535 python-interactive [command]
2536 pi [command]
2537 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2538 and print the result of expressions.
2539
2540 py [command]
2541 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2542
2543 enable type-printer [name]...
2544 disable type-printer [name]...
2545 Enable or disable type printers.
2546
2547 * Removed commands
2548
2549 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2550 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2551 instead.
2552
2553 * New options
2554
2555 set print type methods (on|off)
2556 show print type methods
2557 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2558 The default is to show them.
2559
2560 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2561 show print type typedefs
2562 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2563 The default is to show them.
2564
2565 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2566 show filename-display
2567 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2568 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
2569
2570 set trace-buffer-size
2571 show trace-buffer-size
2572 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
2573
2574 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
2575 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
2576 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
2577
2578 set debug aarch64
2579 show debug aarch64
2580 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
2581 The default is off.
2582
2583 set debug coff-pe-read
2584 show debug coff-pe-read
2585 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
2586 exported symbols.
2587
2588 set debug mach-o
2589 show debug mach-o
2590 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
2591 processing.
2592
2593 set debug notification
2594 show debug notification
2595 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
2596
2597 * MI changes
2598
2599 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
2600 "=cmd-param-changed".
2601 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
2602 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
2603 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
2604 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
2605 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
2606 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
2607 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
2608 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
2609 "=memory-changed".
2610 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
2611 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
2612 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
2613 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
2614 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
2615 library load/unload events.
2616 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
2617 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
2618 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
2619 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
2620 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
2621 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
2622 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
2623 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
2624
2625 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
2626 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
2627 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
2628 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
2629
2630 * New remote packets
2631
2632 QTBuffer:size
2633 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
2634 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2635
2636 Qbtrace:bts
2637 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
2638 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
2639 qSupported query.
2640
2641 Qbtrace:off
2642 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
2643 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2644
2645 qXfer:btrace:read
2646 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
2647 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2648
2649 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
2650
2651 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
2652 for more x32 ABI info.
2653
2654 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
2655
2656 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
2657
2658 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2659 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
2660 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
2661 "info os files" lists file descriptors
2662 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
2663 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
2664 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
2665 "info os msg" lists message queues
2666 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
2667
2668 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
2669 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
2670 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
2671 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
2672 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
2673 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
2674
2675 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
2676 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
2677 record/replay support.
2678
2679 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
2680
2681 * Python scripting
2682
2683 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
2684 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
2685
2686 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
2687
2688 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
2689 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
2690
2691 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
2692
2693 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
2694 the source at which the symbol was defined.
2695
2696 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
2697 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
2698 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
2699 symbol's value.
2700
2701 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
2702 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
2703
2704 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2705 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2706 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2707
2708 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2709 object associated with a PC value.
2710
2711 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2712 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2713
2714 * Go language support.
2715 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2716 language.
2717
2718 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2719 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2720
2721 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2722 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2723
2724 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2725 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2726 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2727 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2728 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2729 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
2730
2731 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
2732 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
2733 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
2734 build/libcpp/expr.c.
2735
2736 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
2737 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
2738
2739 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
2740 since December 2007.
2741
2742 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
2743 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
2744 command does. For instance:
2745
2746 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
2747
2748 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
2749 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
2750 created, using the "condition" command.
2751
2752 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
2753 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
2754
2755 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
2756
2757 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
2758 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
2759 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
2760 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
2761 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
2762 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
2763 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
2764 files with older .gdb_index sections.
2765
2766 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
2767 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
2768 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
2769 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
2770 the .gdb_index section.
2771
2772 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
2773
2774 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
2775 target.
2776
2777 * MI changes
2778
2779 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
2780
2781 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
2782
2783 * New commands
2784
2785 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2786 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2787 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
2788
2789 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
2790 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
2791
2792 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
2793 several hits.
2794
2795 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
2796 C++ and Java objects.
2797
2798 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
2799 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
2800 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
2801 configured with '--with-python'.
2802
2803 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
2804 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
2805 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
2806 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
2807 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
2808 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
2809 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
2810
2811 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
2812 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
2813 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
2814 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
2815
2816 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
2817 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
2818 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
2819 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
2820
2821 ** "set print symbol"
2822 "show print symbol"
2823 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
2824 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
2825 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
2826
2827 * Deprecated commands
2828
2829 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
2830 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
2831
2832 * New targets
2833
2834 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2835 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
2836
2837 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
2838 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
2839 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
2840 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
2841 evaluates to true.
2842
2843 * New options
2844
2845 set mips compression
2846 show mips compression
2847 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
2848 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
2849 mips16
2850 micromips
2851 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
2852
2853 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
2854 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
2855 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
2856 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
2857 available mode.
2858 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
2859 target.
2860
2861 set auto-load off
2862 Disable auto-loading globally.
2863
2864 show auto-load
2865 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
2866
2867 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
2868 show auto-load gdb-scripts
2869 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
2870
2871 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
2872 show auto-load python-scripts
2873 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
2874
2875 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
2876 show auto-load local-gdbinit
2877 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
2878
2879 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
2880 show auto-load libthread-db
2881 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
2882
2883 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2884 show auto-load scripts-directory
2885 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
2886 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
2887 of the directories listed by this option.
2888 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2889
2890 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2891 show auto-load safe-path
2892 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
2893 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2894
2895 set debug auto-load on|off
2896 show debug auto-load
2897 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
2898
2899 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
2900 show dprintf-style
2901 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
2902 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
2903 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
2904 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
2905
2906 set dprintf-function <expr>
2907 show dprintf-function
2908 set dprintf-channel <expr>
2909 show dprintf-channel
2910 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
2911 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
2912
2913 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
2914 show disconnected-dprintf
2915 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
2916 after GDB disconnects.
2917
2918 * New configure options
2919
2920 --with-auto-load-dir
2921 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
2922 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
2923 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
2924 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
2925 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
2926
2927 --with-auto-load-safe-path
2928 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
2929 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
2930
2931 --without-auto-load-safe-path
2932 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
2933 security feature.
2934
2935 * New remote packets
2936
2937 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
2938
2939 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
2940 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
2941 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
2942 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
2943
2944 QProgramSignals:
2945
2946 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
2947 program without GDB involvement.
2948
2949 * New command line options
2950
2951 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
2952 before loading inferior.
2953 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
2954 execute it before loading inferior.
2955
2956 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
2957
2958 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
2959 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
2960 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
2961 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
2962 inferior changes.
2963
2964 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
2965 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
2966
2967 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
2968 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
2969 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
2970 target hardware watchpoint.
2971
2972 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
2973 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
2974 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
2975 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
2976
2977 * Python scripting
2978
2979 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
2980 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
2981 existing one.
2982
2983 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
2984 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
2985 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
2986 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
2987 now "message", which just prints the error message without
2988 the stack trace.
2989
2990 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
2991 Python API.
2992
2993 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
2994 modules library. This module provides functionality for
2995 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
2996 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
2997 corresponding value.
2998
2999 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
3000 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
3001 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
3002 on GDB start-up.
3003
3004 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
3005 static_block will return the global and static blocks
3006 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
3007 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
3008
3009 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
3010
3011 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
3012 "gdb.breakpoints".
3013
3014 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
3015 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
3016 available in the CLI.
3017
3018 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
3019 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
3020 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
3021 "some_type.items()".
3022
3023 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
3024 new object file.
3025
3026 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
3027 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
3028 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
3029 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
3030 any anonymous fields.
3031
3032 * MI changes
3033
3034 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
3035 "solib-event".
3036
3037 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
3038 "=breakpoint-modified".
3039
3040 ** New command -ada-task-info.
3041
3042 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
3043 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
3044 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
3045 lives.
3046
3047 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
3048 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
3049 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
3050 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
3051 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
3052
3053 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
3054 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
3055
3056 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
3057 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
3058 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
3059 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
3060 use this option to specify where to find it.
3061
3062 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3063 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
3064 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
3065 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
3066 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
3067 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3068 section in the user manual for more details.
3069
3070 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
3071 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
3072 become available after that.
3073
3074 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
3075
3076 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
3077 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
3078 gcc version 4.7.
3079
3080 * New commands
3081
3082 !SHELL COMMAND
3083 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
3084 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
3085
3086 * Changed commands
3087
3088 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
3089 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
3090 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
3091
3092 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
3093 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
3094 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
3095
3096 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
3097 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
3098 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
3099 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
3100 name starts with a hyphen.
3101
3102 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
3103 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
3104 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
3105 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
3106 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
3107 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
3108 number of bytes that will be collected.
3109
3110 tstart [NOTES]
3111 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
3112 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
3113 setting the variable trace-notes.
3114
3115 tstop [NOTES]
3116 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
3117 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
3118 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
3119 trace-stop-notes.
3120
3121 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
3122 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
3123 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
3124 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
3125 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
3126 is running.
3127
3128 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
3129 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
3130 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
3131
3132 * New options
3133
3134 set debug dwarf2-read
3135 show debug dwarf2-read
3136 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
3137 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
3138
3139 set debug symtab-create
3140 show debug symtab-create
3141 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
3142 creation. The default is off.
3143
3144 set extended-prompt
3145 show extended-prompt
3146 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
3147 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
3148 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
3149 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
3150 prompt is displayed.
3151
3152 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
3153 show print entry-values
3154 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
3155 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
3156 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
3157
3158 set debug entry-values
3159 show debug entry-values
3160 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
3161 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
3162
3163 set basenames-may-differ
3164 show basenames-may-differ
3165 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
3166 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
3167 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
3168 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
3169 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
3170 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
3171 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
3172 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
3173
3174 set trace-user
3175 show trace-user
3176 set trace-notes
3177 show trace-notes
3178 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
3179 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
3180 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
3181 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
3182
3183 set trace-stop-notes
3184 show trace-stop-notes
3185 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
3186 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
3187 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
3188 started by someone else.
3189
3190 * New remote packets
3191
3192 QTEnable
3193
3194 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3195
3196 QTDisable
3197
3198 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3199
3200 QTNotes
3201
3202 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
3203
3204 qTP
3205
3206 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
3207
3208 qTMinFTPILen
3209
3210 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
3211 be placed.
3212
3213 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
3214 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
3215
3216 * New targets
3217
3218 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
3219
3220 * New Simulators
3221
3222 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3223
3224 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
3225
3226 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
3227
3228 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
3229
3230 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
3231 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
3232 matches the given regular expression.
3233
3234 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
3235
3236 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
3237 dumping the instruction opcodes.
3238
3239 * New command line options
3240
3241 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
3242 This is mostly for testing purposes.
3243
3244 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
3245 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
3246
3247 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
3248 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
3249 source path list instead of augmenting it.
3250
3251 * GDB now understands thread names.
3252
3253 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
3254 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
3255
3256 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
3257 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
3258
3259 * OpenCL C
3260 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
3261 has been integrated into GDB.
3262
3263 * Python scripting
3264
3265 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
3266 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
3267 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
3268
3269 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3270 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
3271 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
3272 and allows for more dynamic content.
3273
3274 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
3275 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
3276 have an is_valid method.
3277
3278 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3279 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
3280 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
3281
3282 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
3283
3284 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
3285 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
3286 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
3287 that function like so:
3288
3289 result = some_value (10,20)
3290
3291 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
3292 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
3293 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
3294
3295 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
3296 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
3297 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
3298 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
3299 New function: register_pretty_printer.
3300
3301 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
3302 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
3303
3304 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
3305
3306 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
3307 selected thread.
3308
3309 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
3310 holds the thread's name.
3311
3312 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
3313 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
3314 occurring in the process being debugged.
3315 The following events are currently supported:
3316 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
3317 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
3318 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
3319
3320 * C++ Improvements:
3321
3322 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
3323 instantiation. For example, if you have:
3324
3325 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
3326
3327 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
3328 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
3329 was added to GCC 4.5.
3330
3331 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
3332 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
3333 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
3334 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
3335 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
3336 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
3337
3338 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
3339 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
3340 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
3341 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
3342 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
3343
3344 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
3345 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
3346 execution to a label.
3347
3348 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
3349 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
3350 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
3351 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
3352
3353 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
3354 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
3355 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
3356 of scope.
3357
3358 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
3359
3360 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
3361 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
3362 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
3363 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
3364 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
3365 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
3366
3367 (gdb) info threads
3368 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
3369
3370 While now you see this:
3371
3372 (gdb) info threads
3373 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
3374
3375 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
3376 dumps.
3377
3378 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
3379 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
3380 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
3381 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
3382
3383 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3384 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
3385 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
3386 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3387 section in the user manual for more details.
3388
3389 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3390
3391 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
3392 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
3393
3394 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
3395
3396 * New native configurations
3397
3398 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3399
3400 * New targets:
3401
3402 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
3403
3404 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
3405 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
3406 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
3407 in the GDB user manual.
3408
3409 * Guile support was removed.
3410
3411 * New features in the GNU simulator
3412
3413 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
3414
3415 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
3416
3417 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
3418
3419 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
3420
3421 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
3422 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
3423 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
3424 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
3425 was always disabled for such configurations.
3426
3427 * C++ Improvements:
3428
3429 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
3430
3431 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
3432 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
3433 For example:
3434 namespace A
3435 {
3436 class B { };
3437 void foo (B) { }
3438 }
3439 ...
3440 A::B b
3441 foo(b)
3442 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
3443 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
3444 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
3445
3446 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
3447
3448 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
3449 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
3450 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
3451 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3452 entry.
3453 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3454 mentioned flavors of operators.
3455
3456 ** static const class members
3457
3458 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3459 class definition has been fixed.
3460
3461 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3462
3463 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3464 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3465 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3466 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3467 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3468 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3469
3470 * Static tracepoints
3471
3472 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3473 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3474 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3475 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3476 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3477 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3478 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3479 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3480 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3481 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3482 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3483 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3484 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3485 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3486 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3487 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3488 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3489 the "New remote packets" section below.
3490
3491 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3492
3493 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3494 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3495 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3496 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3497
3498 * Observer mode
3499
3500 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3501 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3502 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3503 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3504 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3505 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3506 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3507
3508 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3509 current thread.
3510
3511 * New remote packets
3512
3513 qGetTIBAddr
3514
3515 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3516
3517 qRelocInsn
3518
3519 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3520 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3521 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3522 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3523 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3524 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3525
3526 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
3527
3528 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3529
3530 qTSTMat
3531
3532 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3533 program.
3534
3535 qXfer:statictrace:read
3536
3537 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3538 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3539 to gdb's qSupported query.
3540
3541 QAllow
3542
3543 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3544
3545 QTDPsrc
3546
3547 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3548 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3549
3550 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3551 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3552 a directory.
3553
3554 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3555
3556 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3557 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3558 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3559 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3560
3561 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3562 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3563 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3564 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3565 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3566 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3567 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3568
3569 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
3570 for static tracepoints support.
3571
3572 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
3573
3574 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
3575 it understands register description.
3576
3577 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
3578
3579 * X86 general purpose registers
3580
3581 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
3582 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
3583 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
3584 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
3585 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
3586
3587 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
3588 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
3589 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
3590 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
3591 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
3592 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
3593
3594 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
3595 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
3596 in the specified file.
3597
3598 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
3599 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
3600 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
3601 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
3602 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
3603 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
3604 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
3605 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
3606 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
3607 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
3608
3609 * New commands
3610
3611 eval template, expressions...
3612 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
3613 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
3614
3615 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
3616 show target-file-system-kind
3617 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
3618 names.
3619
3620 save breakpoints <filename>
3621 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
3622 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
3623 definitions, use the `source' command.
3624
3625 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
3626 is now deprecated.
3627
3628 info static-tracepoint-markers
3629 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
3630
3631 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
3632 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
3633 function, line, address, or marker ID.
3634
3635 set observer on|off
3636 show observer
3637 Enable and disable observer mode.
3638
3639 set may-write-registers on|off
3640 set may-write-memory on|off
3641 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
3642 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
3643 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
3644 set may-interrupt on|off
3645 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
3646 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
3647 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
3648 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
3649 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
3650 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
3651 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
3652
3653 set record memory-query on|off
3654 show record memory-query
3655 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
3656 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
3657
3658 * Changed commands
3659
3660 disassemble
3661 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
3662
3663 * Python scripting
3664
3665 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
3666 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
3667 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
3668 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
3669 GDB using Python' in the manual.
3670
3671 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
3672 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
3673 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
3674 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
3675
3676 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
3677 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
3678
3679 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
3680
3681 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
3682
3683 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
3684
3685 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
3686 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
3687 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
3688
3689 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
3690 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
3691 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
3692 regular breakpoints.
3693
3694 * New targets
3695
3696 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
3697
3698 * D language support.
3699 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
3700 language.
3701
3702 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
3703 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
3704 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3705 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3706 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3707
3708 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3709 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3710 conditions of the form:
3711
3712 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3713
3714 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3715 interface mentioned above.
3716
3717 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
3718
3719 * C++ Improvements
3720
3721 ** Namespace Support
3722
3723 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3724 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3725 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3726 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3727 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3728
3729 ** Bug Fixes
3730
3731 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
3732 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
3733 qualified name.
3734
3735 ** Cast Operators
3736
3737 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
3738 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
3739
3740 * New targets
3741
3742 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
3743 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
3744
3745 * New Simulators
3746
3747 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
3748 Renesas RX rx
3749
3750 * Multi-program debugging.
3751
3752 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
3753 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
3754 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
3755 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
3756 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
3757 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
3758 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
3759 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
3760
3761 * New tracing features
3762
3763 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
3764
3765 ** Trace state variables
3766
3767 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
3768 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
3769 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
3770 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
3771 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
3772 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
3773 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
3774 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
3775 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
3776 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
3777
3778 ** Fast tracepoints
3779
3780 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
3781 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
3782 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
3783 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
3784 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
3785 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
3786 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
3787 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
3788 the regular trace command.
3789
3790 ** Disconnected tracing
3791
3792 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
3793 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
3794 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
3795 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
3796 connection is lost unexpectedly.
3797
3798 ** Trace files
3799
3800 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
3801 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
3802 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
3803 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
3804 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
3805 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
3806 <name>".
3807
3808 ** Circular trace buffer
3809
3810 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
3811 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
3812 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
3813 not be available for all target agents.
3814
3815 * Changed commands
3816
3817 disassemble
3818 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
3819 the arguments to be comma-separated.
3820
3821 info variables
3822 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
3823 which only declare a variable are not shown.
3824
3825 source
3826 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
3827 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
3828 support.
3829
3830 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
3831 "set script-extension" (see below).
3832
3833 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3834
3835 record save [<FILENAME>]
3836 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
3837 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
3838
3839 record restore <FILENAME>
3840 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
3841 earlier time, for replay debugging.
3842
3843 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
3844 Add a new inferior.
3845
3846 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
3847 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
3848 inferior has loaded.
3849
3850 remove-inferior ID
3851 Remove an inferior.
3852
3853 maint info program-spaces
3854 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
3855
3856 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
3857 show remote interrupt-sequence
3858 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
3859 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
3860 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
3861 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
3862 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
3863
3864 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
3865 show remote interrupt-on-connect
3866 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
3867 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
3868 Linux kernel.
3869
3870 set remotebreak [on | off]
3871 show remotebreak
3872 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
3873
3874 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
3875 Create or modify a trace state variable.
3876
3877 info tvariables
3878 List trace state variables and their values.
3879
3880 delete tvariable $NAME ...
3881 Delete one or more trace state variables.
3882
3883 teval EXPR, ...
3884 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
3885 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
3886
3887 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
3888 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
3889
3890 * New expression syntax
3891
3892 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
3893 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
3894
3895 * New options
3896
3897 set follow-exec-mode new|same
3898 show follow-exec-mode
3899 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
3900 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
3901 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
3902
3903 set default-collect EXPR, ...
3904 show default-collect
3905 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
3906 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
3907 such as registers or a critical global variable.
3908
3909 set disconnected-tracing
3910 show disconnected-tracing
3911 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
3912 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
3913 upon disconnection.
3914
3915 set circular-trace-buffer
3916 show circular-trace-buffer
3917 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
3918 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
3919 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
3920 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
3921
3922 set script-extension off|soft|strict
3923 show script-extension
3924 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
3925 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
3926 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
3927 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
3928 evaluation failed.
3929 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
3930
3931 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
3932 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
3933 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
3934 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
3935 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
3936 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
3937 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
3938 is on.
3939
3940 * Python API Improvements
3941
3942 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
3943 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
3944 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
3945
3946 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
3947 `is_base_class' attribute.
3948
3949 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
3950
3951 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
3952 evaluate an expression.
3953
3954 * New remote packets
3955
3956 QTDV
3957 Define a trace state variable.
3958
3959 qTV
3960 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
3961
3962 QTDisconnected
3963 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
3964
3965 QTBuffer:circular
3966 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
3967
3968 qTfP, qTsP
3969 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
3970
3971 * Bug fixes
3972
3973 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
3974
3975 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
3976 much more reliable. In particular:
3977 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
3978 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
3979 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
3980 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
3981 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
3982 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
3983 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
3984 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
3985 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
3986 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
3987 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
3988 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
3989 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
3990 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
3991 non-threaded programs.
3992
3993 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
3994 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
3995 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
3996 executable program.
3997
3998 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
3999
4000 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
4001 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
4002 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
4003 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
4004 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
4005
4006 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
4007 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
4008 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
4009 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
4010 for tracepoint actions.
4011
4012 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
4013 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
4014 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
4015
4016 * Process record and replay
4017
4018 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
4019 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
4020 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
4021 execute commands.
4022
4023 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
4024 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
4025 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
4026 reverse execution.
4027
4028 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
4029 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
4030 2.6.28 or later.
4031
4032 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
4033 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
4034 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
4035 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
4036 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
4037 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
4038 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
4039 the installation instructions for more information.
4040
4041 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
4042 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
4043 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
4044 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
4045
4046 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
4047 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
4048
4049 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
4050 now complete on file names.
4051
4052 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
4053 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
4054 For instance, consider:
4055
4056 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
4057 # struct example variable;
4058 (gdb) p variable.
4059
4060 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
4061 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
4062
4063 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
4064 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
4065
4066 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
4067 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
4068 macros.
4069
4070 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
4071 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
4072 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
4073
4074 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
4075 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
4076 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
4077 and simulator targets may also provide them.
4078
4079 * New remote packets
4080
4081 qSearch:memory:
4082 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4083
4084 QStartNoAckMode
4085 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
4086 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
4087 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
4088
4089 vKill
4090 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
4091 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
4092
4093 qXfer:osdata:read
4094 Obtains additional operating system information
4095
4096 qXfer:siginfo:read
4097 qXfer:siginfo:write
4098 Read or write additional signal information.
4099
4100 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
4101
4102 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
4103 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
4104 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
4105
4106 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
4107 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
4108
4109 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
4110 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
4111 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
4112
4113 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
4114 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
4115
4116 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
4117
4118 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
4119
4120 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
4121 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
4122
4123 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
4124 list of section offsets.
4125
4126 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
4127 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
4128 have also been fixed.
4129
4130 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
4131 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
4132 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
4133
4134 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
4135 example, given:
4136
4137 template<typename T> class C { };
4138 C<char const *> c;
4139
4140 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
4141
4142 ptype C<char const *>
4143 ptype C<char const*>
4144 ptype C<const char *>
4145 ptype C<const char*>
4146
4147 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
4148
4149 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
4150 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4151
4152 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
4153 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4154 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
4155
4156 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
4157 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
4158
4159 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
4160 gdbserver.
4161
4162 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
4163 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4164
4165 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
4166 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
4167 as appropriate.
4168
4169 * Python scripting
4170
4171 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
4172 available is determined at configure time.
4173
4174 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
4175
4176 * Ada tasking support
4177
4178 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
4179 been introduced:
4180
4181 info tasks
4182 Print the list of Ada tasks.
4183 info task N
4184 Print detailed information about task number N.
4185 task
4186 Print the task number of the current task.
4187 task N
4188 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
4189
4190 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
4191 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
4192
4193 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
4194
4195 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
4196 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
4197 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
4198 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
4199 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
4200 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
4201 below.
4202
4203 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
4204 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
4205 information.
4206
4207 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
4208 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
4209 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
4210 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
4211 more information.
4212
4213 * Multi-architecture debugging.
4214
4215 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
4216 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
4217 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
4218 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
4219 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
4220
4221 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
4222 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
4223 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
4224 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
4225 --enable-targets configure option.
4226
4227 * Non-stop mode debugging.
4228
4229 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
4230 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
4231 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
4232 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
4233 section in the user manual for more information.
4234
4235 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
4236 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
4237 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
4238 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
4239 extensions on linux targets.
4240
4241 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4242
4243 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
4244 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
4245 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
4246 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
4247 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
4248 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
4249 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
4250 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
4251 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
4252
4253 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
4254 val1 [, val2, ...]
4255 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4256
4257 maint set python print-stack
4258 maint show python print-stack
4259 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
4260
4261 python [CODE]
4262 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
4263
4264 macro define
4265 macro list
4266 macro undef
4267 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
4268 interactively.
4269
4270 info os processes
4271 Show operating system information about processes.
4272
4273 info inferiors
4274 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
4275
4276 inferior NUM
4277 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
4278
4279 detach inferior NUM
4280 Detach from inferior number NUM.
4281
4282 kill inferior NUM
4283 Kill inferior number NUM.
4284
4285 * New options
4286
4287 set spu stop-on-load
4288 show spu stop-on-load
4289 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4290
4291 set spu auto-flush-cache
4292 show spu auto-flush-cache
4293 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
4294 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4295
4296 set sh calling-convention
4297 show sh calling-convention
4298 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
4299
4300 set debug timestamp
4301 show debug timestamp
4302 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
4303
4304 set disassemble-next-line
4305 show disassemble-next-line
4306 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
4307 the debuggee stops.
4308
4309 set remote noack-packet
4310 show remote noack-packet
4311 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
4312 under "New remote packets."
4313
4314 set remote query-attached-packet
4315 show remote query-attached-packet
4316 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
4317
4318 set remote read-siginfo-object
4319 show remote read-siginfo-object
4320 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
4321 packet.
4322
4323 set remote write-siginfo-object
4324 show remote write-siginfo-object
4325 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
4326 packet.
4327
4328 set remote reverse-continue
4329 show remote reverse-continue
4330 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
4331
4332 set remote reverse-step
4333 show remote reverse-step
4334 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
4335
4336 set displaced-stepping
4337 show displaced-stepping
4338 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
4339 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
4340 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
4341
4342 set debug displaced
4343 show debug displaced
4344 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
4345
4346 maint set internal-error
4347 maint show internal-error
4348 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
4349
4350 maint set internal-warning
4351 maint show internal-warning
4352 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
4353
4354 set exec-wrapper
4355 show exec-wrapper
4356 unset exec-wrapper
4357 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4358
4359 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
4360 show multiple-symbols
4361 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
4362 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
4363 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
4364
4365 set breakpoint always-inserted
4366 show breakpoint always-inserted
4367 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
4368 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
4369 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
4370
4371 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4372 show arm fallback-mode
4373 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4374 show arm force-mode
4375 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
4376 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
4377 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
4378 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
4379
4380 set disable-randomization
4381 show disable-randomization
4382 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
4383 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
4384 multiple debugging sessions.
4385
4386 set non-stop
4387 show non-stop
4388 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
4389 a breakpoint.
4390
4391 set target-async
4392 show target-async
4393 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
4394 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
4395 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
4396 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
4397
4398 set target-wide-charset
4399 show target-wide-charset
4400 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
4401 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
4402
4403 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
4404 show tcp auto-retry
4405 set tcp connect-timeout
4406 show tcp connect-timeout
4407 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
4408 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
4409 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
4410
4411 set libthread-db-search-path
4412 show libthread-db-search-path
4413 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
4414 libthread_db.
4415
4416 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
4417 show schedule-multiple
4418 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
4419 the current process.
4420
4421 set stack-cache
4422 show stack-cache
4423 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
4424 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
4425 affecting correctness.
4426
4427 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
4428 show interactive-mode
4429 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
4430 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
4431 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
4432 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
4433 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
4434
4435 * Removed commands
4436
4437 info forks
4438 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
4439 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
4440 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
4441 command.
4442
4443 fork NUM
4444 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
4445 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
4446 alias for the `fork' command.
4447
4448 process PID
4449 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
4450 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
4451 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4452
4453 delete fork NUM
4454 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4455 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4456 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4457 fork' command.
4458
4459 detach fork NUM
4460 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4461 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4462 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4463 fork' command.
4464
4465 * New native configurations
4466
4467 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4468
4469 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4470
4471 * New targets
4472
4473 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4474 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4475 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4476 S+core 3 score-*-*
4477
4478 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4479 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4480
4481 * Removed commands
4482
4483 catch load
4484 catch unload
4485 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4486
4487 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4488
4489 * New native configurations
4490
4491 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4492 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4493
4494 * New targets
4495
4496 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4497 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
4498
4499 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4500
4501 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4502 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4503 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4504 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4505
4506 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4507 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4508
4509 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4510 is resolved.
4511
4512 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4513 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4514 and in inlined functions.
4515
4516 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4517 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4518 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4519
4520 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4521
4522 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4523 registers on PowerPC targets.
4524
4525 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4526 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4527
4528 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4529 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4530
4531 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4532 extended-remote mode.
4533
4534 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4535 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4536 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4537 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4538
4539 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4540 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4541 target architectures.
4542
4543 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4544 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4545 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4546 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4547
4548 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4549 breakpoints now.
4550
4551 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4552 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4553 include:
4554 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4555 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4556 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4557 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4558 of an assignment
4559 - Improved command completion in Ada
4560 - Several bug fixes
4561
4562 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4563 process.
4564
4565 * New commands
4566
4567 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4568 show print frame-arguments
4569 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
4570 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
4571
4572 remote put
4573 remote get
4574 remote delete
4575 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4576
4577 * New MI commands
4578
4579 -target-file-put
4580 -target-file-get
4581 -target-file-delete
4582 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4583
4584 * New remote packets
4585
4586 vFile:open:
4587 vFile:close:
4588 vFile:pread:
4589 vFile:pwrite:
4590 vFile:unlink:
4591 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
4592
4593 vAttach
4594 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
4595 mode.
4596
4597 vRun
4598 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
4599
4600 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
4601
4602 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
4603 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
4604 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
4605
4606 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
4607 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
4608 -Bsymbolic linker option.
4609
4610 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
4611 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
4612 is not supported.
4613
4614 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
4615 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
4616
4617 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
4618 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
4619
4620 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
4621
4622 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
4623 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
4624 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
4625
4626 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
4627 automatically displayed as character or string data.
4628
4629 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
4630 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
4631 as strings.
4632
4633 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
4634 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
4635 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
4636
4637 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
4638 iWMMXt coprocessor.
4639
4640 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
4641 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
4642 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
4643
4644 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
4645
4646 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
4647
4648 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
4649 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
4650 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
4651
4652 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
4653 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
4654
4655 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
4656 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
4657 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
4658 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
4659 Windows and SymbianOS).
4660
4661 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
4662 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
4663
4664 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
4665 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
4666
4667 * New commands
4668
4669 set remoteflow
4670 show remoteflow
4671 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
4672 when debugging using remote targets.
4673
4674 set mem inaccessible-by-default
4675 show mem inaccessible-by-default
4676 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4677 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4678 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
4679 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
4680 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
4681
4682 set breakpoint auto-hw
4683 show breakpoint auto-hw
4684 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4685 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4686 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
4687 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
4688 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
4689 including "next" and "finish".
4690
4691 catch exception
4692 catch exception unhandled
4693 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
4694
4695 catch assert
4696 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
4697
4698 set sysroot
4699 show sysroot
4700 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
4701 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
4702 an alias to "set sysroot".
4703
4704 info spu
4705 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4706 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4707 architecture.
4708
4709 * New native configurations
4710
4711 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4712
4713 set tdesc filename
4714 unset tdesc filename
4715 show tdesc filename
4716 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4717 not query the target for its built-in description.
4718
4719 * New targets
4720
4721 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4722 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4723 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4724
4725 * New remote packets
4726
4727 QPassSignals:
4728 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4729 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4730
4731 qXfer:features:read:
4732 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
4733 features.
4734
4735 qXfer:spu:read:
4736 qXfer:spu:write:
4737 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
4738 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
4739
4740 qXfer:libraries:read:
4741 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
4742 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
4743 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
4744 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
4745
4746 * Removed targets
4747
4748 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
4749
4750 alpha*-*-osf1*
4751 alpha*-*-osf2*
4752 d10v-*-*
4753 hppa*-*-hiux*
4754 i[34567]86-ncr-*
4755 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
4756 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
4757 i[34567]86-*-netware*
4758 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
4759 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
4760 i[34567]86-*-sco*
4761 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
4762 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
4763 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
4764 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
4765 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
4766 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
4767 i[34567]86-*-isc*
4768 m68*-cisco*-*
4769 m68*-tandem-*
4770 mips*-*-pe
4771 rs6000-*-lynxos*
4772 sh*-*-pe
4773
4774 * Other removed features
4775
4776 target abug
4777 target cpu32bug
4778 target est
4779 target rom68k
4780
4781 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
4782
4783 target hms
4784 target e7000
4785 target sh3
4786 target sh3e
4787
4788 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
4789 H8/300.
4790
4791 target ocd
4792
4793 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
4794 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
4795 interfaces.
4796
4797 DWARF 1 support
4798
4799 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
4800 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
4801
4802 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
4803
4804 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
4805 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
4806 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
4807 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
4808
4809 MIPS ".pdr" sections
4810
4811 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
4812 in debugging information.
4813
4814 Scheme support
4815
4816 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
4817 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
4818
4819 set mips stack-arg-size
4820 set mips saved-gpreg-size
4821
4822 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
4823
4824 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
4825
4826 * New targets
4827
4828 Xtensa xtensa-elf
4829 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
4830
4831 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
4832 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
4833 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
4834
4835 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
4836 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
4837 supported.
4838
4839 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
4840 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
4841
4842 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
4843 stub provides the required support.
4844
4845 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
4846 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
4847
4848 * New commands
4849
4850 set substitute-path
4851 unset substitute-path
4852 show substitute-path
4853 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
4854 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
4855 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
4856 between compilation and debugging.
4857
4858 set trace-commands
4859 show trace-commands
4860 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
4861 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
4862 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
4863
4864 * REMOVED features
4865
4866 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
4867
4868 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
4869 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
4870
4871 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
4872
4873 * New remote packets
4874
4875 qSupported:
4876 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
4877 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
4878 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
4879 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
4880 target.
4881
4882 qXfer:auxv:read:
4883 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
4884 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
4885
4886 qXfer:memory-map:read:
4887 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
4888 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
4889
4890 vFlashErase:
4891 vFlashWrite:
4892 vFlashDone:
4893 Erase and program a flash memory device.
4894
4895 * Removed remote packets
4896
4897 qPart:auxv:read:
4898 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
4899 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
4900
4901 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
4902
4903 * New targets
4904
4905 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
4906
4907 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4908
4909 * New commands
4910
4911 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
4912 only if it doesn't already have a value.
4913
4914 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
4915
4916 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
4917
4918 restart <n> Return the program state to a
4919 previously saved state.
4920
4921 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
4922
4923 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
4924
4925 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
4926 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
4927
4928 info forks List forks of the user program that
4929 are available to be debugged.
4930
4931 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
4932 forks of the user program that are
4933 available to be debugged.
4934
4935 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4936 that are available to be debugged (and
4937 kill the forked process).
4938
4939 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4940 that are available to be debugged (and
4941 allow the process to continue).
4942
4943 * New architecture
4944
4945 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
4946
4947 * Improved Windows host support
4948
4949 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
4950 native console support, and remote communications using either
4951 network sockets or serial ports.
4952
4953 * Improved Modula-2 language support
4954
4955 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
4956 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
4957 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
4958 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
4959 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
4960 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
4961
4962 * REMOVED features
4963
4964 The ARM rdi-share module.
4965
4966 The Netware NLM debug server.
4967
4968 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
4969
4970 * New native configurations
4971
4972 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
4973 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
4974
4975 * New targets
4976
4977 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4978
4979 * New command line options
4980
4981 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
4982 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
4983 the child (debugged) program exited with.
4984 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
4985 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
4986 specified multiple times and in conjunction
4987 with the --command (-x) option.
4988
4989 * Deprecated commands removed
4990
4991 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
4992 removed:
4993
4994 Command Replacement
4995 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
4996 othernames set arm disassembler
4997 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
4998 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
4999 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
5000 regs info registers
5001
5002 * New BSD user-level threads support
5003
5004 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
5005 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
5006 configurations are:
5007
5008 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5009 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
5010 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
5011
5012 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
5013 are not yet supported.
5014
5015 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
5016 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
5017
5018 * REMOVED configurations and files
5019
5020 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
5021 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5022 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
5023
5024 * New "set print array-indexes" command
5025
5026 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
5027 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
5028 behavior.
5029
5030 * VAX floating point support
5031
5032 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
5033
5034 * User-defined command support
5035
5036 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
5037 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
5038 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
5039
5040 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
5041
5042 * New command line option
5043
5044 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
5045 debugging.
5046
5047 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
5048
5049 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
5050 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
5051 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
5052 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
5053 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
5054
5055 * Internationalization
5056
5057 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
5058 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
5059 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
5060
5061 * Ada
5062
5063 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
5064 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
5065 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
5066
5067 * New native configurations
5068
5069 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
5070
5071 * Remote 'p' packet
5072
5073 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
5074 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
5075
5076 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
5077
5078 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5079 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
5080 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
5081 i386 application).
5082
5083 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
5084 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
5085 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
5086 configurations:
5087
5088 hppa-*-hpux
5089 ia64-*-aix
5090 mips-*-irix*
5091 *-*-lynx
5092 mips-*-linux-gnu
5093 sds protocol
5094 xdr protocol
5095 powerpc bdm protocol
5096
5097 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5098 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
5099
5100 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5101
5102 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5103 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5104 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5105 permanently REMOVED.
5106
5107 h8300-*-*
5108 mcore-*-*
5109 mn10300-*-*
5110 ns32k-*-*
5111 sh64-*-*
5112 v850-*-*
5113
5114 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
5115
5116 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
5117
5118 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
5119 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
5120 been fixed.
5121
5122 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
5123
5124 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
5125 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
5126 IRIX long double values).
5127
5128 * VAX and "next"
5129
5130 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
5131 command. This problem has been fixed.
5132
5133 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
5134
5135 * Fix for ``many threads''
5136
5137 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
5138 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
5139 error message:
5140
5141 ptrace: No such process.
5142 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
5143
5144 This problem has been fixed.
5145
5146 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
5147
5148 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
5149 GDB to dump core).
5150
5151 * New ``start'' command.
5152
5153 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
5154
5155 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
5156
5157 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
5158 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
5159 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
5160
5161 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5162 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
5163 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
5164 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
5165 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
5166 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5167 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
5168 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
5169 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5170
5171 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
5172
5173 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
5174 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
5175 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
5176 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
5177 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
5178
5179 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
5180 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
5181 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
5182
5183 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
5184
5185 * New native configurations
5186
5187 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
5188 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
5189 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
5190 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
5191 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
5192 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
5193 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
5194
5195 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
5196
5197 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5198 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
5199 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
5200 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
5201 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
5202 work, was also included.
5203
5204 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
5205 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
5206
5207 h8300-*-*
5208 mcore-*-*
5209 mn10300-*-*
5210 ns32k-*-*
5211 sh64-*-*
5212 v850-*-*
5213 xstormy16-*-*
5214
5215 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5216 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
5217
5218 * REMOVED configurations and files
5219
5220 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5221 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5222 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5223 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5224 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5225 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5226 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5227 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5228 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5229 sonymips mips-sony-*
5230 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5231
5232 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
5233
5234 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
5235
5236 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
5237 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
5238 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
5239 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
5240 with GDB".
5241
5242 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
5243
5244 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
5245 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
5246 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
5247 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
5248 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
5249 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
5250 are created.
5251
5252 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
5253
5254 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
5255
5256 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
5257 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
5258 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
5259
5260 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
5261
5262 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
5263 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
5264
5265 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
5266
5267 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
5268 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
5269 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
5270
5271 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
5272
5273 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
5274 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
5275
5276 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
5277
5278 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
5279 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
5280 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
5281
5282 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
5283
5284 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
5285 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
5286 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
5287
5288 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
5289
5290 * Removed --with-mmalloc
5291
5292 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
5293 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
5294
5295 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
5296
5297 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
5298 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
5299 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
5300 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
5301
5302 * Revised SPARC target
5303
5304 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
5305 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
5306 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
5307 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
5308 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
5309
5310 * New C++ demangler
5311
5312 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
5313 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
5314 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
5315 programs.
5316
5317 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5318
5319 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
5320 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
5321 encountered these.
5322
5323 * C++ nested types and namespaces
5324
5325 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
5326 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
5327 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
5328 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
5329 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
5330 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
5331 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
5332 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
5333 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
5334
5335 * New native configurations
5336
5337 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
5338 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5339 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
5340 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5341 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
5342
5343 * New debugging protocols
5344
5345 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
5346
5347 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
5348
5349 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
5350 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
5351 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
5352
5353 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5354
5355 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5356 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5357 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5358 permanently REMOVED.
5359
5360 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5361 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5362 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5363 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5364 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5365 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5366 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5367 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5368 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5369 sonymips mips-sony-*
5370 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5371
5372 * REMOVED configurations and files
5373
5374 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5375 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5376 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5377 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5378 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5379 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5380 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5381 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5382 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5383 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
5384 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5385 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5386 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5387 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
5388 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
5389 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5390 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5391
5392 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
5393
5394 * Objective-C
5395
5396 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
5397 integrated into GDB.
5398
5399 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
5400
5401 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
5402 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
5403 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
5404 backtraces.
5405
5406 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
5407 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
5408 DWARF 2 CFI support.
5409
5410 * Hosted file I/O.
5411
5412 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
5413 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
5414 remote protocol documentation for details.
5415
5416 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
5417
5418 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
5419 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
5420 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
5421 ppc32 on ppc64).
5422
5423 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
5424
5425 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
5426 per-thread variables.
5427
5428 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
5429
5430 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
5431 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
5432
5433 * Separate debug info.
5434
5435 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
5436 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
5437 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
5438 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
5439 and optional debug files.
5440
5441 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5442
5443 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
5444 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
5445 debugger.
5446
5447 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
5448 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5449
5450 * Java
5451
5452 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5453 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5454 considered "useable".
5455
5456 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5457
5458 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5459 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5460 kernel.
5461
5462 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5463
5464 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5465 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5466
5467 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5468
5469 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5470 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5471 command.
5472
5473 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5474
5475 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5476 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5477
5478 * Profiling support
5479
5480 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5481 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5482 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5483 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5484 data, for more informative profiling results.
5485
5486 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5487
5488 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5489 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5490 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5491
5492 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5493 removed.
5494
5495 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5496 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5497 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5498 in a subsequent -var-update.
5499
5500 * New native configurations.
5501
5502 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5503
5504 * Multi-arched targets.
5505
5506 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5507 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5508
5509 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5510
5511 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5512 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5513 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5514 permanently REMOVED.
5515
5516 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5517 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5518 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5519 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5520 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5521 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5522 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5523 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5524 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5525 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5526 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5527 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5528
5529 * REMOVED configurations and files
5530
5531 V850EA ISA
5532 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5533 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5534 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5535 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5536 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5537 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5538 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
5539 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5540 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5541 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5542 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5543 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5544 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5545
5546 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5547
5548 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5549 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5550 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5551 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5552 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5553
5554 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5555
5556 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5557
5558 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5559 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5560 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5561 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5562 shared libs like mad''.
5563
5564 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5565
5566 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5567 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5568 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5569 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
5570
5571 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
5572
5573 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
5574 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
5575 they expand.
5576
5577 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
5578 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
5579
5580 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
5581 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
5582
5583 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
5584 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
5585 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
5586 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
5587
5588 * Multi-arched targets.
5589
5590 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
5591 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
5592 NEC V850 v850-*-*
5593 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
5594 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
5595 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5596
5597 * New targets.
5598
5599 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
5600
5601
5602 * New native configurations
5603
5604 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
5605 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
5606 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
5607 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
5608
5609 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5610
5611 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5612 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5613 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5614 permanently REMOVED.
5615
5616 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5617 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5618 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5619 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5620 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5621 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5622 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5623 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5624 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5625 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5626 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
5627 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5628 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5629
5630 * OBSOLETE languages
5631
5632 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
5633
5634 * REMOVED configurations and files
5635
5636 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5637 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5638 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5639 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5640 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5641
5642 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5643
5644 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
5645
5646 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
5647 commands. The default is 1024.
5648
5649 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
5650
5651 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
5652
5653 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
5654
5655 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
5656 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
5657 from a file into memory (restore).
5658
5659 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
5660
5661 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
5662 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
5663 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
5664
5665 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
5666
5667 * New targets.
5668
5669 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
5670
5671 * Bug fixes
5672
5673 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
5674 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
5675 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
5676
5677 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
5678 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
5679 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
5680
5681 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
5682 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
5683 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
5684
5685 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
5686 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
5687 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
5688
5689 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
5690
5691 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
5692
5693 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
5694 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
5695 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
5696 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
5697 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
5698 (notably embedded) targets.
5699
5700 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
5701
5702 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
5703 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
5704 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5705 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5706
5707 * New command line option
5708
5709 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5710
5711 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5712
5713 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5714 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5715 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5716 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5717 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5718 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5719 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5720 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5721 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5722 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5723
5724 * Changes in ARM configurations.
5725
5726 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5727 configuration is fully multi-arch.
5728
5729 * New native configurations
5730
5731 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
5732 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
5733 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
5734 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
5735
5736 * New targets
5737
5738 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
5739
5740 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5741
5742 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5743 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5744 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5745 permanently REMOVED.
5746
5747 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5748 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5749 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5750 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5751 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5752
5753 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5754
5755 * REMOVED configurations and files
5756
5757 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5758 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5759 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5760 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5761 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5762 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5763 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5764 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5765 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5766 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5767 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5768 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5769 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
5770
5771 * Changes to command line processing
5772
5773 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
5774 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
5775
5776 * Changes to key bindings
5777
5778 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
5779
5780 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
5781
5782 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
5783
5784 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
5785 corrupted.
5786
5787 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
5788
5789 Numerous documentation fixes.
5790
5791 Numerous testsuite fixes.
5792
5793 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
5794
5795 * New native configurations
5796
5797 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
5798 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
5799 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
5800 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5801 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
5802 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
5803
5804 * New targets
5805
5806 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
5807 CRIS cris-axis
5808 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
5809
5810 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5811
5812 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
5813 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5814 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5815 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5816 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5817 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5818 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5819 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5820 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5821 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5822 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5823 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5824 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5825 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
5826
5827 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
5828 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
5829
5830 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5831 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5832 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5833 permanently REMOVED.
5834
5835 * REMOVED configurations and files
5836
5837 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5838 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5839 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
5840 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5841 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
5842 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
5843
5844 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
5845
5846 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
5847 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
5848 present.
5849
5850 * Other news:
5851
5852 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
5853
5854 * The MI enabled by default.
5855
5856 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
5857 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
5858 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
5859 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
5860 which is now deprecated.
5861
5862 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
5863
5864 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
5865 main features are supported:
5866
5867 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
5868
5869 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
5870 extension;
5871
5872 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
5873
5874 - a Pascal expression parser.
5875
5876 However, some important features are not yet supported.
5877
5878 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
5879
5880 - there are some problems with boolean types;
5881
5882 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
5883 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
5884
5885 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
5886
5887 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
5888
5889 * Changes in completion.
5890
5891 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
5892 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
5893 users expect at the shell prompt.
5894
5895 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
5896 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
5897 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
5898 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
5899 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
5900 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
5901 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
5902
5903 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
5904
5905 * New platform-independent commands:
5906
5907 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
5908 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
5909 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
5910
5911 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
5912
5913 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
5914 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
5915 many threads as your system allows you to have.
5916
5917 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
5918
5919 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
5920 multi-threaded programs though.
5921
5922 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
5923
5924 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
5925
5926 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
5927 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
5928 supported.)
5929
5930 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
5931
5932 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
5933 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
5934 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
5935 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
5936 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
5937 registers.
5938
5939 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
5940 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
5941 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
5942
5943 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
5944
5945 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
5946 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
5947
5948 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
5949 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
5950 IDT.
5951
5952 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
5953 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
5954 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
5955 a given linear address.
5956
5957 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
5958 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
5959 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
5960
5961 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
5962
5963 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
5964
5965 * Changes in documentation.
5966
5967 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
5968 Documentation License.
5969
5970 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5971 manual.
5972
5973 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
5974
5975 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5976 manual.
5977
5978 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
5979 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
5980 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
5981
5982 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
5983
5984 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
5985 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
5986 contents of this file.
5987
5988 * gdba.el deleted
5989
5990 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
5991
5992 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
5993
5994 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
5995
5996 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
5997 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
5998 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
5999 greater level of detail.
6000
6001 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
6002
6003 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
6004 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
6005 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
6006 written.
6007
6008 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
6009
6010 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
6011 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
6012 machines ``out of the box''.
6013
6014 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
6015 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
6016 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
6017 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
6018 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
6019
6020 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
6021 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
6022 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
6023 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
6024 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
6025
6026 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
6027 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
6028 also works.
6029
6030 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
6031 GDB.
6032
6033 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
6034 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
6035 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
6036 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
6037
6038 * New native configurations
6039
6040 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
6041 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6042
6043 * New targets
6044
6045 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
6046 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
6047 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
6048 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6049
6050 * OBSOLETE configurations
6051
6052 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6053 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6054 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
6055 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6056 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
6057
6058 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6059 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6060 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6061 be permanently REMOVED.
6062
6063 * Gould support removed
6064
6065 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
6066
6067 * New features for SVR4
6068
6069 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
6070 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
6071 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
6072
6073 * Many C++ enhancements
6074
6075 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
6076 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
6077
6078 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
6079
6080 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
6081 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
6082 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
6083 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
6084
6085 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
6086 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
6087
6088 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
6089
6090 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
6091 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
6092 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
6093
6094 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
6095 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
6096
6097 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
6098
6099 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
6100 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
6101 include ``set remote P-packet''.
6102
6103 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
6104
6105 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
6106 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
6107 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
6108
6109 * ``apropos'' command added.
6110
6111 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
6112 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
6113 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
6114
6115 * New MI interface
6116
6117 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
6118 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
6119 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
6120 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
6121 enabled by configuring with:
6122
6123 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
6124
6125 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
6126
6127 * New native configurations
6128
6129 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
6130 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
6131 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
6132
6133 * New targets
6134
6135 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6136 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
6137 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6138
6139 * OBSOLETE configurations
6140
6141 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
6142
6143 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6144 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6145 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6146 be permanently REMOVED.
6147
6148 * ANSI/ISO C
6149
6150 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
6151 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
6152 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
6153 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
6154 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
6155 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
6156 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
6157 already.
6158
6159 * Readline 2.2
6160
6161 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
6162
6163 * set extension-language
6164
6165 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
6166 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
6167 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
6168 set extension-language .c c++
6169 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
6170 and their associated languages.
6171
6172 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
6173
6174 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
6175 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
6176 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
6177
6178 set processor NAME
6179
6180 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
6181 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
6182
6183 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
6184 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
6185 403 IBM PowerPC 403
6186 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
6187 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
6188 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
6189 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
6190 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
6191 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
6192 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
6193 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
6194
6195 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
6196 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
6197 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
6198 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
6199
6200 * HP-UX support
6201
6202 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
6203 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
6204 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
6205 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
6206 for xdb and dbx commands.
6207
6208 * Catchpoints
6209
6210 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
6211 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
6212 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
6213
6214 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
6215 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
6216 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
6217
6218 * Debugging across forks
6219
6220 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
6221 in the inferior.
6222
6223 * TUI
6224
6225 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
6226 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
6227 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
6228
6229 * GDB remote protocol additions
6230
6231 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
6232 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
6233 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
6234 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
6235
6236 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
6237 full 64-bit address. The command
6238
6239 set remoteaddresssize 32
6240
6241 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
6242 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
6243 will be discarded.
6244
6245 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
6246 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
6247
6248 maint packet heythere
6249
6250 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
6251 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
6252 time.
6253
6254 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
6255 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
6256 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
6257
6258 * Tracing can collect general expressions
6259
6260 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
6261 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
6262 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
6263
6264 * mask-address variable for Mips
6265
6266 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
6267 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
6268 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
6269
6270 * Higher serial baud rates
6271
6272 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
6273 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
6274 to achieve all of these rates.)
6275
6276 * i960 simulator
6277
6278 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
6279 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
6280
6281
6282 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
6283
6284 * New native configurations
6285
6286 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
6287 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
6288 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6289 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6290 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6291 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
6292 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
6293
6294 * New targets
6295
6296 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6297 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
6298 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6299 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
6300 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
6301 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
6302 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
6303 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
6304 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6305 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6306 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
6307
6308 * New debugging protocols
6309
6310 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
6311 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
6312 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
6313 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6314 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6315 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6316
6317 * DWARF 2
6318
6319 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
6320 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
6321 information.
6322
6323 * Java frontend
6324
6325 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
6326 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
6327
6328 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
6329
6330 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
6331 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
6332 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
6333
6334 * Live range splitting
6335
6336 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
6337 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
6338 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
6339
6340 * Hurd support
6341
6342 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
6343 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
6344
6345 * ARM Thumb support
6346
6347 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
6348 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
6349 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
6350 accordingly.
6351
6352 * MIPS16 support
6353
6354 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
6355 instruction set.
6356
6357 * Overlay support
6358
6359 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
6360 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
6361 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
6362 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
6363 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
6364 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
6365
6366 * info symbol
6367
6368 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
6369 the symbol at the specified address.
6370
6371 * Trace support
6372
6373 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
6374 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
6375 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
6376 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
6377 file tracepoint.c for more details.
6378
6379 * MIPS simulator
6380
6381 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
6382 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
6383 of most MIPS variants.
6384
6385 * Sparc simulator
6386
6387 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
6388 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
6389 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
6390
6391 * set architecture
6392
6393 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
6394 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
6395 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
6396 the possible architectures.
6397
6398 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
6399
6400 * New native configurations
6401
6402 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
6403 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
6404 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
6405 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
6406 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6407 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
6408
6409 * New targets
6410
6411 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
6412 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6413 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
6414 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
6415 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
6416 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
6417 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6418
6419 * PowerPC simulator
6420
6421 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
6422 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
6423 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
6424 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
6425 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
6426
6427 * Solaris 2.5
6428
6429 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
6430
6431 * Windows 95/NT native
6432
6433 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
6434 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
6435 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
6436 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
6437 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
6438
6439 * dont-repeat command
6440
6441 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
6442 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
6443 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
6444 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
6445
6446 * Send break instead of ^C
6447
6448 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
6449 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
6450 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6451
6452 * Remote protocol timeout
6453
6454 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6455 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6456 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6457
6458 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6459
6460 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6461 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6462 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6463 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6464 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6465
6466 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6467 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6468 automatically on hpux10.
6469
6470 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6471
6472 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6473
6474 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6475
6476 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6477 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6478 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6479 every character. The default value is 1050.
6480
6481 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6482
6483 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6484 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6485 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6486 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6487 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6488 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6489
6490 * Speedups for remote debugging
6491
6492 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6493 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6494 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6495
6496 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6497
6498 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6499 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6500
6501 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6502
6503 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6504
6505 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6506 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6507
6508 * Remote targets use caching
6509
6510 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6511 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6512 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6513 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6514 off' turns the the data cache off.
6515
6516 * Remote targets may have threads
6517
6518 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6519 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6520 gdb/remote.c for details.
6521
6522 * NetROM support
6523
6524 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6525 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6526 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6527 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6528 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6529 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6530 sequence is something like
6531
6532 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6533 load <prog>
6534 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6535
6536 * Macintosh host
6537
6538 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6539 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6540 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6541 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6542 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6543 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6544 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6545 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6546
6547 * Autoconf
6548
6549 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6550 but does simplify configuration and building.
6551
6552 * hpux10
6553
6554 GDB now supports hpux10.
6555
6556 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6557
6558 * New native configurations
6559
6560 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6561 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6562 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6563 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6564
6565 * New targets
6566
6567 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6568 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6569 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
6570 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
6571 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6572
6573 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
6574
6575 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
6576 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
6577 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
6578 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
6579 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
6580
6581 * Arguments to user-defined commands
6582
6583 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
6584 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
6585 trivial example:
6586 define adder
6587 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
6588
6589 To execute the command use:
6590 adder 1 2 3
6591
6592 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
6593 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
6594 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
6595
6596 * New `if' and `while' commands
6597
6598 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
6599 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
6600 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
6601 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
6602 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
6603 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
6604 if the expression is zero.
6605
6606 * Fortran source language mode
6607
6608 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
6609 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
6610 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
6611 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
6612 Fortran compilers.
6613
6614 * Better HPUX support
6615
6616 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
6617 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
6618 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
6619 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
6620 that behavior do the following before running the program:
6621
6622 adb -w a.out
6623 __dld_flags?W 0x5
6624 control-d
6625
6626 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
6627 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
6628
6629 adb -w a.out
6630 __dld_flags?W 0x4
6631 control-d
6632
6633 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
6634 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
6635 external linkage.
6636
6637 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
6638 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
6639
6640 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
6641
6642 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
6643 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
6644 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
6645 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
6646 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
6647 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
6648
6649 * New DOS host serial code
6650
6651 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
6652 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
6653 a PC's serial port.
6654
6655 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
6656
6657 * New "complete" command
6658
6659 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
6660 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
6661
6662 * Trailing space optional in prompt
6663
6664 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
6665 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
6666
6667 * Breakpoint hit counts
6668
6669 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
6670 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
6671 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
6672 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
6673 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
6674 that breakpoint.
6675
6676 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
6677
6678 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
6679 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
6680 arrays actually contain only short strings.
6681
6682 * Shared library breakpoints
6683
6684 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
6685 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
6686
6687 * Hardware watchpoints
6688
6689 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
6690 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
6691
6692 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
6693
6694 * Annotations
6695
6696 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
6697 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
6698
6699 * Improved Irix 5 support
6700
6701 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
6702
6703 * Improved HPPA support
6704
6705 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6706
6707 * New native configurations
6708
6709 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6710 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6711 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6712 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6713
6714 * New targets
6715
6716 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6717 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6718 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
6719
6720 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6721
6722 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6723 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6724
6725 * Fixes
6726
6727 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6728 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6729
6730 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6731
6732 * Irix 5 is now supported
6733
6734 * HPPA support
6735
6736 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
6737 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
6738 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
6739 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
6740 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
6741
6742
6743 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
6744
6745 * User visible changes:
6746
6747 * Remote Debugging
6748
6749 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
6750 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
6751 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
6752 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
6753 debugging info for the mips target).
6754
6755 * DEC Alpha native support
6756
6757 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
6758 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
6759 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
6760 Alpha-specific notes.
6761
6762 * Preliminary thread implementation
6763
6764 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
6765
6766 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
6767
6768 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
6769 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
6770 for details).
6771
6772 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
6773
6774 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
6775 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
6776 call methods, ...etc.
6777
6778 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
6779
6780 * User visible changes:
6781
6782 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
6783 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
6784 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
6785 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
6786
6787 Filename completion now works.
6788
6789 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
6790 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
6791 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
6792
6793 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
6794 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
6795 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
6796 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
6797 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
6798
6799 * DEC alpha support
6800
6801 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
6802 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
6803
6804
6805 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
6806
6807 * Testsuite
6808
6809 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
6810 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
6811 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
6812
6813 * C++ demangling
6814
6815 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
6816 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
6817 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
6818 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
6819 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
6820
6821 * Simulators
6822
6823 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
6824 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
6825 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
6826
6827 * New targets supported
6828
6829 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6830 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6831 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
6832 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6833 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
6834
6835 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
6836 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
6837 GO32 memory extender.
6838
6839 * New remote protocols
6840
6841 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
6842
6843 * New source languages supported
6844
6845 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
6846 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
6847 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
6848
6849
6850 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
6851
6852 * HP Precision Architecture supported
6853
6854 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
6855 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
6856 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
6857 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
6858 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
6859 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
6860
6861 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
6862
6863 * Faster and better demangling
6864
6865 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
6866 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
6867 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
6868 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
6869 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
6870 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
6871 symbol lookups.
6872
6873 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
6874 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
6875 compiler does not actually implement.
6876
6877 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
6878
6879 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
6880 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
6881 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
6882 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
6883 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
6884 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
6885 fix.
6886
6887 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
6888 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
6889
6890 * Improved configure script
6891
6892 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
6893 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
6894 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
6895 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
6896
6897 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
6898 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
6899 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
6900 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
6901 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
6902 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
6903
6904 * Documentation improvements
6905
6906 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
6907 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
6908 before submitting changes.
6909
6910 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
6911 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
6912 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
6913 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
6914 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
6915
6916 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
6917 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
6918 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
6919 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
6920 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
6921 around this problem.
6922
6923 * New features
6924
6925 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
6926 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
6927 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
6928 the target program.
6929
6930 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
6931 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
6932
6933 * New native hosts supported
6934
6935 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
6936 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
6937
6938 * New targets supported
6939
6940 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
6941
6942 * New file formats supported
6943
6944 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
6945 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
6946
6947 * Major bug fixes
6948
6949 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
6950
6951 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
6952 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
6953
6954 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
6955 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
6956 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
6957
6958 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
6959 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
6960
6961 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
6962 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
6963 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
6964 libraries.
6965
6966 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
6967 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
6968 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
6969 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
6970 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
6971
6972 * Internal improvements
6973
6974 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
6975 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
6976
6977 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
6978 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
6979 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
6980 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
6981 shared code that handles any of them.
6982
6983 * New command line options
6984
6985 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
6986
6987 * Mmalloc licensing
6988
6989 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
6990 General Public License.
6991
6992 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
6993
6994 * Host/native/target split
6995
6996 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
6997 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
6998 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
6999 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
7000 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
7001
7002 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
7003 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
7004 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
7005 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
7006 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
7007 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
7008 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
7009
7010 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
7011 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
7012 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
7013
7014 * New hosts supported
7015
7016 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
7017 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
7018 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
7019
7020 * New targets supported
7021
7022 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
7023 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
7024
7025 * New native hosts supported
7026
7027 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
7028 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
7029 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
7030
7031 * New file formats supported
7032
7033 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
7034 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
7035 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
7036
7037 * New commands
7038
7039 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
7040 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
7041 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
7042
7043 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
7044
7045 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
7046 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
7047 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
7048 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
7049
7050 * C++ improvements
7051
7052 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
7053 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
7054 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
7055
7056 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
7057
7058 * Major bug fixes
7059
7060 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
7061 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
7062 by the compiler.
7063
7064 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
7065 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
7066
7067 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
7068 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
7069 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
7070 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
7071 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
7072 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
7073
7074 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
7075 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
7076 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
7077 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
7078
7079 * AMD 29k support
7080
7081 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
7082 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
7083 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
7084 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
7085 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
7086
7087 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
7088 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
7089 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
7090 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
7091
7092 * Remote interfaces
7093
7094 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
7095 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
7096 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
7097 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
7098 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
7099 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
7100 each instruction being stepped through.
7101
7102 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
7103 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
7104
7105 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
7106 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
7107 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
7108 processor with a serial port.
7109
7110 * Configuration
7111
7112 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
7113 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
7114 supported, and what files each one uses.
7115
7116 * Library changes
7117
7118 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
7119 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
7120 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
7121 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
7122
7123 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
7124 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
7125 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
7126 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
7127
7128 * Documentation
7129
7130 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
7131 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
7132 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
7133 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
7134 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
7135 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
7136
7137 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
7138
7139
7140 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
7141
7142 * Better support for C++ function names
7143
7144 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
7145 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
7146 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
7147 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
7148 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
7149
7150 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
7151 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
7152 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
7153 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
7154 for the list of formats.
7155
7156 * G++ symbol mangling problem
7157
7158 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
7159 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
7160 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
7161 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
7162 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
7163 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
7164 this problem.)
7165
7166 * New 'maintenance' command
7167
7168 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
7169 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
7170 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
7171
7172 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
7173 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
7174 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
7175 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
7176 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
7177 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
7178
7179 The following commands are new:
7180
7181 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
7182 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
7183 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
7184
7185 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
7186
7187 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
7188 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
7189 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
7190 read after argv processing.
7191
7192 * New hosts supported
7193
7194 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
7195
7196 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
7197
7198 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
7199 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
7200 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
7201 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
7202 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
7203 It costs extra.
7204
7205 * New targets supported
7206
7207 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7208
7209 * More smarts about finding #include files
7210
7211 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
7212 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
7213 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
7214 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
7215 the one that contains your sources.
7216
7217 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
7218 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
7219 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
7220
7221 * Interesting infernals change
7222
7223 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
7224 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
7225 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
7226 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
7227
7228 * Bug fixes (of course!)
7229
7230 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
7231 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
7232 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
7233
7234 See the ChangeLog for details.
7235
7236 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
7237
7238 * New machines supported (host and target)
7239
7240 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
7241
7242 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
7243
7244 * New malloc package
7245
7246 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
7247 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
7248 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
7249 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
7250 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
7251 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
7252
7253 * info proc
7254
7255 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
7256 'help info proc' for details.
7257
7258 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
7259
7260 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
7261 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
7262 possible.
7263
7264 * File name changes for MS-DOS
7265
7266 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
7267 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
7268 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
7269 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
7270 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
7271 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
7272
7273 * Cross byte order fixes
7274
7275 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
7276 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
7277
7278 * New -mapped and -readnow options
7279
7280 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
7281 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
7282 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
7283 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
7284 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
7285 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
7286 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
7287 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
7288 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
7289 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
7290
7291 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
7292 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
7293 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
7294 slower, but makes future operations faster.
7295
7296 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
7297 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
7298 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
7299 use is:
7300
7301 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
7302
7303 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
7304 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
7305 shared across multiple host platforms.
7306
7307 * longjmp() handling
7308
7309 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
7310 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
7311 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
7312 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
7313
7314 * Solaris 2.0
7315
7316 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
7317 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
7318 reading symbols.
7319
7320 * Bug fixes
7321
7322 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
7323 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
7324 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
7325
7326 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
7327
7328 * New machines supported (host and target)
7329
7330 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7331 (except core files)
7332 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
7333 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
7334
7335 * New machines supported (target)
7336
7337 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7338
7339 * C++ support
7340
7341 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
7342 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
7343 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
7344
7345 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
7346 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
7347 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
7348 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
7349 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
7350 released.
7351
7352 * New features for SVR4
7353
7354 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
7355 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
7356 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
7357
7358 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
7359 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
7360 it prints the address mappings of the process.
7361
7362 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
7363 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
7364
7365 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
7366
7367 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
7368 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
7369 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
7370 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
7371 same code linked statically.
7372
7373 * New Getopt
7374
7375 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
7376 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
7377 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
7378 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
7379 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
7380 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
7381
7382 * Bugs fixed
7383
7384 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7385 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7386 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7387
7388
7389 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
7390
7391 * New machines supported (host and target)
7392
7393 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
7394 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
7395 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7396
7397 * Almost SCO Unix support
7398
7399 We had hoped to support:
7400 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7401 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
7402 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
7403 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
7404
7405 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
7406
7407 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
7408 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
7409 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
7410 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
7411 reqired (if any).
7412
7413 * New Readline
7414
7415 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
7416 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
7417 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
7418
7419 * Bugs fixed
7420
7421 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7422 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7423 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7424
7425 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
7426
7427 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
7428 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
7429 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
7430
7431 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
7432 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
7433 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
7434 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
7435 version 2.
7436
7437 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
7438 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
7439 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
7440 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
7441 situation somewhat.
7442
7443 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
7444 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
7445 methods.
7446
7447 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
7448 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
7449 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7450
7451
7452 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7453
7454 * Improved configuration
7455
7456 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7457 Porting BFD is simpler.
7458
7459 * Stepping improved
7460
7461 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7462 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7463 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7464 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7465
7466 * Bug fixing
7467
7468 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7469
7470 * New host supported (not target)
7471
7472 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7473
7474
7475 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7476
7477 * Multiple source language support
7478
7479 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7480 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7481 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7482 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7483 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7484 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7485
7486 * GDB and Modula-2
7487
7488 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7489 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7490 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7491 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7492
7493 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7494 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7495 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7496
7497 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7498 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7499
7500 * set write on/off
7501
7502 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7503 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7504 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7505 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7506 effect immediately.
7507
7508 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7509
7510 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7511 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7512 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7513 examining core files.
7514
7515 * set listsize
7516
7517 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7518 The default is 10.
7519
7520 * New machines supported (host and target)
7521
7522 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7523 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7524 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7525
7526 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7527
7528 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7529
7530 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7531
7532 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7533 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7534 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7535
7536 * New remote interfaces
7537
7538 AMD 29000 Adapt
7539 AMD 29000 Minimon
7540
7541
7542 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7543
7544 * New Facilities
7545
7546 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7547
7548 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7549 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7550 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7551 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7552 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7553 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7554 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7555 stub on the target system.
7556
7557 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7558
7559 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7560 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7561 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7562
7563 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7564 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7565
7566
7567 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7568
7569 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
7570 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
7571
7572 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
7573 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
7574 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
7575
7576 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
7577 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
7578 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
7579 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
7580
7581 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
7582 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
7583 it is already running. Default is ON.
7584
7585 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
7586 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
7587 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
7588 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
7589 Default is ON.
7590
7591 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
7592 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
7593 or the value of the environment variable
7594 GDBHISTFILE.
7595
7596 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
7597 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
7598 HISTSIZE.
7599
7600 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
7601 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
7602 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
7603
7604 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
7605 history expansion will be performed on
7606 command line input. The default is OFF.
7607
7608 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
7609 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
7610 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
7611
7612 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
7613 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
7614 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7615 variable TERM.
7616
7617 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
7618 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
7619 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7620 variable TERM.
7621
7622 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
7623 ``set width'' instead.
7624
7625 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
7626 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
7627 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
7628 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
7629
7630 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
7631 is OFF.
7632
7633 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
7634 "raw" form if off.
7635
7636 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
7637 like instructions.
7638
7639 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
7640
7641
7642 * Support for Epoch Environment.
7643
7644 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
7645 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
7646 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
7647 window.
7648
7649
7650 * Support for Shared Libraries
7651
7652 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
7653 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
7654 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
7655 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
7656 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
7657 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
7658 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
7659 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
7660
7661 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
7662 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
7663 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
7664
7665 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
7666
7667
7668 * Watchpoints
7669
7670 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
7671 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
7672 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
7673 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
7674 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
7675 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
7676
7677 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
7678
7679 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
7680
7681 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7682 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7683 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7684
7685
7686 * C++ multiple inheritance
7687
7688 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
7689 for C++ programs.
7690
7691 * C++ exception handling
7692
7693 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
7694 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
7695 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
7696 handler's context).
7697
7698 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
7699 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
7700 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
7701
7702 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
7703 current stack frame.
7704
7705
7706 * Minor command changes
7707
7708 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7709 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7710 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7711
7712 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7713 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7714 frames without printing.
7715
7716 * New directory command
7717
7718 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7719 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7720 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7721 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7722 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7723
7724 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7725
7726 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7727 for more details.
7728
7729 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7730 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7731 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
7732 where the program that you are debugging will run.
This page took 0.185306 seconds and 5 git commands to generate.