1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.12
6 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
7 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
8 available in future Intel CPUs.
10 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
14 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
15 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
17 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
20 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
22 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
24 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
25 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
28 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
30 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
31 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
33 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
35 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
36 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
37 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
38 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
41 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
43 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
44 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
47 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
49 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
50 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
52 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
54 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
59 eval "print $arg%d", $i
64 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
66 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
67 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
69 * New native configurations
71 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
76 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
77 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
82 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
87 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
88 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
90 -file-list-shared-libraries
91 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
92 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
96 set disassembler-options
97 show disassembler-options
98 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
99 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
100 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
101 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
102 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
104 maint print arc arc-instruction address
105 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
107 * Removed targets and native configurations
109 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
110 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
112 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
114 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
116 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
117 default. One must now explicitly configure with
118 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
119 option will be removed in a future release.
121 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
124 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
125 memory backward from the given address. For example:
128 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
129 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
130 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
131 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
132 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
133 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
134 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
135 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
136 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
138 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
139 arrays of dynamic types.
141 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
142 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
143 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
144 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
145 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
146 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
148 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
151 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
152 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
153 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
155 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
157 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
158 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
159 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
160 signal received and code location.
164 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
165 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
166 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
167 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
169 * Rust language support.
170 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
171 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
174 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
176 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
177 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
178 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
179 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
180 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
181 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
182 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
183 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
184 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
185 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
188 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
190 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
191 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
196 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
197 skip -function function
198 skip -rfunction regular-expression
199 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
200 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
201 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
203 maint info line-table REGEXP
204 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data struture.
207 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
210 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
211 using the TTY file for input/output.
215 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
216 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
217 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
218 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
219 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
222 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
223 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
224 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
225 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
228 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
229 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
230 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
232 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
235 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
236 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
237 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
238 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
239 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
240 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
242 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
243 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
244 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
245 bytecode into native code.
247 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
248 recording. For example:
250 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
252 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
254 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
258 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
260 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
262 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
264 * Per-inferior thread numbers
266 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
267 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
268 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
272 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
273 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
274 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
275 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
277 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
278 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
279 are no longer unique between inferiors.
281 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
282 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
283 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
285 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
288 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
289 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
292 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
295 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
296 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
297 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
298 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
301 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
304 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
307 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
310 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
311 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
314 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
315 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
317 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
319 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
321 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
322 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
324 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
325 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
328 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
329 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
332 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
333 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
336 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
338 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
339 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
340 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
342 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
343 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
347 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
348 maint show target-non-stop
349 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
350 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
351 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
353 maint set bfd-sharing
354 maint show bfd-sharing
355 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
359 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
363 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
365 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
366 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
367 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
369 set remote thread-events
370 show remote thread-events
371 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
373 set ada print-signatures on|off
374 show ada print-signatures"
375 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
376 selection menus. It is activaled (@code{on}) by default.
380 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
381 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
382 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
384 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
385 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
386 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
387 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
388 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
389 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
391 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
392 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
394 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
395 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
397 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
399 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
400 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
401 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
402 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
403 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
404 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
406 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
407 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
412 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
414 exec-events feature in qSupported
415 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
416 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
417 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
418 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
421 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
424 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
425 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
427 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
428 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
431 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
432 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
433 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
434 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
435 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
436 stop for that same thread.
439 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
440 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
441 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
444 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
445 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
447 syscall_entry stop reason
448 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
450 syscall_return stop reason
451 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
453 * Extended-remote exec events
455 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
456 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
457 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
459 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
460 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
461 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
463 * Thread names in remote protocol
465 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
468 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
470 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
471 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
472 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
473 fork and exec catchpoints.
475 * Remote syscall events
477 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
478 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
480 set remote catch-syscall-packet
481 show remote catch-syscall-packet
482 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
486 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
487 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
492 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
493 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
494 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
495 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
496 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
497 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
499 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
501 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
502 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
503 including advance SIMD instructions.
505 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
507 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
508 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
509 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
510 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
511 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
512 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
513 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
515 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
517 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
519 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
520 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
523 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
524 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
525 and may include things like its command line arguments.
527 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
528 is now available on all platforms.
530 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
531 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
532 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
533 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
534 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
535 backward compatibility.
537 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
538 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
539 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
540 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
542 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
543 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
544 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
545 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
548 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
550 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
552 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
553 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
554 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
555 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
556 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
557 See "New remote packets" below.
559 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
560 available register groups, including target specific groups.
562 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
563 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
564 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
565 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
570 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
574 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
575 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
576 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
577 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
578 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
579 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
580 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
581 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
582 "const" version of the value respectively.
586 maint print symbol-cache
587 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
589 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
590 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
592 maint flush-symbol-cache
593 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
597 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
600 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
604 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
607 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
608 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
612 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
615 Print information about branch tracing internals.
617 maint btrace packet-history
618 Print the raw branch tracing data.
620 maint btrace clear-packet-history
621 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
624 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
625 anew by the next "record" command.
630 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
632 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
635 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
636 show debug dwarf-read
637 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
639 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
640 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
641 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
642 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
644 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
645 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
646 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
647 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
650 show debug dwarf-line
651 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
655 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
656 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
657 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
658 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
660 set history remove-duplicates
661 show history remove-duplicates
662 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
664 maint set symbol-cache-size
665 maint show symbol-cache-size
666 Control the size of the symbol cache.
668 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
669 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
671 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
672 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
674 set debug linux-namespaces
675 show debug linux-namespaces
676 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
678 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
679 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
680 Intel Processor Trace format.
681 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
682 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
684 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
685 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
688 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
689 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
691 * Python/Guile scripting
693 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
694 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
698 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
699 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
701 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
702 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
705 Enable Intel Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
706 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
710 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
714 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
715 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
716 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
720 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
721 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
724 Return information about files on the remote system.
727 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
728 create a process running on the remote system.
731 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
732 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
733 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
734 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
737 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
740 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
742 vforkdone stop reason
743 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
744 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
746 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
747 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
748 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
749 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
750 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
751 whether these features are enabled.
753 * Extended-remote fork events
755 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
756 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
757 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
758 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
760 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
761 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
762 the btrace record target.
763 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
765 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
766 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
768 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
771 * Removed command line options
773 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
775 * Removed targets and native configurations
777 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
778 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
780 * New configure options
783 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
784 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
786 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
787 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
788 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
789 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
791 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
795 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
797 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
799 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
803 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
804 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
805 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
806 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
807 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
808 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
809 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
810 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
811 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
812 selecting a new file to debug.
813 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
814 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
816 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
819 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
820 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
821 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
822 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
824 * New Python-based convenience functions:
826 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
827 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
828 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
829 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
831 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
832 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
833 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
834 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
835 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
836 interface with this new feature are:
838 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
839 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
843 demangle [-l language] [--] name
844 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
845 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
846 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
847 as "maint demangler-warning".
849 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
850 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
852 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
853 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
856 maint print user-registers
857 List all currently available "user" registers.
859 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
860 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
861 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
863 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
864 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
865 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
868 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
869 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
870 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
871 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
874 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
875 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
876 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
877 switched threads meanwhile.
879 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
881 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
882 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
883 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
884 is now the default mode.
888 set debug symbol-lookup
889 show debug symbol-lookup
890 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
894 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
895 inferiors that have exited.
899 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
903 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
905 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
906 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
907 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
908 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
909 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
911 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
912 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
913 its alias "share", instead.
915 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
917 * New command line options
920 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
922 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
923 as specified in ISO C99.
925 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
926 with or without disassembly.
930 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
931 available is determined at configure time.
932 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
933 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
935 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
939 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
943 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
945 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
946 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
948 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
949 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
953 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
954 show print symbol-loading
955 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
956 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
957 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
960 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
961 show guile print-stack
962 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
964 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
965 show auto-load guile-scripts
966 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
968 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
969 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
970 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
971 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
972 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
973 usage of this option.
975 set auto-connect-native-target
977 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
978 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
979 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
981 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
982 show record btrace replay-memory-access
983 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
985 maint set target-async (on|off)
986 maint show target-async
987 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
988 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
989 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
990 occurring only in synchronous mode.
992 set mi-async (on|off)
994 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
995 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
997 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
998 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
1000 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
1001 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
1002 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
1003 "set target-async on" command.
1005 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1007 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
1008 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
1009 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
1010 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
1011 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
1013 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
1014 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
1015 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
1017 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
1018 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
1019 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
1020 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
1021 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
1022 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
1023 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
1025 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
1026 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
1028 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
1029 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
1030 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
1032 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
1033 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
1034 memory or registers.
1036 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
1038 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
1039 remote. It now works with all targets.
1041 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
1042 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
1043 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
1044 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
1045 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
1046 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
1047 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
1048 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
1049 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
1052 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
1053 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
1054 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
1056 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
1058 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
1059 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
1060 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
1062 * New remote packets
1064 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
1065 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
1066 branch trace incrementally.
1070 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
1071 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
1073 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
1074 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
1075 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
1076 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
1077 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
1080 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
1082 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1083 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1084 its alias "share", instead.
1086 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
1087 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
1092 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
1093 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
1094 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
1095 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
1096 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
1097 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
1098 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
1099 commands and CLI execution commands.
1101 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
1103 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
1104 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
1105 recording has been added.
1107 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1109 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
1110 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
1112 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
1113 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
1114 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
1115 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
1116 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
1117 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
1120 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
1122 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
1124 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
1125 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
1126 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
1127 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
1132 (gdb) info registers rax
1135 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
1136 "*value not available*".
1138 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
1143 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
1144 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
1145 ** Line tables representation has been added.
1146 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
1147 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
1148 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
1152 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
1153 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
1154 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
1156 * Removed native configurations
1158 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
1159 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
1161 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1162 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1163 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
1164 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
1165 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1166 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1167 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1171 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
1172 maint check-psymtabs
1173 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
1175 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
1176 maint expand-symtabs
1177 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
1180 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1182 maint set|show per-command
1183 maint set|show per-command space
1184 maint set|show per-command time
1185 maint set|show per-command symtab
1186 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
1188 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
1189 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
1190 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
1191 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
1192 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
1195 info exceptions REGEXP
1196 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
1197 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
1202 set debug symfile off|on
1204 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
1205 symbol tables within those files
1207 set print raw frame-arguments
1208 show print raw frame-arguments
1209 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
1210 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
1212 set remote trace-status-packet
1213 show remote trace-status-packet
1214 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
1218 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
1222 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
1224 set startup-with-shell
1225 show startup-with-shell
1226 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
1231 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
1232 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
1234 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
1235 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
1236 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
1237 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
1240 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
1241 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
1242 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
1244 * New command-line options
1246 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1248 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
1249 buffer in Common Trace Format.
1251 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
1254 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
1256 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
1257 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
1259 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
1260 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
1262 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
1263 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
1264 due to an uncaught signal.
1268 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
1269 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
1270 command, which should contain "language-option".
1272 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
1273 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
1275 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
1276 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
1277 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
1278 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
1279 "undefined-command-error-code".
1281 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
1284 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
1286 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
1287 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
1290 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
1291 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
1293 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
1294 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
1295 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
1297 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
1298 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
1299 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
1300 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
1301 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
1302 "exec-run-start-option".
1304 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
1305 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
1307 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
1308 the new "info exceptions" command.
1310 * New system-wide configuration scripts
1311 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
1312 configuration scripts for the following systems:
1316 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
1317 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
1318 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
1321 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
1322 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
1324 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
1325 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
1326 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
1328 * New remote packets
1332 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
1333 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
1334 involvemement at each single-step.
1336 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
1337 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
1338 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
1339 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
1340 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
1341 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
1344 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1346 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
1347 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
1349 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
1350 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
1351 trace state variables.
1353 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
1356 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
1357 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
1359 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
1361 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
1362 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
1363 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
1364 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1366 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
1368 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
1369 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
1370 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
1371 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
1373 set|show record full insn-number-max
1374 set|show record full stop-at-limit
1375 set|show record full memory-query
1377 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
1378 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
1379 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
1380 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
1381 This new recording method can be enabled using:
1385 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
1386 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
1388 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
1389 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
1390 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
1392 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
1393 instruction granularity
1395 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
1396 function granularity
1398 * New native configurations
1400 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
1401 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
1402 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
1403 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
1407 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
1408 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
1409 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
1410 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
1411 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
1413 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
1414 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
1415 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
1416 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
1417 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
1418 --data-directory command-line option.
1420 * New command line options:
1422 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
1423 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
1425 * Removed command line options
1427 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
1430 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
1433 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
1437 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
1439 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
1441 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
1443 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
1445 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
1446 of architecture in the Python API.
1448 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
1449 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
1451 * New Python-based convenience functions:
1453 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
1454 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
1456 ** $_regex(str, regex)
1458 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
1461 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
1462 default for GCC since November 2000.
1464 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
1466 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
1467 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
1469 * New configure options
1471 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
1472 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
1473 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
1474 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
1475 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
1476 options allow the user to override that default.
1477 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
1478 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
1479 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
1481 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1484 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
1485 conditions to be attached.
1488 List the BFDs known to GDB.
1490 python-interactive [command]
1492 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
1493 and print the result of expressions.
1496 "py" is a new alias for "python".
1498 enable type-printer [name]...
1499 disable type-printer [name]...
1500 Enable or disable type printers.
1504 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
1505 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
1510 set print type methods (on|off)
1511 show print type methods
1512 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
1513 The default is to show them.
1515 set print type typedefs (on|off)
1516 show print type typedefs
1517 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
1518 The default is to show them.
1520 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
1521 show filename-display
1522 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
1523 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
1525 set trace-buffer-size
1526 show trace-buffer-size
1527 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
1529 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
1530 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
1531 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
1535 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
1538 set debug coff-pe-read
1539 show debug coff-pe-read
1540 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
1545 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
1548 set debug notification
1549 show debug notification
1550 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
1554 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
1555 "=cmd-param-changed".
1556 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
1557 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
1558 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
1559 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
1560 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
1561 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
1562 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
1563 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
1565 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
1566 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
1567 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
1568 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
1569 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
1570 library load/unload events.
1571 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
1572 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
1573 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
1574 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
1575 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
1576 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
1577 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
1578 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
1580 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
1581 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
1582 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
1583 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
1585 * New remote packets
1588 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
1589 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1592 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
1593 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
1597 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
1598 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1601 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
1602 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1604 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
1606 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
1607 for more x32 ABI info.
1609 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
1611 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
1613 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1614 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
1615 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
1616 "info os files" lists file descriptors
1617 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
1618 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
1619 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
1620 "info os msg" lists message queues
1621 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
1623 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
1624 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
1625 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
1626 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
1627 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
1628 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
1630 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
1631 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
1632 record/replay support.
1634 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
1638 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
1641 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
1643 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
1644 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
1646 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
1648 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
1649 the source at which the symbol was defined.
1651 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
1652 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
1653 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
1656 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
1657 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
1659 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
1660 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
1661 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
1663 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
1664 object associated with a PC value.
1666 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
1667 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
1669 * Go language support.
1670 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
1673 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
1674 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
1676 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
1677 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
1679 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
1680 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
1681 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
1682 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
1683 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
1686 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
1687 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
1688 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
1689 build/libcpp/expr.c.
1691 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
1692 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
1694 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
1695 since December 2007.
1697 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
1698 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
1699 command does. For instance:
1701 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
1703 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
1704 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
1705 created, using the "condition" command.
1707 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
1708 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
1710 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
1712 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
1713 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
1714 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
1715 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
1716 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
1717 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
1718 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
1719 files with older .gdb_index sections.
1721 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
1722 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
1723 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
1724 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
1725 the .gdb_index section.
1727 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
1729 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
1734 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
1736 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
1740 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1741 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1742 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
1744 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
1745 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
1747 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
1750 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
1751 C++ and Java objects.
1753 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
1754 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
1755 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
1756 configured with '--with-python'.
1758 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
1759 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
1760 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
1761 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
1762 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
1763 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
1764 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
1766 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
1767 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
1768 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
1769 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
1771 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
1772 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
1773 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
1774 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
1776 ** "set print symbol"
1778 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
1779 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
1780 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
1782 * Deprecated commands
1784 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
1785 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
1789 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1790 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
1792 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
1793 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
1794 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
1795 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
1800 set mips compression
1801 show mips compression
1802 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
1803 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
1806 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
1808 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
1809 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
1810 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
1811 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
1813 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
1817 Disable auto-loading globally.
1820 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
1822 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
1823 show auto-load gdb-scripts
1824 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
1826 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
1827 show auto-load python-scripts
1828 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
1830 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
1831 show auto-load local-gdbinit
1832 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
1834 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
1835 show auto-load libthread-db
1836 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
1838 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
1839 show auto-load scripts-directory
1840 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
1841 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
1842 of the directories listed by this option.
1843 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1845 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
1846 show auto-load safe-path
1847 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
1848 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1850 set debug auto-load on|off
1851 show debug auto-load
1852 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
1854 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
1856 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
1857 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
1858 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
1859 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
1861 set dprintf-function <expr>
1862 show dprintf-function
1863 set dprintf-channel <expr>
1864 show dprintf-channel
1865 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
1866 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
1868 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
1869 show disconnected-dprintf
1870 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
1871 after GDB disconnects.
1873 * New configure options
1875 --with-auto-load-dir
1876 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
1877 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
1878 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
1879 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
1880 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
1882 --with-auto-load-safe-path
1883 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
1884 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
1886 --without-auto-load-safe-path
1887 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
1890 * New remote packets
1892 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
1894 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
1895 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
1896 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
1897 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
1901 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
1902 program without GDB involvement.
1904 * New command line options
1906 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
1907 before loading inferior.
1908 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
1909 execute it before loading inferior.
1911 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
1913 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
1914 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
1915 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
1916 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
1919 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
1920 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
1922 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
1923 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
1924 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
1925 target hardware watchpoint.
1927 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
1928 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
1929 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
1930 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
1934 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
1935 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
1938 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
1939 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
1940 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
1941 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
1942 now "message", which just prints the error message without
1945 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
1948 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
1949 modules library. This module provides functionality for
1950 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
1951 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
1952 corresponding value.
1954 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
1955 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
1956 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
1959 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
1960 static_block will return the global and static blocks
1961 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
1962 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
1964 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
1966 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
1969 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
1970 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
1971 available in the CLI.
1973 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
1974 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
1975 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
1976 "some_type.items()".
1978 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
1981 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
1982 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
1983 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
1984 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
1985 any anonymous fields.
1989 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
1992 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
1993 "=breakpoint-modified".
1995 ** New command -ada-task-info.
1997 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
1998 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
1999 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
2002 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
2003 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
2004 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
2005 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
2006 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
2008 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
2009 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
2011 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
2012 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
2013 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
2014 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
2015 use this option to specify where to find it.
2017 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2018 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
2019 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
2020 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
2021 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
2022 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2023 section in the user manual for more details.
2025 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
2026 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
2027 become available after that.
2029 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
2031 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
2032 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
2038 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
2039 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
2043 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
2044 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
2045 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
2047 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
2048 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
2049 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
2051 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
2052 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
2053 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
2054 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
2055 name starts with a hyphen.
2057 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
2058 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
2059 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
2060 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
2061 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
2062 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
2063 number of bytes that will be collected.
2066 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
2067 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
2068 setting the variable trace-notes.
2071 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
2072 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
2073 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
2076 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
2077 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
2078 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
2079 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
2080 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
2083 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
2084 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
2085 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
2089 set debug dwarf2-read
2090 show debug dwarf2-read
2091 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
2092 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
2094 set debug symtab-create
2095 show debug symtab-create
2096 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
2097 creation. The default is off.
2100 show extended-prompt
2101 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
2102 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
2103 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
2104 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
2105 prompt is displayed.
2107 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
2108 show print entry-values
2109 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
2110 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
2111 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
2113 set debug entry-values
2114 show debug entry-values
2115 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
2116 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
2118 set basenames-may-differ
2119 show basenames-may-differ
2120 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
2121 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
2122 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
2123 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
2124 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
2125 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
2126 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
2127 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
2133 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
2134 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
2135 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
2136 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
2138 set trace-stop-notes
2139 show trace-stop-notes
2140 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
2141 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
2142 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
2143 started by someone else.
2145 * New remote packets
2149 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2153 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2157 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
2161 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
2165 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
2168 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
2169 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
2173 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
2177 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2179 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
2181 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
2183 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
2185 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
2186 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
2187 matches the given regular expression.
2189 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
2191 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
2192 dumping the instruction opcodes.
2194 * New command line options
2196 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
2197 This is mostly for testing purposes.
2199 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
2200 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
2202 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
2203 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
2204 source path list instead of augmenting it.
2206 * GDB now understands thread names.
2208 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
2209 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
2211 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
2212 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
2215 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
2216 has been integrated into GDB.
2220 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
2221 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
2222 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
2224 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2225 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
2226 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
2227 and allows for more dynamic content.
2229 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
2230 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
2231 have an is_valid method.
2233 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2234 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
2235 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
2237 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
2239 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
2240 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
2241 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
2242 that function like so:
2244 result = some_value (10,20)
2246 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
2247 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
2248 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
2250 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
2251 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
2252 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
2253 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
2254 New function: register_pretty_printer.
2256 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
2257 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
2259 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
2261 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
2264 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
2265 holds the thread's name.
2267 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
2268 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
2269 occurring in the process being debugged.
2270 The following events are currently supported:
2271 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
2272 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
2273 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
2277 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
2278 instantiation. For example, if you have:
2280 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
2282 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
2283 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
2284 was added to GCC 4.5.
2286 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
2287 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
2288 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
2289 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
2290 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
2291 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
2293 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
2294 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
2295 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
2296 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
2297 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
2299 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
2300 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
2301 execution to a label.
2303 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
2304 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
2305 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
2306 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
2308 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
2309 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
2310 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
2313 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
2315 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
2316 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
2317 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
2318 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
2319 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
2320 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
2323 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
2325 While now you see this:
2328 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
2330 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
2333 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
2334 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
2335 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
2336 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
2338 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2339 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
2340 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
2341 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2342 section in the user manual for more details.
2344 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2346 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
2347 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
2349 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
2351 * New native configurations
2353 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
2357 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
2359 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
2360 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
2361 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
2362 in the GDB user manual.
2364 * Guile support was removed.
2366 * New features in the GNU simulator
2368 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
2370 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
2372 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
2374 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
2376 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
2377 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
2378 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
2379 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
2380 was always disabled for such configurations.
2384 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
2386 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
2387 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
2397 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
2398 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
2399 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
2401 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
2403 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
2404 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
2405 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
2406 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
2408 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
2409 mentioned flavors of operators.
2411 ** static const class members
2413 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
2414 class definition has been fixed.
2416 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
2418 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
2419 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
2420 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
2421 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
2422 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
2423 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
2425 * Static tracepoints
2427 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
2428 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
2429 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
2430 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
2431 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
2432 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
2433 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
2434 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
2435 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
2436 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
2437 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
2438 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
2439 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
2440 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
2441 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
2442 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
2443 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
2444 the "New remote packets" section below.
2446 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
2448 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
2449 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
2450 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
2451 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
2455 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
2456 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
2457 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
2458 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
2459 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
2460 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
2461 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
2463 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
2466 * New remote packets
2470 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
2474 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
2475 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
2476 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
2477 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
2478 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
2479 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
2483 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
2487 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
2490 qXfer:statictrace:read
2492 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
2493 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
2494 to gdb's qSupported query.
2498 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
2502 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
2503 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
2505 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
2506 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
2509 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2511 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
2512 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
2513 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
2514 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
2516 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
2517 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
2518 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
2519 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
2520 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
2521 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
2522 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
2524 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
2525 for static tracepoints support.
2527 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
2529 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
2530 it understands register description.
2532 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
2534 * X86 general purpose registers
2536 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
2537 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
2538 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
2539 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
2540 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
2542 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
2543 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
2544 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
2545 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
2546 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
2547 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
2549 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
2550 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
2551 in the specified file.
2553 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
2554 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
2555 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
2556 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
2557 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
2558 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
2559 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
2560 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
2561 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
2562 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
2566 eval template, expressions...
2567 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
2568 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
2570 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
2571 show target-file-system-kind
2572 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
2575 save breakpoints <filename>
2576 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
2577 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
2578 definitions, use the `source' command.
2580 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
2583 info static-tracepoint-markers
2584 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
2586 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
2587 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
2588 function, line, address, or marker ID.
2592 Enable and disable observer mode.
2594 set may-write-registers on|off
2595 set may-write-memory on|off
2596 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
2597 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
2598 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
2599 set may-interrupt on|off
2600 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
2601 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
2602 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
2603 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
2604 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
2605 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
2606 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
2608 set record memory-query on|off
2609 show record memory-query
2610 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
2611 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
2616 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
2620 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
2621 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
2622 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
2623 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
2624 GDB using Python' in the manual.
2626 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
2627 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
2628 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
2629 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
2631 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
2632 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
2634 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
2636 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
2638 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
2640 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
2641 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
2642 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
2644 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
2645 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
2646 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
2647 regular breakpoints.
2651 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
2653 * D language support.
2654 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
2657 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
2658 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
2659 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
2660 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
2661 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
2663 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
2664 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
2665 conditions of the form:
2667 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
2669 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
2670 interface mentioned above.
2672 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
2676 ** Namespace Support
2678 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
2679 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
2680 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
2681 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
2682 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
2686 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
2687 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
2692 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
2693 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
2697 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
2702 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
2705 * Multi-program debugging.
2707 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
2708 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
2709 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
2710 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
2711 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
2712 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
2713 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
2714 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
2716 * New tracing features
2718 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
2720 ** Trace state variables
2722 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
2723 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
2724 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
2725 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
2726 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
2727 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
2728 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
2729 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
2730 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
2731 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
2735 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
2736 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
2737 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
2738 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
2739 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
2740 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
2741 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
2742 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
2743 the regular trace command.
2745 ** Disconnected tracing
2747 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
2748 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
2749 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
2750 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
2751 connection is lost unexpectedly.
2755 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
2756 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
2757 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
2758 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
2759 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
2760 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
2763 ** Circular trace buffer
2765 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
2766 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
2767 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
2768 not be available for all target agents.
2773 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
2774 the arguments to be comma-separated.
2777 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
2778 which only declare a variable are not shown.
2781 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
2782 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
2785 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
2786 "set script-extension" (see below).
2788 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2790 record save [<FILENAME>]
2791 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
2792 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
2794 record restore <FILENAME>
2795 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
2796 earlier time, for replay debugging.
2798 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
2801 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
2802 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
2803 inferior has loaded.
2808 maint info program-spaces
2809 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
2811 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
2812 show remote interrupt-sequence
2813 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
2814 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
2815 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
2816 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
2817 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
2819 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
2820 show remote interrupt-on-connect
2821 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
2822 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
2825 set remotebreak [on | off]
2827 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
2829 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
2830 Create or modify a trace state variable.
2833 List trace state variables and their values.
2835 delete tvariable $NAME ...
2836 Delete one or more trace state variables.
2839 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
2840 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
2842 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
2843 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
2845 * New expression syntax
2847 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
2848 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
2852 set follow-exec-mode new|same
2853 show follow-exec-mode
2854 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
2855 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
2856 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
2858 set default-collect EXPR, ...
2859 show default-collect
2860 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
2861 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
2862 such as registers or a critical global variable.
2864 set disconnected-tracing
2865 show disconnected-tracing
2866 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
2867 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
2870 set circular-trace-buffer
2871 show circular-trace-buffer
2872 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
2873 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
2874 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
2875 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
2877 set script-extension off|soft|strict
2878 show script-extension
2879 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
2880 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
2881 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
2882 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
2884 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
2886 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
2887 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
2888 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
2889 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
2890 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
2891 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
2892 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
2895 * Python API Improvements
2897 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
2898 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
2899 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
2901 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
2902 `is_base_class' attribute.
2904 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
2906 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
2907 evaluate an expression.
2909 * New remote packets
2912 Define a trace state variable.
2915 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
2918 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
2921 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
2924 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
2928 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
2930 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
2931 much more reliable. In particular:
2932 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
2933 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
2934 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
2935 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
2936 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
2937 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
2938 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
2939 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
2940 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
2941 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
2942 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
2943 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
2944 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
2945 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
2946 non-threaded programs.
2948 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
2949 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
2950 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
2953 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
2955 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
2956 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
2957 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
2958 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
2959 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
2961 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
2962 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
2963 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
2964 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
2965 for tracepoint actions.
2967 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
2968 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
2969 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
2971 * Process record and replay
2973 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
2974 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
2975 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
2978 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
2979 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
2980 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
2983 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
2984 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
2987 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
2988 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
2989 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
2990 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
2991 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
2992 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
2993 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
2994 the installation instructions for more information.
2996 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
2997 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
2998 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
2999 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
3001 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
3002 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
3004 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
3005 now complete on file names.
3007 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
3008 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
3009 For instance, consider:
3011 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
3012 # struct example variable;
3015 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
3016 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
3018 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
3019 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
3021 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
3022 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
3025 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
3026 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
3027 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
3029 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
3030 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
3031 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
3032 and simulator targets may also provide them.
3034 * New remote packets
3037 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3040 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
3041 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
3042 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
3045 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
3046 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
3049 Obtains additional operating system information
3053 Read or write additional signal information.
3055 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
3057 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
3058 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
3059 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
3061 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
3062 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
3064 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
3065 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
3066 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
3068 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
3069 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
3071 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
3073 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
3075 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
3076 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
3078 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
3079 list of section offsets.
3081 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
3082 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
3083 have also been fixed.
3085 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
3086 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
3087 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
3089 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
3092 template<typename T> class C { };
3095 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
3097 ptype C<char const *>
3098 ptype C<char const*>
3099 ptype C<const char *>
3100 ptype C<const char*>
3102 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
3104 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
3105 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3107 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
3108 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3109 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
3111 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
3112 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
3114 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
3117 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
3118 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3120 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
3121 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
3126 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
3127 available is determined at configure time.
3129 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
3131 * Ada tasking support
3133 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
3137 Print the list of Ada tasks.
3139 Print detailed information about task number N.
3141 Print the task number of the current task.
3143 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
3145 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
3146 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
3148 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
3150 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
3151 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
3152 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
3153 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
3154 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
3155 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
3158 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
3159 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
3162 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
3163 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
3164 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
3165 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
3168 * Multi-architecture debugging.
3170 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
3171 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
3172 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
3173 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
3174 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
3176 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
3177 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
3178 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
3179 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
3180 --enable-targets configure option.
3182 * Non-stop mode debugging.
3184 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
3185 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
3186 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
3187 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
3188 section in the user manual for more information.
3190 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
3191 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
3192 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
3193 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
3194 extensions on linux targets.
3196 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3198 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
3199 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
3200 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
3201 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
3202 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
3203 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
3204 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
3205 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
3206 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
3208 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
3210 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3212 maint set python print-stack
3213 maint show python print-stack
3214 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
3217 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
3222 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
3226 Show operating system information about processes.
3229 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
3232 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
3235 Detach from inferior number NUM.
3238 Kill inferior number NUM.
3242 set spu stop-on-load
3243 show spu stop-on-load
3244 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3246 set spu auto-flush-cache
3247 show spu auto-flush-cache
3248 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
3249 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3251 set sh calling-convention
3252 show sh calling-convention
3253 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
3256 show debug timestamp
3257 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
3259 set disassemble-next-line
3260 show disassemble-next-line
3261 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
3264 set remote noack-packet
3265 show remote noack-packet
3266 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
3267 under "New remote packets."
3269 set remote query-attached-packet
3270 show remote query-attached-packet
3271 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
3273 set remote read-siginfo-object
3274 show remote read-siginfo-object
3275 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
3278 set remote write-siginfo-object
3279 show remote write-siginfo-object
3280 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
3283 set remote reverse-continue
3284 show remote reverse-continue
3285 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
3287 set remote reverse-step
3288 show remote reverse-step
3289 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
3291 set displaced-stepping
3292 show displaced-stepping
3293 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
3294 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
3295 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
3298 show debug displaced
3299 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
3301 maint set internal-error
3302 maint show internal-error
3303 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
3305 maint set internal-warning
3306 maint show internal-warning
3307 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
3312 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3314 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
3315 show multiple-symbols
3316 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
3317 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
3318 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
3320 set breakpoint always-inserted
3321 show breakpoint always-inserted
3322 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
3323 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
3324 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
3326 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
3327 show arm fallback-mode
3328 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
3330 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
3331 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
3332 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
3333 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
3335 set disable-randomization
3336 show disable-randomization
3337 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
3338 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
3339 multiple debugging sessions.
3343 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
3348 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
3349 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
3350 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
3351 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
3353 set target-wide-charset
3354 show target-wide-charset
3355 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
3356 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
3358 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
3360 set tcp connect-timeout
3361 show tcp connect-timeout
3362 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
3363 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
3364 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
3366 set libthread-db-search-path
3367 show libthread-db-search-path
3368 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
3371 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
3372 show schedule-multiple
3373 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
3374 the current process.
3378 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
3379 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
3380 affecting correctness.
3382 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
3383 show interactive-mode
3384 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
3385 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
3386 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
3387 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
3388 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
3393 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
3394 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
3395 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
3399 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
3400 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
3401 alias for the `fork' command.
3404 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
3405 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
3406 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
3409 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
3410 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
3411 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
3415 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
3416 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
3417 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
3420 * New native configurations
3422 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
3424 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
3428 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
3429 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
3430 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
3433 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
3434 (mingw32ce) debugging.
3440 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
3442 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
3444 * New native configurations
3446 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
3447 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
3451 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
3452 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
3454 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3456 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
3457 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
3458 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
3459 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
3461 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
3462 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
3464 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
3467 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
3468 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
3469 and in inlined functions.
3471 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
3472 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
3473 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
3475 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
3477 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
3478 registers on PowerPC targets.
3480 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
3481 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
3483 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
3484 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
3486 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
3487 extended-remote mode.
3489 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
3490 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
3491 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
3492 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
3494 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
3495 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
3496 target architectures.
3498 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
3499 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
3500 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
3501 stored in two consecutive float registers.
3503 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
3506 * Improved support for debugging Ada
3507 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
3509 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
3510 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
3511 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
3512 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
3514 - Improved command completion in Ada
3517 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
3522 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
3523 show print frame-arguments
3524 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
3525 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
3530 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
3537 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
3539 * New remote packets
3546 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
3549 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
3553 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
3555 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
3557 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
3558 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
3559 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
3561 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
3562 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
3563 -Bsymbolic linker option.
3565 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
3566 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
3569 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
3570 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
3572 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
3573 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
3575 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
3577 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
3578 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
3579 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
3581 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
3582 automatically displayed as character or string data.
3584 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
3585 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
3588 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
3589 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
3590 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
3592 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
3595 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
3596 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
3597 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
3599 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
3601 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
3603 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
3604 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
3605 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
3607 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
3608 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
3610 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
3611 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
3612 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
3613 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
3614 Windows and SymbianOS).
3616 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
3617 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
3619 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
3620 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
3626 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
3627 when debugging using remote targets.
3629 set mem inaccessible-by-default
3630 show mem inaccessible-by-default
3631 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
3632 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
3633 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
3634 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
3635 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
3637 set breakpoint auto-hw
3638 show breakpoint auto-hw
3639 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
3640 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
3641 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
3642 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
3643 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
3644 including "next" and "finish".
3647 catch exception unhandled
3648 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
3651 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
3655 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
3656 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
3657 an alias to "set sysroot".
3660 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
3661 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
3664 * New native configurations
3666 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
3669 unset tdesc filename
3671 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
3672 not query the target for its built-in description.
3676 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
3677 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
3678 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
3680 * New remote packets
3683 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
3684 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
3686 qXfer:features:read:
3687 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
3692 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
3693 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
3695 qXfer:libraries:read:
3696 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
3697 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
3698 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
3699 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
3703 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
3711 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
3712 i[34567]86-*-netware*
3713 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
3714 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
3716 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
3719 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
3720 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
3729 * Other removed features
3736 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
3743 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
3748 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
3749 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
3754 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
3755 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
3757 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
3759 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
3760 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
3761 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
3762 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
3764 MIPS ".pdr" sections
3766 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
3767 in debugging information.
3771 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
3772 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
3774 set mips stack-arg-size
3775 set mips saved-gpreg-size
3777 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
3779 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
3784 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
3786 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
3787 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
3788 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
3790 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
3791 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
3794 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
3795 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
3797 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
3798 stub provides the required support.
3800 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
3801 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
3806 unset substitute-path
3807 show substitute-path
3808 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
3809 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
3810 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
3811 between compilation and debugging.
3815 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
3816 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
3817 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
3821 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
3823 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
3824 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
3826 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
3828 * New remote packets
3831 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
3832 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
3833 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
3834 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
3838 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
3839 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
3841 qXfer:memory-map:read:
3842 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
3843 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
3848 Erase and program a flash memory device.
3850 * Removed remote packets
3853 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
3854 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
3856 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
3860 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
3862 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3866 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
3867 only if it doesn't already have a value.
3869 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
3871 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
3873 restart <n> Return the program state to a
3874 previously saved state.
3876 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
3878 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
3880 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
3881 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
3883 info forks List forks of the user program that
3884 are available to be debugged.
3886 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
3887 forks of the user program that are
3888 available to be debugged.
3890 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3891 that are available to be debugged (and
3892 kill the forked process).
3894 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3895 that are available to be debugged (and
3896 allow the process to continue).
3900 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
3902 * Improved Windows host support
3904 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
3905 native console support, and remote communications using either
3906 network sockets or serial ports.
3908 * Improved Modula-2 language support
3910 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
3911 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
3912 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
3913 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
3914 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
3915 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
3919 The ARM rdi-share module.
3921 The Netware NLM debug server.
3923 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
3925 * New native configurations
3927 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
3928 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
3932 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3934 * New command line options
3936 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
3937 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
3938 the child (debugged) program exited with.
3939 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
3940 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
3941 specified multiple times and in conjunction
3942 with the --command (-x) option.
3944 * Deprecated commands removed
3946 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
3950 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
3951 othernames set arm disassembler
3952 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
3953 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
3954 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
3957 * New BSD user-level threads support
3959 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
3960 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
3963 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3964 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
3965 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
3967 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
3968 are not yet supported.
3970 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
3971 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
3973 * REMOVED configurations and files
3975 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
3976 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3977 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
3979 * New "set print array-indexes" command
3981 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
3982 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
3985 * VAX floating point support
3987 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
3989 * User-defined command support
3991 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
3992 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
3993 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
3995 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
3997 * New command line option
3999 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
4002 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
4004 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
4005 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
4006 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
4007 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
4008 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
4010 * Internationalization
4012 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
4013 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
4014 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
4018 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
4019 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
4020 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
4022 * New native configurations
4024 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
4028 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
4029 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
4031 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
4033 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4034 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
4035 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
4038 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
4039 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
4040 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
4050 powerpc bdm protocol
4052 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4053 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
4055 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4057 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4058 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4059 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4060 permanently REMOVED.
4069 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
4071 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
4073 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
4074 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
4077 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
4079 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
4080 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
4081 IRIX long double values).
4085 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
4086 command. This problem has been fixed.
4088 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
4090 * Fix for ``many threads''
4092 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
4093 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
4096 ptrace: No such process.
4097 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
4099 This problem has been fixed.
4101 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
4103 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
4106 * New ``start'' command.
4108 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
4110 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
4112 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
4113 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
4114 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
4116 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4117 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
4118 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
4119 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
4120 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
4121 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4122 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
4123 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
4124 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4126 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
4128 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
4129 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
4130 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
4131 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
4132 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
4134 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
4135 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
4136 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
4138 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
4140 * New native configurations
4142 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
4143 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
4144 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
4145 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
4146 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
4147 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
4148 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
4150 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
4152 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4153 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
4154 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
4155 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
4156 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
4157 work, was also included.
4159 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
4160 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
4170 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4171 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
4173 * REMOVED configurations and files
4175 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
4176 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
4177 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
4178 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
4179 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
4180 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
4181 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
4182 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
4183 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
4184 sonymips mips-sony-*
4185 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
4187 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
4189 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
4191 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
4192 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
4193 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
4194 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
4197 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
4199 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
4200 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
4201 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
4202 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
4203 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
4204 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
4207 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
4209 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
4211 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
4212 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
4213 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
4215 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
4217 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
4218 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
4220 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
4222 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
4223 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
4224 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
4226 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
4228 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
4229 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
4231 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
4233 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
4234 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
4235 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
4237 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
4239 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
4240 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
4241 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
4243 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
4245 * Removed --with-mmalloc
4247 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
4248 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
4250 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
4252 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
4253 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
4254 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
4255 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
4257 * Revised SPARC target
4259 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
4260 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
4261 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
4262 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
4263 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
4267 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
4268 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
4269 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
4272 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
4274 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
4275 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
4278 * C++ nested types and namespaces
4280 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
4281 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
4282 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
4283 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
4284 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
4285 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
4286 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
4287 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
4288 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
4290 * New native configurations
4292 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
4293 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4294 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
4295 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4296 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
4298 * New debugging protocols
4300 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
4302 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
4304 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
4305 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
4306 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
4308 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4310 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4311 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4312 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4313 permanently REMOVED.
4315 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
4316 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
4317 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
4318 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
4319 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
4320 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
4321 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
4322 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
4323 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
4324 sonymips mips-sony-*
4325 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
4327 * REMOVED configurations and files
4329 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4330 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4331 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4332 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4333 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4334 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
4335 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4336 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
4337 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
4338 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4339 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
4340 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
4341 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
4342 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
4343 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4344 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4345 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4347 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
4351 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
4352 integrated into GDB.
4354 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
4356 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
4357 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
4358 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
4361 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
4362 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
4363 DWARF 2 CFI support.
4367 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
4368 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
4369 remote protocol documentation for details.
4371 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
4373 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
4374 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
4375 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
4378 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
4380 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
4381 per-thread variables.
4383 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
4385 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
4386 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
4388 * Separate debug info.
4390 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
4391 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
4392 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
4393 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
4394 and optional debug files.
4396 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
4398 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
4399 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
4402 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
4403 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
4407 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
4408 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
4409 considered "useable".
4411 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
4413 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
4414 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
4417 * GDB supports logging output to a file
4419 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
4420 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
4422 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
4424 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
4425 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
4428 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
4430 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
4431 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
4435 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
4436 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
4437 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
4438 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
4439 data, for more informative profiling results.
4441 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
4443 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
4444 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
4445 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
4447 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
4450 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
4451 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
4452 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
4453 in a subsequent -var-update.
4455 * New native configurations.
4457 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4459 * Multi-arched targets.
4461 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
4462 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4464 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4466 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4467 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4468 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4469 permanently REMOVED.
4471 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4472 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4473 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4474 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
4475 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4476 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
4477 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
4478 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
4479 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
4480 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
4481 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4482 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4484 * REMOVED configurations and files
4487 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4488 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
4489 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
4490 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
4491 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
4492 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
4494 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4495 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4496 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4497 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4498 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4499 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4501 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
4503 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
4504 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
4505 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
4506 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
4507 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
4509 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
4511 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
4513 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
4514 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
4515 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
4516 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
4517 shared libs like mad''.
4519 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
4521 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
4522 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
4523 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
4524 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
4526 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
4528 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
4529 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
4532 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
4533 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
4535 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
4536 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
4538 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
4539 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
4540 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
4541 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
4543 * Multi-arched targets.
4545 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
4546 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
4548 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
4549 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
4550 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4554 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
4557 * New native configurations
4559 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
4560 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
4561 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
4562 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
4564 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4566 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4567 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4568 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4569 permanently REMOVED.
4571 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4572 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4573 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
4574 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4575 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4576 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4577 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
4578 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
4579 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
4580 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
4582 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4583 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4585 * OBSOLETE languages
4587 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
4589 * REMOVED configurations and files
4591 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
4592 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4593 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4594 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4595 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4597 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
4599 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
4601 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
4602 commands. The default is 1024.
4604 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
4606 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
4608 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
4610 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
4611 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
4612 from a file into memory (restore).
4614 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
4616 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
4617 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
4618 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
4620 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
4628 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
4629 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
4630 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
4632 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
4633 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
4634 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
4636 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
4637 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
4638 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
4640 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
4641 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
4642 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
4644 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
4646 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
4648 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
4649 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
4650 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
4651 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
4652 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
4653 (notably embedded) targets.
4655 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
4657 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
4658 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
4659 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
4660 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
4662 * New command line option
4664 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
4666 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4668 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
4669 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
4670 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
4671 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
4672 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
4673 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
4674 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
4675 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
4676 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
4677 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
4679 * Changes in ARM configurations.
4681 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
4682 configuration is fully multi-arch.
4684 * New native configurations
4686 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
4687 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
4688 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
4689 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
4693 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
4695 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4697 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4698 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4699 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4700 permanently REMOVED.
4702 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
4703 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4704 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4705 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4706 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4708 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
4710 * REMOVED configurations and files
4712 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4714 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4715 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4716 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
4717 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
4718 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4719 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
4720 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
4721 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
4722 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4723 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
4724 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
4726 * Changes to command line processing
4728 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
4729 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
4731 * Changes to key bindings
4733 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
4735 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
4737 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
4739 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
4742 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
4744 Numerous documentation fixes.
4746 Numerous testsuite fixes.
4748 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
4750 * New native configurations
4752 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
4753 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
4754 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
4755 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4756 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
4757 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
4761 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
4763 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
4765 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4767 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
4768 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
4769 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4770 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
4771 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4773 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
4774 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4775 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4776 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
4777 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
4778 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4779 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
4780 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
4782 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
4783 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
4785 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4786 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4787 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4788 permanently REMOVED.
4790 * REMOVED configurations and files
4792 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4793 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4795 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4799 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
4801 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
4802 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
4807 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
4809 * The MI enabled by default.
4811 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
4812 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
4813 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
4814 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
4815 which is now deprecated.
4817 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
4819 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
4820 main features are supported:
4822 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
4824 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
4827 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
4829 - a Pascal expression parser.
4831 However, some important features are not yet supported.
4833 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
4835 - there are some problems with boolean types;
4837 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
4838 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
4840 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
4842 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
4844 * Changes in completion.
4846 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
4847 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
4848 users expect at the shell prompt.
4850 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
4851 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
4852 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
4853 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
4854 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
4855 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
4856 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
4858 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
4860 * New platform-independent commands:
4862 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
4863 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
4864 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
4866 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
4868 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
4869 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
4870 many threads as your system allows you to have.
4872 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
4874 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
4875 multi-threaded programs though.
4877 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
4879 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
4881 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
4882 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
4885 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
4887 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
4888 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
4889 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
4890 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
4891 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
4894 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
4895 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
4896 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
4898 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
4900 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
4901 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
4903 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
4904 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
4907 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
4908 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
4909 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
4910 a given linear address.
4912 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
4913 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
4914 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
4916 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
4918 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
4920 * Changes in documentation.
4922 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
4923 Documentation License.
4925 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4928 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
4930 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4933 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
4934 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
4935 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
4937 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
4939 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
4940 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
4941 contents of this file.
4945 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
4947 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
4949 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
4951 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
4952 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
4953 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
4954 greater level of detail.
4956 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
4958 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
4959 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
4960 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
4963 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
4965 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
4966 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
4967 machines ``out of the box''.
4969 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
4970 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
4971 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
4972 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
4973 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
4975 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
4976 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
4977 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
4978 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
4979 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
4981 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
4982 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
4985 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
4988 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
4989 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
4990 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
4991 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
4993 * New native configurations
4995 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
4996 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5000 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
5001 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
5002 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
5003 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5005 * OBSOLETE configurations
5007 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5008 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5010 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5013 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5014 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5015 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5016 be permanently REMOVED.
5018 * Gould support removed
5020 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
5022 * New features for SVR4
5024 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
5025 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
5026 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
5028 * Many C++ enhancements
5030 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
5031 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
5033 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
5035 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
5036 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
5037 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
5038 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
5040 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
5041 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
5043 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
5045 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
5046 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
5047 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
5049 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
5050 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
5052 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
5054 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
5055 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
5056 include ``set remote P-packet''.
5058 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
5060 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
5061 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
5062 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
5064 * ``apropos'' command added.
5066 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
5067 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
5068 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
5072 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
5073 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
5074 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
5075 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
5076 enabled by configuring with:
5078 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
5080 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
5082 * New native configurations
5084 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
5085 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
5086 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
5090 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5091 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
5092 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5094 * OBSOLETE configurations
5096 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
5098 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5099 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5100 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5101 be permanently REMOVED.
5105 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
5106 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
5107 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
5108 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
5109 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
5110 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
5111 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
5116 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
5118 * set extension-language
5120 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
5121 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
5122 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
5123 set extension-language .c c++
5124 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
5125 and their associated languages.
5127 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
5129 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
5130 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
5131 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
5135 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
5136 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
5138 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
5139 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
5141 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
5142 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
5143 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
5144 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
5145 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
5146 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
5147 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
5148 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
5150 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
5151 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
5152 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
5153 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
5157 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
5158 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
5159 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
5160 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
5161 for xdb and dbx commands.
5165 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
5166 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
5167 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
5169 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
5170 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
5171 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
5173 * Debugging across forks
5175 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
5180 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
5181 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
5182 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
5184 * GDB remote protocol additions
5186 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
5187 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
5188 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
5189 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
5191 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
5192 full 64-bit address. The command
5194 set remoteaddresssize 32
5196 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
5197 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
5200 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
5201 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
5203 maint packet heythere
5205 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
5206 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
5209 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
5210 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
5211 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
5213 * Tracing can collect general expressions
5215 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
5216 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
5217 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
5219 * mask-address variable for Mips
5221 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
5222 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
5223 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
5225 * Higher serial baud rates
5227 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
5228 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
5229 to achieve all of these rates.)
5233 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
5234 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
5237 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
5239 * New native configurations
5241 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
5242 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
5243 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5244 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5245 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5246 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
5247 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
5251 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5252 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
5253 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5254 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
5255 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
5256 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
5257 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
5258 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
5259 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5260 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5261 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
5263 * New debugging protocols
5265 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
5266 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
5267 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
5268 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5269 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5270 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5274 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
5275 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
5280 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
5281 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
5283 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
5285 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
5286 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
5287 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
5289 * Live range splitting
5291 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
5292 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
5293 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
5297 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
5298 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
5302 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
5303 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
5304 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
5309 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
5314 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
5315 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
5316 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
5317 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
5318 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
5319 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
5323 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
5324 the symbol at the specified address.
5328 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
5329 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
5330 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
5331 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
5332 file tracepoint.c for more details.
5336 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
5337 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
5338 of most MIPS variants.
5342 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
5343 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
5344 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
5348 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
5349 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
5350 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
5351 the possible architectures.
5353 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
5355 * New native configurations
5357 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
5358 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
5359 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
5360 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
5361 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5362 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
5366 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
5367 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5368 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
5369 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
5370 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
5372 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5376 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
5377 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
5378 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
5379 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
5380 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
5384 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
5386 * Windows 95/NT native
5388 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
5389 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
5390 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
5391 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
5392 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
5394 * dont-repeat command
5396 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
5397 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
5398 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
5399 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
5401 * Send break instead of ^C
5403 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
5404 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
5405 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
5407 * Remote protocol timeout
5409 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
5410 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
5411 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
5413 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
5415 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
5416 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
5417 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
5418 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
5419 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
5421 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
5422 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
5423 automatically on hpux10.
5425 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
5427 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
5429 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
5431 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
5432 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
5433 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
5434 every character. The default value is 1050.
5436 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
5438 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
5439 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
5440 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
5441 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
5442 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
5443 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
5445 * Speedups for remote debugging
5447 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
5448 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
5449 and more efficient S-record downloading.
5451 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
5453 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
5454 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
5456 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
5458 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
5460 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
5461 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
5463 * Remote targets use caching
5465 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
5466 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
5467 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
5468 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
5469 off' turns the the data cache off.
5471 * Remote targets may have threads
5473 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
5474 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
5475 gdb/remote.c for details.
5479 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
5480 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
5481 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
5482 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
5483 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
5484 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
5485 sequence is something like
5487 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
5489 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
5493 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
5494 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
5495 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
5496 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
5497 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
5498 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
5499 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
5500 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
5504 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
5505 but does simplify configuration and building.
5509 GDB now supports hpux10.
5511 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
5513 * New native configurations
5515 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
5516 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
5517 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
5518 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
5522 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5523 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
5524 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
5525 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
5528 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
5530 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
5531 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
5532 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
5533 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
5534 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
5536 * Arguments to user-defined commands
5538 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
5539 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
5542 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
5544 To execute the command use:
5547 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
5548 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
5549 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
5551 * New `if' and `while' commands
5553 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
5554 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
5555 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
5556 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
5557 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
5558 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
5559 if the expression is zero.
5561 * Fortran source language mode
5563 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
5564 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
5565 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
5566 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
5569 * Better HPUX support
5571 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
5572 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
5573 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
5574 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
5575 that behavior do the following before running the program:
5581 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
5582 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
5588 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
5589 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
5592 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
5593 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
5595 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
5597 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
5598 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
5599 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
5600 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
5601 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
5602 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
5604 * New DOS host serial code
5606 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
5607 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
5610 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
5612 * New "complete" command
5614 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
5615 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
5617 * Trailing space optional in prompt
5619 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
5620 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
5622 * Breakpoint hit counts
5624 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
5625 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
5626 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
5627 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
5628 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
5631 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
5633 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
5634 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
5635 arrays actually contain only short strings.
5637 * Shared library breakpoints
5639 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
5640 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
5642 * Hardware watchpoints
5644 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
5645 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
5647 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
5651 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
5652 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
5654 * Improved Irix 5 support
5656 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
5658 * Improved HPPA support
5660 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
5662 * New native configurations
5664 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
5665 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5666 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
5667 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
5671 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5672 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
5675 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
5677 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
5678 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
5682 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
5683 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
5685 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
5687 * Irix 5 is now supported
5691 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
5692 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
5693 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
5694 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
5695 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
5698 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
5700 * User visible changes:
5704 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
5705 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
5706 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
5707 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
5708 debugging info for the mips target).
5710 * DEC Alpha native support
5712 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
5713 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
5714 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
5715 Alpha-specific notes.
5717 * Preliminary thread implementation
5719 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
5721 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
5723 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
5724 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
5727 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
5729 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
5730 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
5731 call methods, ...etc.
5733 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
5735 * User visible changes:
5737 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
5738 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
5739 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
5740 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
5742 Filename completion now works.
5744 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
5745 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
5746 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
5748 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
5749 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
5750 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
5751 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
5752 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
5756 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
5757 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
5760 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
5764 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
5765 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
5766 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
5770 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
5771 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
5772 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
5773 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
5774 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
5778 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
5779 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
5780 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
5782 * New targets supported
5784 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5785 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5786 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
5787 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5788 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
5790 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
5791 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
5792 GO32 memory extender.
5794 * New remote protocols
5796 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
5798 * New source languages supported
5800 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
5801 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
5802 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
5805 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
5807 * HP Precision Architecture supported
5809 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
5810 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
5811 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
5812 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
5813 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
5814 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
5816 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
5818 * Faster and better demangling
5820 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
5821 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
5822 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
5823 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
5824 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
5825 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
5828 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
5829 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
5830 compiler does not actually implement.
5832 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
5834 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
5835 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
5836 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
5837 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
5838 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
5839 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
5842 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
5843 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
5845 * Improved configure script
5847 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
5848 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
5849 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
5850 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
5852 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
5853 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
5854 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
5855 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
5856 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
5857 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
5859 * Documentation improvements
5861 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
5862 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
5863 before submitting changes.
5865 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
5866 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
5867 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
5868 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
5869 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
5871 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
5872 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
5873 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
5874 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
5875 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
5876 around this problem.
5880 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
5881 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
5882 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
5885 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
5886 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
5888 * New native hosts supported
5890 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
5891 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
5893 * New targets supported
5895 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
5897 * New file formats supported
5899 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
5900 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
5904 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
5906 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
5907 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
5909 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
5910 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
5911 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
5913 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
5914 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
5916 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
5917 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
5918 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
5921 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
5922 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
5923 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
5924 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
5925 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
5927 * Internal improvements
5929 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
5930 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
5932 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
5933 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
5934 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
5935 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
5936 shared code that handles any of them.
5938 * New command line options
5940 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
5944 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
5945 General Public License.
5947 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
5949 * Host/native/target split
5951 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
5952 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
5953 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
5954 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
5955 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
5957 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
5958 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
5959 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
5960 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
5961 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
5962 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
5963 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
5965 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
5966 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
5967 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
5969 * New hosts supported
5971 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
5972 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5973 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
5975 * New targets supported
5977 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5978 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
5980 * New native hosts supported
5982 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5983 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
5984 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
5986 * New file formats supported
5988 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
5989 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
5990 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
5994 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
5995 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
5996 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
5998 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
6000 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
6001 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
6002 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
6003 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
6007 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
6008 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
6009 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
6011 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
6015 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
6016 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
6019 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
6020 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
6022 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
6023 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
6024 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
6025 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
6026 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
6027 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
6029 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
6030 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
6031 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
6032 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
6036 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
6037 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
6038 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
6039 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
6040 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
6042 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
6043 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
6044 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
6045 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
6049 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
6050 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
6051 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
6052 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
6053 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
6054 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
6055 each instruction being stepped through.
6057 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
6058 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
6060 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
6061 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
6062 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
6063 processor with a serial port.
6067 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
6068 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
6069 supported, and what files each one uses.
6073 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
6074 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
6075 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
6076 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
6078 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
6079 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
6080 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
6081 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
6085 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
6086 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
6087 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
6088 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
6089 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
6090 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
6092 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
6095 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
6097 * Better support for C++ function names
6099 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
6100 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
6101 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
6102 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
6103 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
6105 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
6106 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
6107 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
6108 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
6109 for the list of formats.
6111 * G++ symbol mangling problem
6113 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
6114 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
6115 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
6116 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
6117 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
6118 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
6121 * New 'maintenance' command
6123 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
6124 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
6125 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
6127 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
6128 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
6129 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
6130 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
6131 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
6132 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
6134 The following commands are new:
6136 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
6137 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
6138 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
6140 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
6142 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
6143 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
6144 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
6145 read after argv processing.
6147 * New hosts supported
6149 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
6151 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
6153 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
6154 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
6155 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
6156 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
6157 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
6160 * New targets supported
6162 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6164 * More smarts about finding #include files
6166 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
6167 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
6168 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
6169 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
6170 the one that contains your sources.
6172 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
6173 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
6174 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
6176 * Interesting infernals change
6178 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
6179 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
6180 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
6181 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
6183 * Bug fixes (of course!)
6185 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
6186 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
6187 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
6189 See the ChangeLog for details.
6191 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
6193 * New machines supported (host and target)
6195 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
6197 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
6199 * New malloc package
6201 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
6202 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
6203 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
6204 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
6205 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
6206 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
6210 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
6211 'help info proc' for details.
6213 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
6215 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
6216 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
6219 * File name changes for MS-DOS
6221 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
6222 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
6223 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
6224 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
6225 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
6226 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
6228 * Cross byte order fixes
6230 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
6231 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
6233 * New -mapped and -readnow options
6235 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
6236 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
6237 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
6238 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
6239 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
6240 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
6241 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
6242 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
6243 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
6244 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
6246 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
6247 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
6248 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
6249 slower, but makes future operations faster.
6251 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
6252 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
6253 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
6256 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
6258 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
6259 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
6260 shared across multiple host platforms.
6262 * longjmp() handling
6264 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
6265 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
6266 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
6267 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
6271 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
6272 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
6277 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
6278 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
6279 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
6281 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
6283 * New machines supported (host and target)
6285 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
6287 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
6288 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
6290 * New machines supported (target)
6292 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6296 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
6297 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
6298 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
6300 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
6301 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
6302 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
6303 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
6304 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
6307 * New features for SVR4
6309 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
6310 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
6311 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
6313 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
6314 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
6315 it prints the address mappings of the process.
6317 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
6318 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
6320 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
6322 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
6323 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
6324 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
6325 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
6326 same code linked statically.
6330 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
6331 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
6332 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
6333 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
6334 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
6335 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
6339 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
6340 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
6341 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
6344 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
6346 * New machines supported (host and target)
6348 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
6349 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
6350 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
6352 * Almost SCO Unix support
6354 We had hoped to support:
6355 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
6356 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
6357 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
6358 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
6360 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
6362 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
6363 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
6364 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
6365 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
6370 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
6371 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
6372 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
6376 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
6377 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
6378 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
6380 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
6382 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
6383 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
6384 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
6386 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
6387 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
6388 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
6389 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
6392 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
6393 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
6394 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
6395 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
6398 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
6399 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
6402 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
6403 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
6404 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
6407 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
6409 * Improved configuration
6411 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
6412 Porting BFD is simpler.
6416 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
6417 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
6418 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
6419 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
6423 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
6425 * New host supported (not target)
6427 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
6430 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
6432 * Multiple source language support
6434 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
6435 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
6436 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
6437 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
6438 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
6439 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
6443 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
6444 currently under development at the State University of New York at
6445 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
6446 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
6448 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
6449 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
6450 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
6452 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
6453 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
6457 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
6458 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
6459 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
6460 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
6463 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
6465 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
6466 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
6467 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
6468 examining core files.
6472 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
6475 * New machines supported (host and target)
6477 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
6478 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
6479 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
6481 * New hosts supported (not targets)
6483 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
6485 * New targets supported (not hosts)
6487 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6488 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6489 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
6491 * New remote interfaces
6497 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
6501 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
6503 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
6504 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
6505 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
6506 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
6507 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
6508 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
6509 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
6510 stub on the target system.
6512 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
6514 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
6515 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
6516 object file types such as a.out and coff.
6518 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
6519 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
6522 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
6524 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
6525 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
6527 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
6528 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
6529 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
6531 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
6532 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
6533 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
6534 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
6536 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
6537 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
6538 it is already running. Default is ON.
6540 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
6541 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
6542 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
6543 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
6546 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
6547 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
6548 or the value of the environment variable
6551 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
6552 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
6555 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
6556 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
6557 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
6559 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
6560 history expansion will be performed on
6561 command line input. The default is OFF.
6563 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
6564 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
6565 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
6567 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
6568 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
6569 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
6572 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
6573 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
6574 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
6577 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
6578 ``set width'' instead.
6580 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
6581 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
6582 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
6583 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
6585 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
6588 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
6591 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
6594 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
6597 * Support for Epoch Environment.
6599 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
6600 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
6601 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
6605 * Support for Shared Libraries
6607 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
6608 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
6609 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
6610 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
6611 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
6612 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
6613 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
6614 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
6616 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
6617 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
6618 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
6620 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
6625 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
6626 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
6627 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
6628 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
6629 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
6630 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
6632 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
6634 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
6636 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6637 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6638 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6641 * C++ multiple inheritance
6643 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
6646 * C++ exception handling
6648 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
6649 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
6650 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
6653 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
6654 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
6655 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
6657 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
6658 current stack frame.
6661 * Minor command changes
6663 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
6664 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
6665 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
6667 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
6668 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
6669 frames without printing.
6671 * New directory command
6673 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
6674 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
6675 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
6676 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
6677 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
6679 * Configuring GDB for compilation
6681 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
6684 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
6685 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
6686 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
6687 where the program that you are debugging will run.