1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 8.3
6 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
8 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
9 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
10 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
11 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
12 such as in system-wide init files.
14 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
15 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
16 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
17 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
19 * Support for Pointer Authentication on AArch64 Linux.
21 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
22 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
26 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
27 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
28 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
29 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
30 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
32 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
35 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
36 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
37 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
41 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
42 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
43 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
44 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
45 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
46 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
47 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
49 set may-call-functions [on|off]
50 show may-call-functions
51 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
52 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
53 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
54 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
55 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
56 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
59 set print finish [on|off]
61 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
62 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
63 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
68 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
69 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
70 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
71 the old behavior back.
73 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
74 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
75 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
77 set style title foreground COLOR
78 set style title background COLOR
79 set style title intensity VALUE
80 Control the styling of titles.
82 set style highlight foreground COLOR
83 set style highlight background COLOR
84 set style highlight intensity VALUE
85 Control the styling of highlightings.
87 maint test-settings KIND
88 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
94 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
95 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
99 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
100 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
101 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
102 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
103 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
106 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
107 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
108 the user visualize the different styles.
114 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
115 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
116 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
120 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
121 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
122 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
123 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
125 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
127 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
128 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
131 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
132 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
133 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
136 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
139 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
140 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
141 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
143 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
144 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
146 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
147 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
148 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
149 in the GDB user manual.
151 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
154 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
156 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
157 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
158 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
159 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
160 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
161 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
162 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
163 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
164 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
165 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
166 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
167 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
169 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
170 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
171 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
174 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
179 set debug compile-cplus-types
180 show debug compile-cplus-types
181 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
182 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiliong
187 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
190 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
191 Apply a command to some frames.
192 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
193 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
196 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
197 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
200 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
201 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
204 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
206 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
208 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
209 maint show dwarf unwinders
210 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
213 Display a list of open files for a process.
217 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
218 These commands all now take a frame specification which
219 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
220 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
221 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
222 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
223 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
225 target remote FILENAME
226 target extended-remote FILENAME
227 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
228 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
230 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
231 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
232 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
233 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
234 These commands can now print only the searched entities
235 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
236 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
237 printing headers or informations messages.
243 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
244 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
245 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
248 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
249 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
250 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
251 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
253 set tui tab-width NCHARS
254 show tui tab-width NCHARS
255 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
257 set style enabled [on|off]
259 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
260 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
262 set style sources [on|off]
264 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
265 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
266 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
268 set style filename foreground COLOR
269 set style filename background COLOR
270 set style filename intensity VALUE
271 Control the styling of file names.
273 set style function foreground COLOR
274 set style function background COLOR
275 set style function intensity VALUE
276 Control the styling of function names.
278 set style variable foreground COLOR
279 set style variable background COLOR
280 set style variable intensity VALUE
281 Control the styling of variable names.
283 set style address foreground COLOR
284 set style address background COLOR
285 set style address intensity VALUE
286 Control the styling of addresses.
290 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
292 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
293 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
294 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
295 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
296 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
298 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
299 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
301 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
302 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
303 the following commands and events:
307 - =breakpoint-created
308 - =breakpoint-modified
310 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
311 this behavior with previous MI versions.
313 * New native configurations
315 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
316 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
320 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
322 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
323 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
325 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
329 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
334 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
336 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
337 space associated to that inferior.
339 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
340 of objfiles associated to that program space.
342 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
343 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
346 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
347 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
348 correct and did not work properly.
350 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
351 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
357 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
358 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
359 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
360 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
361 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
363 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
365 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
368 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
369 offset to all sections.
371 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
372 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
373 address of individual sections using '-s'.
375 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
376 (address of the text section).
378 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
379 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
380 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
381 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
384 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
385 for the rest of the current command.
387 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
388 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
390 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
391 files created on FreeBSD systems.
393 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
396 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
397 the vector length while the process is running.
403 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
405 set|show varsize-limit
406 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
407 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
408 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
410 set|show record btrace cpu
411 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
414 maint check libthread-db
415 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
418 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
419 maint show check-libthread-db
420 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
421 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
426 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
428 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
429 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
431 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
433 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
434 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
435 of convenience variables.
437 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
438 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
439 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
443 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
445 * Removed targets and native configurations
447 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
448 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
449 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
450 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
452 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
454 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
455 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
456 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
457 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
458 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
459 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
464 --enable-codesign=CERT
465 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
466 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
467 gdb to work properly.
469 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
470 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
472 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
474 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
475 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
476 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
478 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
479 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
481 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
482 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
483 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
484 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
485 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
487 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
488 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
489 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
490 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
492 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
493 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
495 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
496 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
497 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
499 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
500 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
501 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
503 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
504 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
505 environment" command.
507 * Completion improvements
509 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
510 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
511 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
512 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
515 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
516 (gdb) b function(int)
518 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
519 C++ anonymous namespaces:
522 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
523 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
524 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
526 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
527 completion support, that better understands what you're
528 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
529 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
530 setting a breakpoint.
532 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
534 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
536 * New command line options (gcore)
539 Dump all memory mappings.
541 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
543 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
544 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
545 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
547 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
552 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
555 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
556 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
557 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
558 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
559 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
560 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
561 a breakpoint from Python.
563 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
565 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
566 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
567 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
569 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
571 function[abi:cxx11](int)
574 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
577 (gdb) b function(int)
579 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
581 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
583 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
587 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
588 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
589 description of these.
591 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
592 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
593 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
595 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
596 manual for a further description of this feature.
599 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
601 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
602 specified initial working directory.
604 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
605 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
607 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
608 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
610 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
611 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
613 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
614 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
615 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
616 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
617 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
619 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
620 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
621 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
623 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
624 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
625 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
626 in the *stopped notification.
628 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
629 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
633 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
634 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
635 the inferior when starting it.
638 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
639 before starting the remote inferior.
642 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
643 user-set environment variables should be unset).
646 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
649 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
652 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
653 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
655 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
656 filter the tests to be run.
658 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
659 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
664 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
667 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
668 with the 'compile' commands.
670 set debug separate-debug-file
671 show debug separate-debug-file
672 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
674 set dump-excluded-mappings
675 show dump-excluded-mappings
676 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
677 dumped when generating a core file.
680 List the registered selftests.
683 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
686 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
688 set|show print type nested-type-limit
689 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
690 type printer will show.
692 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
695 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
697 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
700 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
701 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
702 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
703 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
705 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
706 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
707 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
708 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
709 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
710 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
712 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
713 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
714 unless you tell it the variable's type:
717 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
721 * New native configurations
723 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
724 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
728 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
729 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
730 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
732 * Removed targets and native configurations
734 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
736 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
738 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
739 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
740 available in future Intel CPUs.
742 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
746 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
747 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
749 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
752 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
754 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
756 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
757 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
760 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
762 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
763 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
765 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
767 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
768 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
769 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
770 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
773 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
775 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
776 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
779 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
781 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
782 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
784 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
786 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
791 eval "print $arg%d", $i
796 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
798 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
799 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
801 * New native configurations
803 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
807 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
808 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
810 * Removed targets and native configurations
812 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
813 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
818 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
820 maint print arc arc-instruction address
821 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
825 set disassembler-options
826 show disassembler-options
827 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
828 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
829 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
830 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
831 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
836 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
837 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
839 -file-list-shared-libraries
840 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
841 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
844 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
845 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
847 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
849 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
851 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
852 default. One must now explicitly configure with
853 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
854 option will be removed in a future release.
856 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
859 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
860 memory backward from the given address. For example:
863 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
864 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
865 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
866 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
867 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
868 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
869 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
870 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
871 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
873 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
874 arrays of dynamic types.
876 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
877 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
878 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
879 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
880 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
881 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
883 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
886 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
887 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
888 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
890 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
892 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
893 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
894 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
895 signal received and code location.
899 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
900 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
901 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
902 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
904 * Rust language support.
905 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
906 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
909 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
911 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
912 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
913 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
914 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
915 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
916 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
917 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
918 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
919 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
920 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
923 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
925 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
926 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
931 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
932 skip -function function
933 skip -rfunction regular-expression
934 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
935 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
936 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
938 maint info line-table REGEXP
939 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data struture.
942 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
945 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
946 using the TTY file for input/output.
950 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
951 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
952 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
953 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
954 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
957 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
958 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
959 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
960 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
963 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
964 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
965 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
967 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
970 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
971 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
972 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
973 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
974 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
975 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
977 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
978 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
979 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
980 bytecode into native code.
982 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
983 recording. For example:
985 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
987 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
989 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
993 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
995 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
997 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
999 * Per-inferior thread numbers
1001 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
1002 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
1003 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
1007 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
1008 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
1009 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
1010 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
1012 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
1013 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
1014 are no longer unique between inferiors.
1016 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
1017 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
1018 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
1020 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
1023 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
1024 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
1027 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
1030 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
1031 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
1032 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
1033 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
1036 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
1039 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
1042 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
1045 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
1046 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
1049 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
1050 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
1052 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
1054 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
1056 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
1057 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
1059 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
1060 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
1063 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1064 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
1067 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
1068 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
1071 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1073 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
1074 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
1075 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
1077 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
1078 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
1082 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
1083 maint show target-non-stop
1084 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
1085 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
1086 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
1088 maint set bfd-sharing
1089 maint show bfd-sharing
1090 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
1093 show debug bfd-cache
1094 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
1098 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
1100 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1101 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1102 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
1104 set remote thread-events
1105 show remote thread-events
1106 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
1108 set ada print-signatures on|off
1109 show ada print-signatures"
1110 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
1111 selection menus. It is activaled (@code{on}) by default.
1115 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
1116 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
1117 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
1119 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1120 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
1121 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
1122 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
1123 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
1124 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
1126 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1127 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
1129 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
1130 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
1132 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
1134 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
1135 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
1136 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
1137 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
1138 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
1139 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
1141 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
1142 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1145 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1147 * New remote packets
1150 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1152 exec-events feature in qSupported
1153 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1154 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1155 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1156 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1159 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1162 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1163 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1165 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1166 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1169 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1170 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1171 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1172 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1173 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1174 stop for that same thread.
1177 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1178 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1179 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1182 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1183 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1185 syscall_entry stop reason
1186 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1188 syscall_return stop reason
1189 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1191 * Extended-remote exec events
1193 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1194 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1195 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1197 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1198 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1199 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1201 * Thread names in remote protocol
1203 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1206 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1208 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1209 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1210 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1211 fork and exec catchpoints.
1213 * Remote syscall events
1215 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1216 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1218 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1219 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1220 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1224 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1225 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1230 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1231 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1232 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1233 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1234 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1235 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1237 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1239 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1240 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1241 including advance SIMD instructions.
1243 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1245 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1246 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1247 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1248 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1249 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1250 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1251 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1253 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1255 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1257 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1258 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1261 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1262 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
1263 and may include things like its command line arguments.
1265 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
1266 is now available on all platforms.
1268 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
1269 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
1270 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
1271 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
1272 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
1273 backward compatibility.
1275 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
1276 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
1277 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
1278 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
1280 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
1281 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
1282 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
1283 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
1286 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
1288 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
1290 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
1291 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
1292 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
1293 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
1294 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
1295 See "New remote packets" below.
1297 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
1298 available register groups, including target specific groups.
1300 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
1301 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
1302 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
1303 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
1308 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
1312 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
1313 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
1314 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
1315 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
1316 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
1317 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
1318 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
1319 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
1320 "const" version of the value respectively.
1324 maint print symbol-cache
1325 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
1327 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
1328 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
1330 maint flush-symbol-cache
1331 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
1335 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
1338 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
1342 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
1345 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
1346 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
1350 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
1353 Print information about branch tracing internals.
1355 maint btrace packet-history
1356 Print the raw branch tracing data.
1358 maint btrace clear-packet-history
1359 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
1362 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
1363 anew by the next "record" command.
1368 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
1369 show debug dwarf-die
1370 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
1372 set debug dwarf-read
1373 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
1374 show debug dwarf-read
1375 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
1377 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
1378 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1379 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
1380 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1382 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
1383 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1384 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
1385 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1387 set debug dwarf-line
1388 show debug dwarf-line
1389 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
1392 show max-completions
1393 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
1394 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
1395 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
1396 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
1398 set history remove-duplicates
1399 show history remove-duplicates
1400 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1402 maint set symbol-cache-size
1403 maint show symbol-cache-size
1404 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1406 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1407 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1409 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1410 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1412 set debug linux-namespaces
1413 show debug linux-namespaces
1414 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1416 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1417 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1418 Intel Processor Trace format.
1419 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1420 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1422 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1423 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1426 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
1427 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
1429 * Python/Guile scripting
1431 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
1432 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
1434 * New remote packets
1436 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
1437 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
1439 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
1440 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
1443 Enable Intel Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
1444 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
1447 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
1448 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
1452 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
1453 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
1454 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
1458 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
1459 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
1462 Return information about files on the remote system.
1464 qXfer:exec-file:read
1465 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
1466 create a process running on the remote system.
1469 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
1470 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
1471 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
1472 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
1475 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
1478 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
1480 vforkdone stop reason
1481 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
1482 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
1484 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
1485 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
1486 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
1487 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
1488 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
1489 whether these features are enabled.
1491 * Extended-remote fork events
1493 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
1494 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
1495 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
1496 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
1498 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
1499 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
1500 the btrace record target.
1501 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
1503 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
1504 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
1506 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
1509 * Removed command line options
1511 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
1513 * Removed targets and native configurations
1515 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
1516 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1518 * New configure options
1521 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
1522 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
1524 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
1525 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
1526 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
1527 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
1529 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
1533 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
1535 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
1537 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
1541 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
1542 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
1543 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
1544 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
1545 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
1546 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
1547 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
1548 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
1549 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
1550 selecting a new file to debug.
1551 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
1552 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
1554 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
1557 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
1558 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
1559 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
1560 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
1562 * New Python-based convenience functions:
1564 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1565 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1566 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1567 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1569 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
1570 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
1571 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
1572 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
1573 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
1574 interface with this new feature are:
1576 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
1577 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
1581 demangle [-l language] [--] name
1582 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
1583 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
1584 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
1585 as "maint demangler-warning".
1587 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
1588 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
1590 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
1591 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
1594 maint print user-registers
1595 List all currently available "user" registers.
1597 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
1598 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
1599 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
1601 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
1602 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
1603 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
1606 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
1607 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
1608 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
1609 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
1612 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
1613 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
1614 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
1615 switched threads meanwhile.
1617 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
1619 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
1620 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
1621 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
1622 is now the default mode.
1626 set debug symbol-lookup
1627 show debug symbol-lookup
1628 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
1632 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
1633 inferiors that have exited.
1637 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
1641 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1643 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
1644 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
1645 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
1646 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
1647 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
1649 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1650 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1651 its alias "share", instead.
1653 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
1655 * New command line options
1658 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
1660 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
1661 as specified in ISO C99.
1663 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
1664 with or without disassembly.
1668 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
1669 available is determined at configure time.
1670 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
1671 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
1673 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1677 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
1681 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
1683 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
1684 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
1686 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
1687 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
1691 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
1692 show print symbol-loading
1693 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
1694 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
1695 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
1696 becomes less useful.
1698 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
1699 show guile print-stack
1700 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
1702 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
1703 show auto-load guile-scripts
1704 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
1706 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
1707 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
1708 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
1709 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
1710 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
1711 usage of this option.
1713 set auto-connect-native-target
1715 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
1716 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
1717 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
1719 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
1720 show record btrace replay-memory-access
1721 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
1723 maint set target-async (on|off)
1724 maint show target-async
1725 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
1726 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
1727 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
1728 occurring only in synchronous mode.
1730 set mi-async (on|off)
1732 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
1733 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
1735 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
1736 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
1738 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
1739 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
1740 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
1741 "set target-async on" command.
1743 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1745 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
1746 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
1747 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
1748 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
1749 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
1751 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
1752 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
1753 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
1755 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
1756 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
1757 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
1758 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
1759 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
1760 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
1761 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
1763 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
1764 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
1766 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
1767 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
1768 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
1770 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
1771 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
1772 memory or registers.
1774 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
1776 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
1777 remote. It now works with all targets.
1779 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
1780 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
1781 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
1782 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
1783 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
1784 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
1785 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
1786 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
1787 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
1790 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
1791 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
1792 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
1794 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
1796 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
1797 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
1798 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
1800 * New remote packets
1802 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
1803 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
1804 branch trace incrementally.
1808 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
1809 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
1811 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
1812 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
1813 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
1814 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
1815 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
1818 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
1820 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1821 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1822 its alias "share", instead.
1824 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
1825 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
1830 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
1831 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
1832 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
1833 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
1834 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
1835 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
1836 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
1837 commands and CLI execution commands.
1839 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
1841 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
1842 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
1843 recording has been added.
1845 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1847 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
1848 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
1850 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
1851 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
1852 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
1853 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
1854 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
1855 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
1858 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
1860 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
1862 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
1863 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
1864 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
1865 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
1870 (gdb) info registers rax
1873 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
1874 "*value not available*".
1876 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
1881 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
1882 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
1883 ** Line tables representation has been added.
1884 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
1885 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
1886 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
1890 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
1891 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
1892 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
1894 * Removed native configurations
1896 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
1897 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
1899 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1900 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1901 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
1902 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
1903 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1904 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1905 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1909 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
1910 maint check-psymtabs
1911 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
1913 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
1914 maint expand-symtabs
1915 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
1918 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1920 maint set|show per-command
1921 maint set|show per-command space
1922 maint set|show per-command time
1923 maint set|show per-command symtab
1924 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
1926 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
1927 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
1928 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
1929 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
1930 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
1933 info exceptions REGEXP
1934 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
1935 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
1940 set debug symfile off|on
1942 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
1943 symbol tables within those files
1945 set print raw frame-arguments
1946 show print raw frame-arguments
1947 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
1948 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
1950 set remote trace-status-packet
1951 show remote trace-status-packet
1952 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
1956 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
1960 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
1962 set startup-with-shell
1963 show startup-with-shell
1964 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
1969 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
1970 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
1972 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
1973 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
1974 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
1975 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
1978 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
1979 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
1980 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
1982 * New command-line options
1984 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1986 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
1987 buffer in Common Trace Format.
1989 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
1992 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
1994 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
1995 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
1997 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
1998 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
2000 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
2001 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
2002 due to an uncaught signal.
2006 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
2007 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
2008 command, which should contain "language-option".
2010 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
2011 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
2013 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
2014 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
2015 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
2016 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2017 "undefined-command-error-code".
2019 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
2022 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
2024 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
2025 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
2028 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
2029 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
2031 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
2032 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
2033 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
2035 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
2036 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
2037 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
2038 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
2039 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2040 "exec-run-start-option".
2042 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
2043 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
2045 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
2046 the new "info exceptions" command.
2048 * New system-wide configuration scripts
2049 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
2050 configuration scripts for the following systems:
2054 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
2055 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
2056 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
2059 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
2060 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
2062 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
2063 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
2064 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
2066 * New remote packets
2070 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
2071 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
2072 involvemement at each single-step.
2074 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
2075 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
2076 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
2077 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
2078 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
2079 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
2082 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2084 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
2085 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
2087 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
2088 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
2089 trace state variables.
2091 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
2094 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
2095 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
2097 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
2099 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
2100 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
2101 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
2102 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2104 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
2106 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
2107 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
2108 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
2109 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
2111 set|show record full insn-number-max
2112 set|show record full stop-at-limit
2113 set|show record full memory-query
2115 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
2116 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
2117 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
2118 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
2119 This new recording method can be enabled using:
2123 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
2124 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
2126 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
2127 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
2128 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
2130 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
2131 instruction granularity
2133 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
2134 function granularity
2136 * New native configurations
2138 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
2139 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
2140 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2141 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2145 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2146 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2147 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2148 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2149 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2151 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2152 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2153 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2154 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2155 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2156 --data-directory command-line option.
2158 * New command line options:
2160 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2161 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2163 * Removed command line options
2165 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2168 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2171 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2175 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2177 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2179 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2181 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2183 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2184 of architecture in the Python API.
2186 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2187 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2189 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2191 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2192 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2194 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2196 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2199 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2200 default for GCC since November 2000.
2202 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2204 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2205 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2207 * New configure options
2209 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2210 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2211 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2212 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2213 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2214 options allow the user to override that default.
2215 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2216 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2217 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2219 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2222 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2223 conditions to be attached.
2226 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2228 python-interactive [command]
2230 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2231 and print the result of expressions.
2234 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2236 enable type-printer [name]...
2237 disable type-printer [name]...
2238 Enable or disable type printers.
2242 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2243 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2248 set print type methods (on|off)
2249 show print type methods
2250 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2251 The default is to show them.
2253 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2254 show print type typedefs
2255 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2256 The default is to show them.
2258 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2259 show filename-display
2260 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2261 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
2263 set trace-buffer-size
2264 show trace-buffer-size
2265 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
2267 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
2268 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
2269 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
2273 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
2276 set debug coff-pe-read
2277 show debug coff-pe-read
2278 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
2283 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
2286 set debug notification
2287 show debug notification
2288 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
2292 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
2293 "=cmd-param-changed".
2294 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
2295 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
2296 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
2297 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
2298 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
2299 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
2300 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
2301 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
2303 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
2304 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
2305 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
2306 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
2307 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
2308 library load/unload events.
2309 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
2310 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
2311 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
2312 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
2313 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
2314 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
2315 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
2316 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
2318 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
2319 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
2320 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
2321 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
2323 * New remote packets
2326 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
2327 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2330 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
2331 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
2335 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
2336 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2339 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
2340 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2342 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
2344 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
2345 for more x32 ABI info.
2347 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
2349 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
2351 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2352 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
2353 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
2354 "info os files" lists file descriptors
2355 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
2356 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
2357 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
2358 "info os msg" lists message queues
2359 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
2361 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
2362 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
2363 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
2364 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
2365 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
2366 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
2368 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
2369 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
2370 record/replay support.
2372 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
2376 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
2379 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
2381 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
2382 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
2384 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
2386 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
2387 the source at which the symbol was defined.
2389 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
2390 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
2391 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
2394 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
2395 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
2397 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2398 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2399 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2401 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2402 object associated with a PC value.
2404 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2405 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2407 * Go language support.
2408 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2411 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2412 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2414 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2415 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2417 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2418 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2419 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2420 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2421 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2424 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
2425 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
2426 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
2427 build/libcpp/expr.c.
2429 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
2430 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
2432 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
2433 since December 2007.
2435 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
2436 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
2437 command does. For instance:
2439 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
2441 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
2442 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
2443 created, using the "condition" command.
2445 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
2446 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
2448 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
2450 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
2451 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
2452 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
2453 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
2454 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
2455 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
2456 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
2457 files with older .gdb_index sections.
2459 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
2460 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
2461 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
2462 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
2463 the .gdb_index section.
2465 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
2467 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
2472 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
2474 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
2478 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2479 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2480 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
2482 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
2483 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
2485 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
2488 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
2489 C++ and Java objects.
2491 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
2492 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
2493 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
2494 configured with '--with-python'.
2496 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
2497 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
2498 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
2499 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
2500 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
2501 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
2502 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
2504 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
2505 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
2506 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
2507 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
2509 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
2510 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
2511 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
2512 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
2514 ** "set print symbol"
2516 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
2517 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
2518 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
2520 * Deprecated commands
2522 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
2523 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
2527 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2528 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
2530 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
2531 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
2532 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
2533 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
2538 set mips compression
2539 show mips compression
2540 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
2541 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
2544 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
2546 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
2547 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
2548 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
2549 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
2551 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
2555 Disable auto-loading globally.
2558 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
2560 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
2561 show auto-load gdb-scripts
2562 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
2564 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
2565 show auto-load python-scripts
2566 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
2568 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
2569 show auto-load local-gdbinit
2570 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
2572 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
2573 show auto-load libthread-db
2574 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
2576 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2577 show auto-load scripts-directory
2578 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
2579 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
2580 of the directories listed by this option.
2581 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2583 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2584 show auto-load safe-path
2585 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
2586 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2588 set debug auto-load on|off
2589 show debug auto-load
2590 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
2592 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
2594 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
2595 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
2596 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
2597 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
2599 set dprintf-function <expr>
2600 show dprintf-function
2601 set dprintf-channel <expr>
2602 show dprintf-channel
2603 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
2604 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
2606 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
2607 show disconnected-dprintf
2608 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
2609 after GDB disconnects.
2611 * New configure options
2613 --with-auto-load-dir
2614 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
2615 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
2616 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
2617 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
2618 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
2620 --with-auto-load-safe-path
2621 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
2622 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
2624 --without-auto-load-safe-path
2625 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
2628 * New remote packets
2630 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
2632 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
2633 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
2634 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
2635 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
2639 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
2640 program without GDB involvement.
2642 * New command line options
2644 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
2645 before loading inferior.
2646 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
2647 execute it before loading inferior.
2649 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
2651 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
2652 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
2653 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
2654 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
2657 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
2658 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
2660 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
2661 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
2662 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
2663 target hardware watchpoint.
2665 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
2666 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
2667 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
2668 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
2672 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
2673 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
2676 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
2677 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
2678 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
2679 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
2680 now "message", which just prints the error message without
2683 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
2686 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
2687 modules library. This module provides functionality for
2688 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
2689 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
2690 corresponding value.
2692 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
2693 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
2694 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
2697 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
2698 static_block will return the global and static blocks
2699 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
2700 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
2702 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
2704 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
2707 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
2708 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
2709 available in the CLI.
2711 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
2712 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
2713 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
2714 "some_type.items()".
2716 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
2719 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
2720 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
2721 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
2722 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
2723 any anonymous fields.
2727 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
2730 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
2731 "=breakpoint-modified".
2733 ** New command -ada-task-info.
2735 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
2736 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
2737 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
2740 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
2741 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
2742 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
2743 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
2744 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
2746 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
2747 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
2749 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
2750 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
2751 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
2752 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
2753 use this option to specify where to find it.
2755 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2756 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
2757 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
2758 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
2759 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
2760 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2761 section in the user manual for more details.
2763 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
2764 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
2765 become available after that.
2767 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
2769 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
2770 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
2776 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
2777 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
2781 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
2782 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
2783 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
2785 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
2786 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
2787 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
2789 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
2790 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
2791 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
2792 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
2793 name starts with a hyphen.
2795 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
2796 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
2797 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
2798 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
2799 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
2800 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
2801 number of bytes that will be collected.
2804 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
2805 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
2806 setting the variable trace-notes.
2809 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
2810 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
2811 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
2814 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
2815 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
2816 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
2817 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
2818 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
2821 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
2822 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
2823 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
2827 set debug dwarf2-read
2828 show debug dwarf2-read
2829 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
2830 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
2832 set debug symtab-create
2833 show debug symtab-create
2834 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
2835 creation. The default is off.
2838 show extended-prompt
2839 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
2840 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
2841 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
2842 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
2843 prompt is displayed.
2845 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
2846 show print entry-values
2847 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
2848 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
2849 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
2851 set debug entry-values
2852 show debug entry-values
2853 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
2854 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
2856 set basenames-may-differ
2857 show basenames-may-differ
2858 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
2859 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
2860 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
2861 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
2862 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
2863 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
2864 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
2865 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
2871 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
2872 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
2873 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
2874 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
2876 set trace-stop-notes
2877 show trace-stop-notes
2878 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
2879 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
2880 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
2881 started by someone else.
2883 * New remote packets
2887 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2891 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2895 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
2899 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
2903 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
2906 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
2907 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
2911 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
2915 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2917 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
2919 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
2921 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
2923 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
2924 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
2925 matches the given regular expression.
2927 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
2929 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
2930 dumping the instruction opcodes.
2932 * New command line options
2934 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
2935 This is mostly for testing purposes.
2937 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
2938 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
2940 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
2941 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
2942 source path list instead of augmenting it.
2944 * GDB now understands thread names.
2946 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
2947 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
2949 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
2950 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
2953 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
2954 has been integrated into GDB.
2958 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
2959 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
2960 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
2962 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2963 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
2964 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
2965 and allows for more dynamic content.
2967 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
2968 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
2969 have an is_valid method.
2971 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2972 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
2973 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
2975 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
2977 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
2978 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
2979 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
2980 that function like so:
2982 result = some_value (10,20)
2984 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
2985 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
2986 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
2988 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
2989 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
2990 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
2991 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
2992 New function: register_pretty_printer.
2994 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
2995 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
2997 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
2999 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
3002 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
3003 holds the thread's name.
3005 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
3006 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
3007 occurring in the process being debugged.
3008 The following events are currently supported:
3009 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
3010 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
3011 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
3015 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
3016 instantiation. For example, if you have:
3018 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
3020 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
3021 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
3022 was added to GCC 4.5.
3024 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
3025 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
3026 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
3027 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
3028 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
3029 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
3031 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
3032 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
3033 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
3034 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
3035 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
3037 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
3038 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
3039 execution to a label.
3041 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
3042 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
3043 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
3044 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
3046 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
3047 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
3048 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
3051 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
3053 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
3054 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
3055 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
3056 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
3057 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
3058 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
3061 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
3063 While now you see this:
3066 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
3068 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
3071 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
3072 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
3073 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
3074 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
3076 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3077 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
3078 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
3079 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3080 section in the user manual for more details.
3082 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3084 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
3085 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
3087 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
3089 * New native configurations
3091 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3095 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
3097 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
3098 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
3099 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
3100 in the GDB user manual.
3102 * Guile support was removed.
3104 * New features in the GNU simulator
3106 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
3108 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
3110 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
3112 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
3114 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
3115 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
3116 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
3117 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
3118 was always disabled for such configurations.
3122 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
3124 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
3125 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
3135 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
3136 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
3137 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
3139 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
3141 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
3142 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
3143 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
3144 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3146 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3147 mentioned flavors of operators.
3149 ** static const class members
3151 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3152 class definition has been fixed.
3154 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3156 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3157 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3158 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3159 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3160 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3161 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3163 * Static tracepoints
3165 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3166 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3167 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3168 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3169 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3170 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3171 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3172 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3173 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3174 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3175 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3176 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3177 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3178 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3179 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3180 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3181 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3182 the "New remote packets" section below.
3184 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3186 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3187 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3188 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3189 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3193 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3194 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3195 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3196 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3197 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3198 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3199 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3201 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3204 * New remote packets
3208 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3212 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3213 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3214 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3215 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3216 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3217 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3221 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3225 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3228 qXfer:statictrace:read
3230 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3231 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3232 to gdb's qSupported query.
3236 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3240 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3241 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3243 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3244 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3247 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3249 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3250 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3251 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3252 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3254 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3255 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3256 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3257 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3258 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3259 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3260 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3262 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
3263 for static tracepoints support.
3265 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
3267 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
3268 it understands register description.
3270 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
3272 * X86 general purpose registers
3274 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
3275 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
3276 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
3277 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
3278 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
3280 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
3281 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
3282 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
3283 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
3284 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
3285 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
3287 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
3288 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
3289 in the specified file.
3291 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
3292 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
3293 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
3294 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
3295 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
3296 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
3297 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
3298 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
3299 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
3300 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
3304 eval template, expressions...
3305 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
3306 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
3308 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
3309 show target-file-system-kind
3310 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
3313 save breakpoints <filename>
3314 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
3315 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
3316 definitions, use the `source' command.
3318 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
3321 info static-tracepoint-markers
3322 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
3324 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
3325 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
3326 function, line, address, or marker ID.
3330 Enable and disable observer mode.
3332 set may-write-registers on|off
3333 set may-write-memory on|off
3334 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
3335 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
3336 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
3337 set may-interrupt on|off
3338 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
3339 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
3340 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
3341 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
3342 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
3343 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
3344 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
3346 set record memory-query on|off
3347 show record memory-query
3348 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
3349 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
3354 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
3358 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
3359 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
3360 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
3361 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
3362 GDB using Python' in the manual.
3364 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
3365 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
3366 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
3367 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
3369 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
3370 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
3372 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
3374 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
3376 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
3378 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
3379 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
3380 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
3382 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
3383 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
3384 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
3385 regular breakpoints.
3389 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
3391 * D language support.
3392 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
3395 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
3396 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
3397 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3398 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3399 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3401 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3402 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3403 conditions of the form:
3405 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3407 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3408 interface mentioned above.
3410 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
3414 ** Namespace Support
3416 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3417 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3418 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3419 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3420 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3424 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
3425 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
3430 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
3431 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
3435 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
3440 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
3443 * Multi-program debugging.
3445 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
3446 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
3447 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
3448 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
3449 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
3450 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
3451 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
3452 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
3454 * New tracing features
3456 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
3458 ** Trace state variables
3460 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
3461 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
3462 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
3463 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
3464 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
3465 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
3466 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
3467 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
3468 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
3469 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
3473 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
3474 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
3475 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
3476 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
3477 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
3478 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
3479 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
3480 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
3481 the regular trace command.
3483 ** Disconnected tracing
3485 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
3486 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
3487 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
3488 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
3489 connection is lost unexpectedly.
3493 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
3494 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
3495 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
3496 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
3497 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
3498 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
3501 ** Circular trace buffer
3503 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
3504 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
3505 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
3506 not be available for all target agents.
3511 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
3512 the arguments to be comma-separated.
3515 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
3516 which only declare a variable are not shown.
3519 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
3520 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
3523 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
3524 "set script-extension" (see below).
3526 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3528 record save [<FILENAME>]
3529 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
3530 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
3532 record restore <FILENAME>
3533 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
3534 earlier time, for replay debugging.
3536 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
3539 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
3540 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
3541 inferior has loaded.
3546 maint info program-spaces
3547 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
3549 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
3550 show remote interrupt-sequence
3551 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
3552 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
3553 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
3554 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
3555 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
3557 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
3558 show remote interrupt-on-connect
3559 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
3560 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
3563 set remotebreak [on | off]
3565 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
3567 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
3568 Create or modify a trace state variable.
3571 List trace state variables and their values.
3573 delete tvariable $NAME ...
3574 Delete one or more trace state variables.
3577 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
3578 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
3580 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
3581 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
3583 * New expression syntax
3585 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
3586 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
3590 set follow-exec-mode new|same
3591 show follow-exec-mode
3592 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
3593 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
3594 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
3596 set default-collect EXPR, ...
3597 show default-collect
3598 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
3599 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
3600 such as registers or a critical global variable.
3602 set disconnected-tracing
3603 show disconnected-tracing
3604 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
3605 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
3608 set circular-trace-buffer
3609 show circular-trace-buffer
3610 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
3611 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
3612 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
3613 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
3615 set script-extension off|soft|strict
3616 show script-extension
3617 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
3618 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
3619 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
3620 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
3622 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
3624 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
3625 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
3626 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
3627 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
3628 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
3629 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
3630 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
3633 * Python API Improvements
3635 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
3636 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
3637 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
3639 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
3640 `is_base_class' attribute.
3642 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
3644 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
3645 evaluate an expression.
3647 * New remote packets
3650 Define a trace state variable.
3653 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
3656 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
3659 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
3662 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
3666 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
3668 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
3669 much more reliable. In particular:
3670 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
3671 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
3672 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
3673 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
3674 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
3675 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
3676 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
3677 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
3678 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
3679 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
3680 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
3681 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
3682 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
3683 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
3684 non-threaded programs.
3686 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
3687 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
3688 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
3691 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
3693 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
3694 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
3695 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
3696 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
3697 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
3699 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
3700 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
3701 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
3702 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
3703 for tracepoint actions.
3705 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
3706 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
3707 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
3709 * Process record and replay
3711 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
3712 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
3713 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
3716 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
3717 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
3718 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
3721 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
3722 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
3725 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
3726 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
3727 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
3728 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
3729 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
3730 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
3731 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
3732 the installation instructions for more information.
3734 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
3735 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
3736 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
3737 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
3739 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
3740 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
3742 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
3743 now complete on file names.
3745 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
3746 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
3747 For instance, consider:
3749 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
3750 # struct example variable;
3753 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
3754 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
3756 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
3757 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
3759 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
3760 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
3763 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
3764 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
3765 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
3767 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
3768 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
3769 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
3770 and simulator targets may also provide them.
3772 * New remote packets
3775 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3778 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
3779 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
3780 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
3783 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
3784 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
3787 Obtains additional operating system information
3791 Read or write additional signal information.
3793 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
3795 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
3796 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
3797 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
3799 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
3800 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
3802 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
3803 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
3804 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
3806 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
3807 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
3809 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
3811 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
3813 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
3814 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
3816 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
3817 list of section offsets.
3819 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
3820 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
3821 have also been fixed.
3823 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
3824 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
3825 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
3827 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
3830 template<typename T> class C { };
3833 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
3835 ptype C<char const *>
3836 ptype C<char const*>
3837 ptype C<const char *>
3838 ptype C<const char*>
3840 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
3842 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
3843 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3845 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
3846 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3847 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
3849 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
3850 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
3852 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
3855 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
3856 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3858 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
3859 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
3864 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
3865 available is determined at configure time.
3867 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
3869 * Ada tasking support
3871 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
3875 Print the list of Ada tasks.
3877 Print detailed information about task number N.
3879 Print the task number of the current task.
3881 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
3883 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
3884 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
3886 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
3888 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
3889 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
3890 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
3891 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
3892 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
3893 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
3896 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
3897 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
3900 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
3901 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
3902 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
3903 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
3906 * Multi-architecture debugging.
3908 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
3909 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
3910 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
3911 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
3912 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
3914 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
3915 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
3916 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
3917 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
3918 --enable-targets configure option.
3920 * Non-stop mode debugging.
3922 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
3923 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
3924 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
3925 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
3926 section in the user manual for more information.
3928 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
3929 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
3930 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
3931 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
3932 extensions on linux targets.
3934 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3936 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
3937 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
3938 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
3939 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
3940 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
3941 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
3942 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
3943 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
3944 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
3946 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
3948 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3950 maint set python print-stack
3951 maint show python print-stack
3952 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
3955 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
3960 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
3964 Show operating system information about processes.
3967 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
3970 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
3973 Detach from inferior number NUM.
3976 Kill inferior number NUM.
3980 set spu stop-on-load
3981 show spu stop-on-load
3982 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3984 set spu auto-flush-cache
3985 show spu auto-flush-cache
3986 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
3987 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3989 set sh calling-convention
3990 show sh calling-convention
3991 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
3994 show debug timestamp
3995 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
3997 set disassemble-next-line
3998 show disassemble-next-line
3999 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
4002 set remote noack-packet
4003 show remote noack-packet
4004 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
4005 under "New remote packets."
4007 set remote query-attached-packet
4008 show remote query-attached-packet
4009 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
4011 set remote read-siginfo-object
4012 show remote read-siginfo-object
4013 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
4016 set remote write-siginfo-object
4017 show remote write-siginfo-object
4018 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
4021 set remote reverse-continue
4022 show remote reverse-continue
4023 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
4025 set remote reverse-step
4026 show remote reverse-step
4027 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
4029 set displaced-stepping
4030 show displaced-stepping
4031 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
4032 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
4033 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
4036 show debug displaced
4037 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
4039 maint set internal-error
4040 maint show internal-error
4041 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
4043 maint set internal-warning
4044 maint show internal-warning
4045 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
4050 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4052 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
4053 show multiple-symbols
4054 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
4055 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
4056 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
4058 set breakpoint always-inserted
4059 show breakpoint always-inserted
4060 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
4061 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
4062 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
4064 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4065 show arm fallback-mode
4066 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4068 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
4069 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
4070 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
4071 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
4073 set disable-randomization
4074 show disable-randomization
4075 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
4076 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
4077 multiple debugging sessions.
4081 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
4086 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
4087 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
4088 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
4089 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
4091 set target-wide-charset
4092 show target-wide-charset
4093 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
4094 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
4096 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
4098 set tcp connect-timeout
4099 show tcp connect-timeout
4100 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
4101 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
4102 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
4104 set libthread-db-search-path
4105 show libthread-db-search-path
4106 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
4109 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
4110 show schedule-multiple
4111 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
4112 the current process.
4116 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
4117 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
4118 affecting correctness.
4120 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
4121 show interactive-mode
4122 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
4123 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
4124 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
4125 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
4126 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
4131 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
4132 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
4133 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
4137 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
4138 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
4139 alias for the `fork' command.
4142 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
4143 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
4144 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4147 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4148 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4149 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4153 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4154 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4155 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4158 * New native configurations
4160 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4162 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4166 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4167 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4168 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4171 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4172 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4178 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4180 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4182 * New native configurations
4184 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4185 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4189 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4190 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
4192 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4194 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4195 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4196 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4197 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4199 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4200 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4202 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4205 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4206 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4207 and in inlined functions.
4209 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4210 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4211 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4213 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4215 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4216 registers on PowerPC targets.
4218 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4219 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4221 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4222 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4224 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4225 extended-remote mode.
4227 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4228 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4229 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4230 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4232 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4233 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4234 target architectures.
4236 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4237 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4238 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4239 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4241 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4244 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4245 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4247 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4248 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4249 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4250 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4252 - Improved command completion in Ada
4255 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4260 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4261 show print frame-arguments
4262 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
4263 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
4268 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4275 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4277 * New remote packets
4284 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
4287 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
4291 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
4293 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
4295 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
4296 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
4297 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
4299 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
4300 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
4301 -Bsymbolic linker option.
4303 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
4304 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
4307 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
4308 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
4310 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
4311 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
4313 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
4315 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
4316 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
4317 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
4319 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
4320 automatically displayed as character or string data.
4322 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
4323 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
4326 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
4327 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
4328 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
4330 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
4333 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
4334 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
4335 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
4337 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
4339 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
4341 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
4342 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
4343 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
4345 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
4346 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
4348 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
4349 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
4350 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
4351 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
4352 Windows and SymbianOS).
4354 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
4355 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
4357 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
4358 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
4364 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
4365 when debugging using remote targets.
4367 set mem inaccessible-by-default
4368 show mem inaccessible-by-default
4369 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4370 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4371 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
4372 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
4373 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
4375 set breakpoint auto-hw
4376 show breakpoint auto-hw
4377 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4378 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4379 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
4380 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
4381 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
4382 including "next" and "finish".
4385 catch exception unhandled
4386 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
4389 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
4393 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
4394 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
4395 an alias to "set sysroot".
4398 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4399 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4402 * New native configurations
4404 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4407 unset tdesc filename
4409 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4410 not query the target for its built-in description.
4414 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4415 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4416 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4418 * New remote packets
4421 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4422 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4424 qXfer:features:read:
4425 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
4430 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
4431 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
4433 qXfer:libraries:read:
4434 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
4435 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
4436 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
4437 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
4441 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
4449 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
4450 i[34567]86-*-netware*
4451 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
4452 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
4454 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
4457 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
4458 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
4467 * Other removed features
4474 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
4481 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
4486 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
4487 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
4492 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
4493 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
4495 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
4497 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
4498 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
4499 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
4500 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
4502 MIPS ".pdr" sections
4504 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
4505 in debugging information.
4509 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
4510 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
4512 set mips stack-arg-size
4513 set mips saved-gpreg-size
4515 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
4517 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
4522 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
4524 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
4525 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
4526 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
4528 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
4529 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
4532 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
4533 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
4535 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
4536 stub provides the required support.
4538 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
4539 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
4544 unset substitute-path
4545 show substitute-path
4546 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
4547 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
4548 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
4549 between compilation and debugging.
4553 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
4554 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
4555 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
4559 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
4561 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
4562 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
4564 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
4566 * New remote packets
4569 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
4570 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
4571 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
4572 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
4576 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
4577 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
4579 qXfer:memory-map:read:
4580 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
4581 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
4586 Erase and program a flash memory device.
4588 * Removed remote packets
4591 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
4592 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
4594 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
4598 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
4600 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4604 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
4605 only if it doesn't already have a value.
4607 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
4609 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
4611 restart <n> Return the program state to a
4612 previously saved state.
4614 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
4616 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
4618 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
4619 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
4621 info forks List forks of the user program that
4622 are available to be debugged.
4624 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
4625 forks of the user program that are
4626 available to be debugged.
4628 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4629 that are available to be debugged (and
4630 kill the forked process).
4632 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4633 that are available to be debugged (and
4634 allow the process to continue).
4638 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
4640 * Improved Windows host support
4642 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
4643 native console support, and remote communications using either
4644 network sockets or serial ports.
4646 * Improved Modula-2 language support
4648 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
4649 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
4650 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
4651 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
4652 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
4653 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
4657 The ARM rdi-share module.
4659 The Netware NLM debug server.
4661 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
4663 * New native configurations
4665 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
4666 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
4670 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4672 * New command line options
4674 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
4675 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
4676 the child (debugged) program exited with.
4677 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
4678 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
4679 specified multiple times and in conjunction
4680 with the --command (-x) option.
4682 * Deprecated commands removed
4684 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
4688 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
4689 othernames set arm disassembler
4690 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
4691 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
4692 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
4695 * New BSD user-level threads support
4697 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
4698 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
4701 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4702 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
4703 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
4705 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
4706 are not yet supported.
4708 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
4709 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
4711 * REMOVED configurations and files
4713 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
4714 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4715 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
4717 * New "set print array-indexes" command
4719 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
4720 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
4723 * VAX floating point support
4725 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
4727 * User-defined command support
4729 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
4730 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
4731 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
4733 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
4735 * New command line option
4737 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
4740 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
4742 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
4743 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
4744 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
4745 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
4746 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
4748 * Internationalization
4750 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
4751 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
4752 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
4756 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
4757 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
4758 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
4760 * New native configurations
4762 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
4766 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
4767 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
4769 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
4771 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4772 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
4773 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
4776 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
4777 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
4778 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
4788 powerpc bdm protocol
4790 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4791 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
4793 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4795 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4796 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4797 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4798 permanently REMOVED.
4807 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
4809 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
4811 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
4812 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
4815 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
4817 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
4818 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
4819 IRIX long double values).
4823 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
4824 command. This problem has been fixed.
4826 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
4828 * Fix for ``many threads''
4830 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
4831 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
4834 ptrace: No such process.
4835 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
4837 This problem has been fixed.
4839 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
4841 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
4844 * New ``start'' command.
4846 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
4848 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
4850 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
4851 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
4852 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
4854 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4855 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
4856 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
4857 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
4858 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
4859 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4860 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
4861 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
4862 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4864 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
4866 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
4867 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
4868 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
4869 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
4870 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
4872 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
4873 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
4874 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
4876 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
4878 * New native configurations
4880 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
4881 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
4882 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
4883 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
4884 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
4885 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
4886 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
4888 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
4890 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4891 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
4892 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
4893 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
4894 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
4895 work, was also included.
4897 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
4898 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
4908 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4909 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
4911 * REMOVED configurations and files
4913 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
4914 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
4915 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
4916 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
4917 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
4918 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
4919 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
4920 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
4921 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
4922 sonymips mips-sony-*
4923 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
4925 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
4927 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
4929 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
4930 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
4931 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
4932 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
4935 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
4937 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
4938 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
4939 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
4940 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
4941 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
4942 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
4945 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
4947 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
4949 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
4950 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
4951 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
4953 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
4955 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
4956 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
4958 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
4960 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
4961 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
4962 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
4964 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
4966 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
4967 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
4969 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
4971 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
4972 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
4973 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
4975 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
4977 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
4978 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
4979 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
4981 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
4983 * Removed --with-mmalloc
4985 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
4986 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
4988 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
4990 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
4991 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
4992 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
4993 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
4995 * Revised SPARC target
4997 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
4998 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
4999 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
5000 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
5001 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
5005 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
5006 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
5007 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
5010 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5012 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
5013 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
5016 * C++ nested types and namespaces
5018 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
5019 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
5020 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
5021 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
5022 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
5023 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
5024 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
5025 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
5026 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
5028 * New native configurations
5030 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
5031 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5032 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
5033 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5034 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
5036 * New debugging protocols
5038 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
5040 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
5042 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
5043 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
5044 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
5046 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5048 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5049 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5050 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5051 permanently REMOVED.
5053 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5054 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5055 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5056 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5057 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5058 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5059 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5060 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5061 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5062 sonymips mips-sony-*
5063 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5065 * REMOVED configurations and files
5067 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5068 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5069 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5070 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5071 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5072 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5073 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5074 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5075 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5076 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
5077 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5078 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5079 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5080 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
5081 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
5082 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5083 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5085 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
5089 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
5090 integrated into GDB.
5092 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
5094 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
5095 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
5096 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
5099 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
5100 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
5101 DWARF 2 CFI support.
5105 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
5106 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
5107 remote protocol documentation for details.
5109 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
5111 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
5112 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
5113 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
5116 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
5118 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
5119 per-thread variables.
5121 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
5123 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
5124 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
5126 * Separate debug info.
5128 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
5129 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
5130 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
5131 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
5132 and optional debug files.
5134 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5136 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
5137 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
5140 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
5141 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5145 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5146 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5147 considered "useable".
5149 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5151 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5152 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5155 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5157 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5158 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5160 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5162 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5163 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5166 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5168 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5169 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5173 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5174 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5175 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5176 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5177 data, for more informative profiling results.
5179 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5181 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5182 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5183 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5185 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5188 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5189 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5190 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5191 in a subsequent -var-update.
5193 * New native configurations.
5195 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5197 * Multi-arched targets.
5199 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5200 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5202 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5204 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5205 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5206 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5207 permanently REMOVED.
5209 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5210 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5211 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5212 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5213 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5214 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5215 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5216 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5217 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5218 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5219 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5220 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5222 * REMOVED configurations and files
5225 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5226 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5227 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5228 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5229 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5230 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5232 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5233 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5234 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5235 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5236 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5237 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5239 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5241 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5242 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5243 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5244 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5245 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5247 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5249 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5251 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5252 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5253 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5254 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5255 shared libs like mad''.
5257 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5259 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5260 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5261 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5262 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
5264 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
5266 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
5267 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
5270 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
5271 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
5273 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
5274 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
5276 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
5277 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
5278 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
5279 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
5281 * Multi-arched targets.
5283 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
5284 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
5286 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
5287 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
5288 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5292 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
5295 * New native configurations
5297 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
5298 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
5299 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
5300 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
5302 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5304 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5305 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5306 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5307 permanently REMOVED.
5309 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5310 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5311 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5312 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5313 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5314 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5315 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5316 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5317 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5318 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5320 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5321 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5323 * OBSOLETE languages
5325 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
5327 * REMOVED configurations and files
5329 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5330 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5331 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5332 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5333 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5335 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5337 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
5339 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
5340 commands. The default is 1024.
5342 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
5344 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
5346 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
5348 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
5349 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
5350 from a file into memory (restore).
5352 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
5354 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
5355 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
5356 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
5358 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
5366 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
5367 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
5368 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
5370 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
5371 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
5372 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
5374 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
5375 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
5376 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
5378 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
5379 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
5380 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
5382 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
5384 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
5386 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
5387 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
5388 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
5389 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
5390 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
5391 (notably embedded) targets.
5393 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
5395 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
5396 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
5397 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5398 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5400 * New command line option
5402 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5404 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5406 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5407 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5408 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5409 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5410 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5411 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5412 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5413 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5414 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5415 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5417 * Changes in ARM configurations.
5419 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5420 configuration is fully multi-arch.
5422 * New native configurations
5424 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
5425 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
5426 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
5427 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
5431 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
5433 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5435 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5436 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5437 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5438 permanently REMOVED.
5440 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5441 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5442 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5443 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5444 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5446 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5448 * REMOVED configurations and files
5450 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5452 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5453 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5454 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5455 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5456 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5457 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5458 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5459 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5460 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5461 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5462 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
5464 * Changes to command line processing
5466 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
5467 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
5469 * Changes to key bindings
5471 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
5473 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
5475 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
5477 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
5480 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
5482 Numerous documentation fixes.
5484 Numerous testsuite fixes.
5486 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
5488 * New native configurations
5490 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
5491 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
5492 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
5493 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5494 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
5495 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
5499 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
5501 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
5503 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5505 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
5506 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5507 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5508 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5509 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5511 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5512 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5513 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5514 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5515 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5516 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5517 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5518 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
5520 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
5521 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
5523 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5524 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5525 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5526 permanently REMOVED.
5528 * REMOVED configurations and files
5530 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5531 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5533 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5537 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
5539 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
5540 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
5545 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
5547 * The MI enabled by default.
5549 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
5550 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
5551 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
5552 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
5553 which is now deprecated.
5555 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
5557 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
5558 main features are supported:
5560 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
5562 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
5565 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
5567 - a Pascal expression parser.
5569 However, some important features are not yet supported.
5571 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
5573 - there are some problems with boolean types;
5575 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
5576 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
5578 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
5580 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
5582 * Changes in completion.
5584 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
5585 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
5586 users expect at the shell prompt.
5588 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
5589 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
5590 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
5591 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
5592 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
5593 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
5594 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
5596 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
5598 * New platform-independent commands:
5600 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
5601 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
5602 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
5604 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
5606 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
5607 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
5608 many threads as your system allows you to have.
5610 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
5612 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
5613 multi-threaded programs though.
5615 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
5617 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
5619 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
5620 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
5623 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
5625 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
5626 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
5627 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
5628 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
5629 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
5632 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
5633 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
5634 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
5636 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
5638 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
5639 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
5641 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
5642 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
5645 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
5646 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
5647 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
5648 a given linear address.
5650 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
5651 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
5652 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
5654 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
5656 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
5658 * Changes in documentation.
5660 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
5661 Documentation License.
5663 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5666 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
5668 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5671 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
5672 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
5673 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
5675 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
5677 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
5678 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
5679 contents of this file.
5683 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
5685 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
5687 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
5689 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
5690 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
5691 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
5692 greater level of detail.
5694 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
5696 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
5697 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
5698 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
5701 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
5703 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
5704 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
5705 machines ``out of the box''.
5707 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
5708 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
5709 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
5710 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
5711 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
5713 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
5714 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
5715 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
5716 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
5717 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
5719 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
5720 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
5723 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
5726 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
5727 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
5728 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
5729 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
5731 * New native configurations
5733 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
5734 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5738 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
5739 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
5740 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
5741 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5743 * OBSOLETE configurations
5745 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5746 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5748 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5751 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5752 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5753 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5754 be permanently REMOVED.
5756 * Gould support removed
5758 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
5760 * New features for SVR4
5762 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
5763 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
5764 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
5766 * Many C++ enhancements
5768 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
5769 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
5771 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
5773 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
5774 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
5775 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
5776 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
5778 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
5779 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
5781 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
5783 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
5784 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
5785 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
5787 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
5788 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
5790 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
5792 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
5793 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
5794 include ``set remote P-packet''.
5796 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
5798 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
5799 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
5800 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
5802 * ``apropos'' command added.
5804 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
5805 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
5806 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
5810 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
5811 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
5812 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
5813 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
5814 enabled by configuring with:
5816 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
5818 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
5820 * New native configurations
5822 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
5823 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
5824 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
5828 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5829 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
5830 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5832 * OBSOLETE configurations
5834 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
5836 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5837 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5838 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5839 be permanently REMOVED.
5843 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
5844 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
5845 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
5846 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
5847 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
5848 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
5849 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
5854 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
5856 * set extension-language
5858 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
5859 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
5860 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
5861 set extension-language .c c++
5862 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
5863 and their associated languages.
5865 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
5867 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
5868 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
5869 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
5873 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
5874 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
5876 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
5877 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
5879 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
5880 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
5881 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
5882 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
5883 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
5884 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
5885 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
5886 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
5888 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
5889 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
5890 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
5891 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
5895 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
5896 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
5897 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
5898 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
5899 for xdb and dbx commands.
5903 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
5904 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
5905 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
5907 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
5908 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
5909 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
5911 * Debugging across forks
5913 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
5918 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
5919 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
5920 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
5922 * GDB remote protocol additions
5924 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
5925 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
5926 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
5927 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
5929 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
5930 full 64-bit address. The command
5932 set remoteaddresssize 32
5934 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
5935 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
5938 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
5939 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
5941 maint packet heythere
5943 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
5944 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
5947 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
5948 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
5949 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
5951 * Tracing can collect general expressions
5953 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
5954 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
5955 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
5957 * mask-address variable for Mips
5959 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
5960 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
5961 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
5963 * Higher serial baud rates
5965 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
5966 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
5967 to achieve all of these rates.)
5971 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
5972 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
5975 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
5977 * New native configurations
5979 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
5980 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
5981 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5982 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5983 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5984 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
5985 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
5989 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5990 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
5991 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5992 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
5993 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
5994 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
5995 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
5996 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
5997 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5998 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5999 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
6001 * New debugging protocols
6003 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
6004 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
6005 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
6006 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6007 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6008 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6012 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
6013 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
6018 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
6019 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
6021 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
6023 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
6024 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
6025 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
6027 * Live range splitting
6029 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
6030 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
6031 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
6035 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
6036 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
6040 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
6041 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
6042 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
6047 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
6052 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
6053 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
6054 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
6055 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
6056 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
6057 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
6061 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
6062 the symbol at the specified address.
6066 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
6067 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
6068 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
6069 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
6070 file tracepoint.c for more details.
6074 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
6075 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
6076 of most MIPS variants.
6080 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
6081 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
6082 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
6086 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
6087 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
6088 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
6089 the possible architectures.
6091 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
6093 * New native configurations
6095 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
6096 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
6097 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
6098 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
6099 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6100 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
6104 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
6105 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6106 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
6107 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
6108 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
6110 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6114 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
6115 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
6116 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
6117 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
6118 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
6122 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
6124 * Windows 95/NT native
6126 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
6127 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
6128 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
6129 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
6130 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
6132 * dont-repeat command
6134 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
6135 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
6136 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
6137 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
6139 * Send break instead of ^C
6141 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
6142 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
6143 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6145 * Remote protocol timeout
6147 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6148 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6149 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6151 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6153 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6154 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6155 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6156 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6157 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6159 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6160 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6161 automatically on hpux10.
6163 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6165 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6167 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6169 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6170 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6171 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6172 every character. The default value is 1050.
6174 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6176 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6177 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6178 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6179 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6180 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6181 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6183 * Speedups for remote debugging
6185 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6186 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6187 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6189 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6191 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6192 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6194 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6196 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6198 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6199 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6201 * Remote targets use caching
6203 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6204 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6205 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6206 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6207 off' turns the the data cache off.
6209 * Remote targets may have threads
6211 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6212 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6213 gdb/remote.c for details.
6217 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6218 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6219 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6220 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6221 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6222 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6223 sequence is something like
6225 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6227 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6231 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6232 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6233 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6234 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6235 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6236 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6237 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6238 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6242 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6243 but does simplify configuration and building.
6247 GDB now supports hpux10.
6249 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6251 * New native configurations
6253 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6254 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6255 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6256 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6260 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6261 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6262 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
6263 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
6266 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
6268 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
6269 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
6270 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
6271 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
6272 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
6274 * Arguments to user-defined commands
6276 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
6277 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
6280 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
6282 To execute the command use:
6285 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
6286 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
6287 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
6289 * New `if' and `while' commands
6291 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
6292 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
6293 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
6294 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
6295 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
6296 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
6297 if the expression is zero.
6299 * Fortran source language mode
6301 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
6302 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
6303 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
6304 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
6307 * Better HPUX support
6309 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
6310 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
6311 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
6312 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
6313 that behavior do the following before running the program:
6319 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
6320 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
6326 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
6327 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
6330 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
6331 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
6333 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
6335 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
6336 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
6337 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
6338 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
6339 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
6340 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
6342 * New DOS host serial code
6344 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
6345 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
6348 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
6350 * New "complete" command
6352 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
6353 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
6355 * Trailing space optional in prompt
6357 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
6358 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
6360 * Breakpoint hit counts
6362 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
6363 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
6364 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
6365 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
6366 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
6369 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
6371 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
6372 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
6373 arrays actually contain only short strings.
6375 * Shared library breakpoints
6377 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
6378 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
6380 * Hardware watchpoints
6382 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
6383 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
6385 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
6389 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
6390 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
6392 * Improved Irix 5 support
6394 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
6396 * Improved HPPA support
6398 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6400 * New native configurations
6402 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6403 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6404 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6405 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6409 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6410 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6413 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6415 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6416 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6420 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6421 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6423 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6425 * Irix 5 is now supported
6429 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
6430 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
6431 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
6432 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
6433 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
6436 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
6438 * User visible changes:
6442 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
6443 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
6444 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
6445 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
6446 debugging info for the mips target).
6448 * DEC Alpha native support
6450 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
6451 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
6452 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
6453 Alpha-specific notes.
6455 * Preliminary thread implementation
6457 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
6459 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
6461 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
6462 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
6465 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
6467 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
6468 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
6469 call methods, ...etc.
6471 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
6473 * User visible changes:
6475 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
6476 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
6477 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
6478 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
6480 Filename completion now works.
6482 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
6483 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
6484 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
6486 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
6487 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
6488 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
6489 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
6490 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
6494 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
6495 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
6498 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
6502 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
6503 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
6504 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
6508 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
6509 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
6510 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
6511 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
6512 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
6516 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
6517 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
6518 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
6520 * New targets supported
6522 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6523 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6524 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
6525 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6526 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
6528 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
6529 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
6530 GO32 memory extender.
6532 * New remote protocols
6534 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
6536 * New source languages supported
6538 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
6539 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
6540 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
6543 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
6545 * HP Precision Architecture supported
6547 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
6548 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
6549 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
6550 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
6551 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
6552 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
6554 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
6556 * Faster and better demangling
6558 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
6559 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
6560 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
6561 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
6562 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
6563 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
6566 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
6567 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
6568 compiler does not actually implement.
6570 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
6572 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
6573 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
6574 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
6575 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
6576 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
6577 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
6580 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
6581 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
6583 * Improved configure script
6585 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
6586 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
6587 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
6588 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
6590 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
6591 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
6592 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
6593 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
6594 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
6595 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
6597 * Documentation improvements
6599 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
6600 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
6601 before submitting changes.
6603 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
6604 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
6605 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
6606 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
6607 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
6609 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
6610 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
6611 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
6612 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
6613 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
6614 around this problem.
6618 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
6619 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
6620 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
6623 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
6624 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
6626 * New native hosts supported
6628 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
6629 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
6631 * New targets supported
6633 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
6635 * New file formats supported
6637 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
6638 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
6642 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
6644 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
6645 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
6647 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
6648 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
6649 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
6651 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
6652 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
6654 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
6655 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
6656 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
6659 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
6660 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
6661 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
6662 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
6663 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
6665 * Internal improvements
6667 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
6668 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
6670 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
6671 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
6672 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
6673 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
6674 shared code that handles any of them.
6676 * New command line options
6678 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
6682 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
6683 General Public License.
6685 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
6687 * Host/native/target split
6689 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
6690 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
6691 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
6692 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
6693 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
6695 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
6696 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
6697 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
6698 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
6699 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
6700 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
6701 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
6703 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
6704 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
6705 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
6707 * New hosts supported
6709 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
6710 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6711 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
6713 * New targets supported
6715 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6716 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
6718 * New native hosts supported
6720 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6721 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
6722 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
6724 * New file formats supported
6726 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
6727 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
6728 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
6732 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
6733 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
6734 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
6736 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
6738 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
6739 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
6740 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
6741 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
6745 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
6746 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
6747 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
6749 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
6753 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
6754 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
6757 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
6758 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
6760 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
6761 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
6762 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
6763 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
6764 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
6765 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
6767 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
6768 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
6769 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
6770 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
6774 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
6775 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
6776 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
6777 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
6778 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
6780 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
6781 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
6782 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
6783 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
6787 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
6788 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
6789 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
6790 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
6791 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
6792 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
6793 each instruction being stepped through.
6795 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
6796 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
6798 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
6799 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
6800 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
6801 processor with a serial port.
6805 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
6806 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
6807 supported, and what files each one uses.
6811 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
6812 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
6813 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
6814 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
6816 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
6817 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
6818 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
6819 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
6823 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
6824 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
6825 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
6826 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
6827 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
6828 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
6830 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
6833 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
6835 * Better support for C++ function names
6837 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
6838 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
6839 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
6840 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
6841 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
6843 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
6844 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
6845 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
6846 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
6847 for the list of formats.
6849 * G++ symbol mangling problem
6851 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
6852 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
6853 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
6854 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
6855 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
6856 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
6859 * New 'maintenance' command
6861 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
6862 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
6863 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
6865 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
6866 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
6867 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
6868 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
6869 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
6870 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
6872 The following commands are new:
6874 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
6875 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
6876 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
6878 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
6880 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
6881 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
6882 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
6883 read after argv processing.
6885 * New hosts supported
6887 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
6889 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
6891 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
6892 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
6893 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
6894 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
6895 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
6898 * New targets supported
6900 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6902 * More smarts about finding #include files
6904 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
6905 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
6906 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
6907 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
6908 the one that contains your sources.
6910 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
6911 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
6912 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
6914 * Interesting infernals change
6916 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
6917 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
6918 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
6919 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
6921 * Bug fixes (of course!)
6923 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
6924 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
6925 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
6927 See the ChangeLog for details.
6929 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
6931 * New machines supported (host and target)
6933 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
6935 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
6937 * New malloc package
6939 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
6940 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
6941 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
6942 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
6943 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
6944 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
6948 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
6949 'help info proc' for details.
6951 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
6953 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
6954 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
6957 * File name changes for MS-DOS
6959 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
6960 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
6961 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
6962 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
6963 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
6964 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
6966 * Cross byte order fixes
6968 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
6969 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
6971 * New -mapped and -readnow options
6973 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
6974 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
6975 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
6976 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
6977 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
6978 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
6979 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
6980 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
6981 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
6982 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
6984 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
6985 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
6986 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
6987 slower, but makes future operations faster.
6989 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
6990 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
6991 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
6994 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
6996 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
6997 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
6998 shared across multiple host platforms.
7000 * longjmp() handling
7002 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
7003 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
7004 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
7005 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
7009 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
7010 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
7015 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
7016 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
7017 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
7019 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
7021 * New machines supported (host and target)
7023 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7025 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
7026 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
7028 * New machines supported (target)
7030 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7034 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
7035 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
7036 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
7038 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
7039 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
7040 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
7041 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
7042 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
7045 * New features for SVR4
7047 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
7048 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
7049 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
7051 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
7052 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
7053 it prints the address mappings of the process.
7055 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
7056 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
7058 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
7060 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
7061 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
7062 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
7063 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
7064 same code linked statically.
7068 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
7069 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
7070 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
7071 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
7072 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
7073 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
7077 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7078 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7079 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7082 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
7084 * New machines supported (host and target)
7086 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
7087 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
7088 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7090 * Almost SCO Unix support
7092 We had hoped to support:
7093 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7094 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
7095 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
7096 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
7098 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
7100 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
7101 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
7102 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
7103 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
7108 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
7109 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
7110 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
7114 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7115 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7116 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7118 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
7120 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
7121 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
7122 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
7124 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
7125 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
7126 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
7127 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
7130 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
7131 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
7132 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
7133 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
7136 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
7137 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
7140 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
7141 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
7142 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7145 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7147 * Improved configuration
7149 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7150 Porting BFD is simpler.
7154 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7155 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7156 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7157 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7161 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7163 * New host supported (not target)
7165 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7168 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7170 * Multiple source language support
7172 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7173 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7174 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7175 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7176 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7177 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7181 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7182 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7183 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7184 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7186 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7187 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7188 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7190 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7191 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7195 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7196 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7197 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7198 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7201 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7203 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7204 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7205 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7206 examining core files.
7210 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7213 * New machines supported (host and target)
7215 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7216 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7217 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7219 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7221 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7223 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7225 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7226 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7227 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7229 * New remote interfaces
7235 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7239 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7241 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7242 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7243 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7244 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7245 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7246 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7247 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7248 stub on the target system.
7250 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7252 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7253 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7254 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7256 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7257 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7260 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7262 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
7263 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
7265 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
7266 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
7267 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
7269 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
7270 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
7271 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
7272 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
7274 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
7275 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
7276 it is already running. Default is ON.
7278 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
7279 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
7280 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
7281 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
7284 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
7285 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
7286 or the value of the environment variable
7289 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
7290 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
7293 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
7294 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
7295 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
7297 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
7298 history expansion will be performed on
7299 command line input. The default is OFF.
7301 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
7302 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
7303 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
7305 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
7306 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
7307 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7310 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
7311 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
7312 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7315 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
7316 ``set width'' instead.
7318 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
7319 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
7320 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
7321 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
7323 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
7326 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
7329 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
7332 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
7335 * Support for Epoch Environment.
7337 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
7338 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
7339 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
7343 * Support for Shared Libraries
7345 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
7346 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
7347 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
7348 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
7349 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
7350 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
7351 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
7352 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
7354 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
7355 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
7356 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
7358 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
7363 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
7364 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
7365 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
7366 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
7367 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
7368 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
7370 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
7372 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
7374 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7375 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7376 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7379 * C++ multiple inheritance
7381 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
7384 * C++ exception handling
7386 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
7387 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
7388 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
7391 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
7392 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
7393 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
7395 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
7396 current stack frame.
7399 * Minor command changes
7401 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7402 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7403 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7405 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7406 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7407 frames without printing.
7409 * New directory command
7411 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7412 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7413 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7414 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7415 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7417 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7419 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7422 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7423 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7424 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
7425 where the program that you are debugging will run.