ded1fce406c3acbbd09fad0ff7315d4965878d84
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 8.3
5
6 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
7 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
8 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
9 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
10 such as in system-wide init files.
11
12 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
13 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
14 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
15 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
16
17 * Support for Pointer Authentication on AArch64 Linux.
18
19 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
20 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
21
22 * Python API
23
24 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
25 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
26 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
27 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
28 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
29
30 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
31 type was defined in.
32
33 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
34 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
35 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
36
37 * New commands
38
39 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
40 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
41 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
42 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
43 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
44 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
45 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
46
47 set may-call-functions [on|off]
48 show may-call-functions
49 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
50 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
51 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
52 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
53 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
54 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
55 in the program.
56
57 set print finish [on|off]
58 show print finish
59 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
60 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
61 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
62 default is `on'.
63
64 set print max-depth
65 show print max-depth
66 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
67 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
68 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
69 the old behavior back.
70
71 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
72 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
73 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
74
75 set style title foreground COLOR
76 set style title background COLOR
77 set style title intensity VALUE
78 Control the styling of titles.
79
80 set style highlight foreground COLOR
81 set style highlight background COLOR
82 set style highlight intensity VALUE
83 Control the styling of highlightings.
84
85 * Changed commands
86
87 help
88 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
89 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
90 command names.
91
92 apropos [-v] REGEXP
93 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
94 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
95 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
96 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
97 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
98
99 show style
100 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
101 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
102 the user visualize the different styles.
103
104
105 * New MI commands
106
107 -complete
108 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
109 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
110 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
111
112 * Testsuite
113
114 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
115 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
116 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
117 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
118
119 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
120
121 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
122 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
123 HTM registers.
124
125 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
126 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
127 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
128 and operators.
129
130 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
131 (the C++ plug-in).
132
133 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
134 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
135 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
136
137 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
138 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
139
140 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
141 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
142 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
143 in the GDB user manual.
144
145 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
146 executed failed.
147
148 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
149
150 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
151 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
152 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
153 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
154 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
155 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
156 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
157 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
158 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
159 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
160 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
161 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
162
163 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
164 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
165 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
166 information.
167
168 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
169 lucid.
170
171 * New commands
172
173 set debug compile-cplus-types
174 show debug compile-cplus-types
175 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
176 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiliong
177 for other languages.
178
179 set debug skip
180 show debug skip
181 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
182 displayed.
183
184 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
185 Apply a command to some frames.
186 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
187 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
188
189 taas COMMAND
190 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
191 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
192
193 faas COMMAND
194 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
195 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
196
197 tfaas COMMAND
198 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
199 output).
200 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
201
202 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
203 maint show dwarf unwinders
204 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
205
206 info proc files
207 Display a list of open files for a process.
208
209 * Changed commands
210
211 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
212 These commands all now take a frame specification which
213 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
214 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
215 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
216 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
217 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
218
219 target remote FILENAME
220 target extended-remote FILENAME
221 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
222 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
223
224 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
225 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
226 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
227 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
228 These commands can now print only the searched entities
229 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
230 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
231 printing headers or informations messages.
232
233 info functions
234 info types
235 info variables
236 rbreak
237 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
238 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
239 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
240 the shown entities.
241
242 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
243 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
244 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
245 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
246
247 set tui tab-width NCHARS
248 show tui tab-width NCHARS
249 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
250
251 set style enabled [on|off]
252 show style enabled
253 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
254 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
255
256 set style sources [on|off]
257 show style sources
258 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
259 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
260 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
261
262 set style filename foreground COLOR
263 set style filename background COLOR
264 set style filename intensity VALUE
265 Control the styling of file names.
266
267 set style function foreground COLOR
268 set style function background COLOR
269 set style function intensity VALUE
270 Control the styling of function names.
271
272 set style variable foreground COLOR
273 set style variable background COLOR
274 set style variable intensity VALUE
275 Control the styling of variable names.
276
277 set style address foreground COLOR
278 set style address background COLOR
279 set style address intensity VALUE
280 Control the styling of addresses.
281
282 * MI changes
283
284 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
285
286 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
287 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
288 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
289 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
290 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
291
292 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
293 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
294
295 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
296 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
297 the following commands and events:
298
299 - -break-insert
300 - -break-info
301 - =breakpoint-created
302 - =breakpoint-modified
303
304 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
305 this behavior with previous MI versions.
306
307 * New native configurations
308
309 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
310 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
311
312 * New targets
313
314 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
315 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
316 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
317 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
318 NXP S12Z s12z-*-elf
319 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
320
321 * Removed targets
322
323 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
324 before Windows XP.
325
326 * Python API
327
328 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
329
330 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
331 space associated to that inferior.
332
333 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
334 of objfiles associated to that program space.
335
336 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
337 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
338 the gdb core.
339
340 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
341 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
342 correct and did not work properly.
343
344 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
345 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
346
347 * Configure changes
348
349 --enable-ubsan
350
351 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
352 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
353 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
354 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
355 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
356
357 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
358
359 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
360 for the MIPS target.
361
362 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
363 offset to all sections.
364
365 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
366 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
367 address of individual sections using '-s'.
368
369 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
370 (address of the text section).
371
372 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
373 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
374 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
375 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
376 default.
377
378 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
379 for the rest of the current command.
380
381 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
382 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
383
384 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
385 files created on FreeBSD systems.
386
387 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
388 alignof.
389
390 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
391 the vector length while the process is running.
392
393 * New commands
394
395 set debug fbsd-nat
396 show debug fbsd-nat
397 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
398
399 set|show varsize-limit
400 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
401 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
402 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
403
404 set|show record btrace cpu
405 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
406 branch trace decode.
407
408 maint check libthread-db
409 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
410 library
411
412 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
413 maint show check-libthread-db
414 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
415 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
416 perform such checks.
417
418 * Python API
419
420 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
421
422 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
423 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
424
425 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
426
427 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
428 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
429 of convenience variables.
430
431 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
432 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
433 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
434
435 * New targets
436
437 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
438
439 * Removed targets and native configurations
440
441 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
442 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
443 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
444 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
445
446 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
447
448 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
449 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
450 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
451 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
452 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
453 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
454 reported.
455
456 * Configure changes
457
458 --enable-codesign=CERT
459 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
460 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
461 gdb to work properly.
462
463 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
464 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
465
466 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
467
468 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
469 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
470 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
471
472 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
473 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
474
475 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
476 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
477 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
478 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
479 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
480
481 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
482 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
483 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
484 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
485
486 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
487 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
488
489 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
490 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
491 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
492
493 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
494 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
495 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
496
497 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
498 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
499 environment" command.
500
501 * Completion improvements
502
503 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
504 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
505 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
506 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
507 correctly:
508
509 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
510 (gdb) b function(int)
511
512 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
513 C++ anonymous namespaces:
514
515 (gdb) b (anon[TAB]
516 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
517 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
518 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
519
520 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
521 completion support, that better understands what you're
522 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
523 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
524 setting a breakpoint.
525
526 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
527
528 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
529
530 * New command line options (gcore)
531
532 -a
533 Dump all memory mappings.
534
535 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
536
537 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
538 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
539 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
540
541 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
542
543 A::B::func()
544 B::func()
545
546 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
547 on both symbols.
548
549 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
550 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
551 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
552 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
553 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
554 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
555 a breakpoint from Python.
556
557 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
558
559 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
560 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
561 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
562
563 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
564
565 function[abi:cxx11](int)
566 ^^^^^^^^^^^
567
568 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
569 no tag, like:
570
571 (gdb) b function(int)
572
573 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
574
575 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
576
577 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
578
579 * Python Scripting
580
581 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
582 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
583 description of these.
584
585 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
586 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
587 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
588
589 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
590 manual for a further description of this feature.
591
592
593 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
594
595 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
596 specified initial working directory.
597
598 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
599 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
600
601 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
602 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
603
604 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
605 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
606
607 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
608 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
609 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
610 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
611 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
612
613 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
614 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
615 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
616
617 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
618 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
619 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
620 in the *stopped notification.
621
622 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
623 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
624
625 * New remote packets
626
627 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
628 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
629 the inferior when starting it.
630
631 QEnvironmentUnset
632 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
633 before starting the remote inferior.
634
635 QEnvironmentReset
636 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
637 user-set environment variables should be unset).
638
639 QStartupWithShell
640 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
641
642 QSetWorkingDir
643 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
644 working directory.
645
646 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
647 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
648
649 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
650 filter the tests to be run.
651
652 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
653 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
654
655 * New commands
656
657 set|show cwd
658 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
659
660 set|show compile-gcc
661 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
662 with the 'compile' commands.
663
664 set debug separate-debug-file
665 show debug separate-debug-file
666 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
667
668 set dump-excluded-mappings
669 show dump-excluded-mappings
670 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
671 dumped when generating a core file.
672
673 maint info selftests
674 List the registered selftests.
675
676 starti
677 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
678
679 set|show debug or1k
680 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
681
682 set|show print type nested-type-limit
683 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
684 type printer will show.
685
686 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
687 `o' for nexti.
688
689 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
690
691 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
692 'int'.
693
694 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
695 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
696 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
697 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
698
699 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
700 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
701 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
702 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
703 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
704 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
705
706 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
707 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
708 unless you tell it the variable's type:
709
710 (gdb) p var
711 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
712 (gdb) p (float) var
713 $3 = 3.14
714
715 * New native configurations
716
717 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
718 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
719
720 * New targets
721
722 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
723 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
724 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
725
726 * Removed targets and native configurations
727
728 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
729
730 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
731
732 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
733 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
734 available in future Intel CPUs.
735
736 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
737
738 * Python Scripting
739
740 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
741 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
742
743 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
744 instructions.
745
746 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
747
748 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
749
750 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
751 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
752 removed.
753
754 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
755
756 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
757 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
758
759 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
760
761 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
762 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
763 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
764 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
765 features.
766
767 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
768
769 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
770 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
771 debugger.
772
773 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
774
775 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
776 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
777
778 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
779
780 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
781
782 define mycommand
783 set $i = 0
784 while $i < $argc
785 eval "print $arg%d", $i
786 set $i = $i + 1
787 end
788 end
789
790 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
791
792 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
793 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
794
795 * New native configurations
796
797 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
798
799 * New targets
800
801 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
802 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
803
804 * Removed targets and native configurations
805
806 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
807 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
808
809 * New commands
810
811 flash-erase
812 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
813
814 maint print arc arc-instruction address
815 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
816
817 * New options
818
819 set disassembler-options
820 show disassembler-options
821 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
822 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
823 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
824 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
825 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
826
827 * New MI commands
828
829 -target-flash-erase
830 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
831 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
832
833 -file-list-shared-libraries
834 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
835 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
836
837 -catch-handlers
838 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
839 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
840
841 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
842
843 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
844
845 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
846 default. One must now explicitly configure with
847 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
848 option will be removed in a future release.
849
850 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
851 GDB connection.
852
853 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
854 memory backward from the given address. For example:
855
856 (gdb) bt
857 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
858 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
859 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
860 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
861 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
862 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
863 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
864 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
865 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
866
867 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
868 arrays of dynamic types.
869
870 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
871 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
872 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
873 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
874 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
875 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
876
877 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
878 descriptions.
879
880 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
881 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
882 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
883
884 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
885
886 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
887 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
888 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
889 signal received and code location.
890
891 For example:
892
893 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
894 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
895 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
896 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
897
898 * Rust language support.
899 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
900 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
901 Rust.
902
903 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
904
905 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
906 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
907 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
908 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
909 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
910 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
911 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
912 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
913 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
914 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
915 line.
916
917 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
918
919 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
920 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
921
922 * New commands
923
924 skip -file file
925 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
926 skip -function function
927 skip -rfunction regular-expression
928 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
929 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
930 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
931
932 maint info line-table REGEXP
933 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data struture.
934
935 maint selftest
936 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
937
938 new-ui INTERP TTY
939 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
940 using the TTY file for input/output.
941
942 * Python Scripting
943
944 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
945 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
946 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
947 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
948 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
949
950 signal-event EVENTID
951 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
952 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
953 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
954 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
955 signalling an event.
956
957 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
958 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
959 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
960
961 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
962 been removed:
963
964 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
965 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
966 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
967 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
968 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
969 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
970
971 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
972 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
973 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
974 bytecode into native code.
975
976 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
977 recording. For example:
978
979 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
980
981 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
982
983 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
984
985 * New targets
986
987 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
988
989 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
990
991 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
992
993 * Per-inferior thread numbers
994
995 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
996 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
997 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
998
999 (gdb) info threads
1000 Id Target Id Frame
1001 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
1002 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
1003 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
1004 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
1005
1006 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
1007 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
1008 are no longer unique between inferiors.
1009
1010 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
1011 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
1012 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
1013
1014 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
1015 IDs.
1016
1017 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
1018 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
1019
1020 (gdb) thread 2.1
1021 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
1022 (gdb)
1023
1024 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
1025 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
1026 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
1027 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
1028 threads 2.*".
1029
1030 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
1031 all threads.
1032
1033 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
1034 the current thread.
1035
1036 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
1037 current inferior.
1038
1039 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
1040 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
1041 example:
1042
1043 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
1044 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
1045
1046 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
1047
1048 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
1049
1050 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
1051 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
1052
1053 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
1054 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
1055 clients.
1056
1057 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1058 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
1059 at the same time.
1060
1061 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
1062 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
1063 into native code.
1064
1065 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1066
1067 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
1068 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
1069 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
1070
1071 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
1072 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
1073
1074 * New commands
1075
1076 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
1077 maint show target-non-stop
1078 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
1079 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
1080 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
1081
1082 maint set bfd-sharing
1083 maint show bfd-sharing
1084 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
1085
1086 set debug bfd-cache
1087 show debug bfd-cache
1088 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
1089
1090 set debug fbsd-lwp
1091 show debug fbsd-lwp
1092 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
1093
1094 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1095 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1096 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
1097
1098 set remote thread-events
1099 show remote thread-events
1100 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
1101
1102 set ada print-signatures on|off
1103 show ada print-signatures"
1104 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
1105 selection menus. It is activaled (@code{on}) by default.
1106
1107 set max-value-size
1108 show max-value-size
1109 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
1110 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
1111 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
1112
1113 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1114 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
1115 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
1116 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
1117 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
1118 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
1119
1120 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1121 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
1122
1123 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
1124 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
1125
1126 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
1127
1128 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
1129 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
1130 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
1131 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
1132 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
1133 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
1134
1135 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
1136 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1137
1138 catch handlers
1139 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1140
1141 * New remote packets
1142
1143 exec stop reason
1144 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1145
1146 exec-events feature in qSupported
1147 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1148 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1149 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1150 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1151
1152 vCtrlC
1153 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1154 non-stop mode.
1155
1156 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1157 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1158
1159 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1160 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1161
1162 QThreadEvents
1163 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1164 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1165 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1166 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1167 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1168 stop for that same thread.
1169
1170 N stop reply
1171 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1172 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1173 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1174
1175 QCatchSyscalls
1176 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1177 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1178
1179 syscall_entry stop reason
1180 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1181
1182 syscall_return stop reason
1183 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1184
1185 * Extended-remote exec events
1186
1187 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1188 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1189 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1190
1191 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1192 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1193 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1194
1195 * Thread names in remote protocol
1196
1197 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1198 thread.
1199
1200 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1201
1202 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1203 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1204 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1205 fork and exec catchpoints.
1206
1207 * Remote syscall events
1208
1209 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1210 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1211
1212 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1213 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1214 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1215
1216 * MI changes
1217
1218 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1219 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1220 left.
1221
1222 * Python Scripting
1223
1224 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1225 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1226 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1227 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1228 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1229 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1230
1231 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1232
1233 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1234 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1235 including advance SIMD instructions.
1236
1237 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1238
1239 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1240 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1241 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1242 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1243 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1244 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1245 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1246
1247 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1248 cpu information :
1249 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1250
1251 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1252 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1253 remote serial I/O.
1254
1255 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1256 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
1257 and may include things like its command line arguments.
1258
1259 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
1260 is now available on all platforms.
1261
1262 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
1263 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
1264 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
1265 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
1266 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
1267 backward compatibility.
1268
1269 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
1270 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
1271 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
1272 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
1273
1274 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
1275 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
1276 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
1277 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
1278 packets" below.
1279
1280 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
1281
1282 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
1283
1284 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
1285 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
1286 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
1287 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
1288 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
1289 See "New remote packets" below.
1290
1291 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
1292 available register groups, including target specific groups.
1293
1294 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
1295 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
1296 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
1297 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
1298 are ignored.
1299
1300 * Guile Scripting
1301
1302 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
1303
1304 * Python Scripting
1305
1306 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
1307 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
1308 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
1309 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
1310 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
1311 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
1312 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
1313 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
1314 "const" version of the value respectively.
1315
1316 * New commands
1317
1318 maint print symbol-cache
1319 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
1320
1321 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
1322 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
1323
1324 maint flush-symbol-cache
1325 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
1326
1327 record btrace bts
1328 record bts
1329 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
1330
1331 compile print
1332 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
1333
1334 tui enable
1335 tui disable
1336 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
1337
1338 show mpx bound
1339 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
1340 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
1341
1342 record btrace pt
1343 record pt
1344 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
1345
1346 maint info btrace
1347 Print information about branch tracing internals.
1348
1349 maint btrace packet-history
1350 Print the raw branch tracing data.
1351
1352 maint btrace clear-packet-history
1353 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
1354
1355 maint btrace clear
1356 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
1357 anew by the next "record" command.
1358
1359 * New options
1360
1361 set debug dwarf-die
1362 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
1363 show debug dwarf-die
1364 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
1365
1366 set debug dwarf-read
1367 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
1368 show debug dwarf-read
1369 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
1370
1371 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
1372 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1373 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
1374 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1375
1376 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
1377 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1378 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
1379 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1380
1381 set debug dwarf-line
1382 show debug dwarf-line
1383 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
1384
1385 set max-completions
1386 show max-completions
1387 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
1388 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
1389 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
1390 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
1391
1392 set history remove-duplicates
1393 show history remove-duplicates
1394 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1395
1396 maint set symbol-cache-size
1397 maint show symbol-cache-size
1398 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1399
1400 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1401 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1402 BTS format.
1403 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1404 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1405
1406 set debug linux-namespaces
1407 show debug linux-namespaces
1408 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1409
1410 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1411 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1412 Intel Processor Trace format.
1413 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1414 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1415
1416 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1417 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1418 packet history.
1419
1420 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
1421 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
1422
1423 * Python/Guile scripting
1424
1425 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
1426 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
1427
1428 * New remote packets
1429
1430 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
1431 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
1432
1433 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
1434 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
1435
1436 Qbtrace:pt
1437 Enable Intel Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
1438 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
1439 qSupported query.
1440
1441 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
1442 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
1443 Trace format.
1444
1445 swbreak stop reason
1446 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
1447 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
1448 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
1449 mode operation.
1450
1451 hwbreak stop reason
1452 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
1453 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
1454
1455 vFile:fstat:
1456 Return information about files on the remote system.
1457
1458 qXfer:exec-file:read
1459 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
1460 create a process running on the remote system.
1461
1462 vFile:setfs:
1463 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
1464 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
1465 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
1466 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
1467
1468 fork stop reason
1469 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
1470
1471 vfork stop reason
1472 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
1473
1474 vforkdone stop reason
1475 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
1476 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
1477
1478 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
1479 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
1480 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
1481 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
1482 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
1483 whether these features are enabled.
1484
1485 * Extended-remote fork events
1486
1487 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
1488 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
1489 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
1490 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
1491
1492 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
1493 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
1494 the btrace record target.
1495 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
1496
1497 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
1498 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
1499
1500 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
1501 targets.
1502
1503 * Removed command line options
1504
1505 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
1506
1507 * Removed targets and native configurations
1508
1509 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
1510 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1511
1512 * New configure options
1513
1514 --with-intel-pt
1515 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
1516 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
1517
1518 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
1519 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
1520 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
1521 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
1522
1523 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
1524
1525 * Python Scripting
1526
1527 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
1528
1529 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
1530
1531 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
1532
1533 * Python Scripting
1534
1535 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
1536 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
1537 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
1538 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
1539 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
1540 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
1541 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
1542 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
1543 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
1544 selecting a new file to debug.
1545 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
1546 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
1547
1548 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
1549 inferior.
1550
1551 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
1552 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
1553 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
1554 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
1555
1556 * New Python-based convenience functions:
1557
1558 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1559 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1560 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1561 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1562
1563 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
1564 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
1565 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
1566 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
1567 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
1568 interface with this new feature are:
1569
1570 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
1571 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
1572
1573 * New commands
1574
1575 demangle [-l language] [--] name
1576 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
1577 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
1578 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
1579 as "maint demangler-warning".
1580
1581 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
1582 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
1583
1584 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
1585 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
1586 scripts.
1587
1588 maint print user-registers
1589 List all currently available "user" registers.
1590
1591 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
1592 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
1593 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
1594
1595 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
1596 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
1597 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
1598 provided.
1599
1600 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
1601 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
1602 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
1603 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
1604 at resume time.
1605
1606 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
1607 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
1608 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
1609 switched threads meanwhile.
1610
1611 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
1612
1613 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
1614 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
1615 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
1616 is now the default mode.
1617
1618 * New options
1619
1620 set debug symbol-lookup
1621 show debug symbol-lookup
1622 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
1623
1624 * MI changes
1625
1626 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
1627 inferiors that have exited.
1628
1629 * New targets
1630
1631 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
1632
1633 * Removed targets
1634
1635 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1636
1637 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
1638 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
1639 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
1640 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
1641 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
1642
1643 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1644 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1645 its alias "share", instead.
1646
1647 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
1648
1649 * New command line options
1650
1651 -D data-directory
1652 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
1653
1654 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
1655 as specified in ISO C99.
1656
1657 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
1658 with or without disassembly.
1659
1660 * Guile scripting
1661
1662 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
1663 available is determined at configure time.
1664 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
1665 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
1666
1667 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1668
1669 guile [code]
1670 gu [code]
1671 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
1672
1673 guile-repl
1674 gr
1675 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
1676
1677 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
1678 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
1679
1680 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
1681 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
1682
1683 * New options
1684
1685 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
1686 show print symbol-loading
1687 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
1688 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
1689 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
1690 becomes less useful.
1691
1692 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
1693 show guile print-stack
1694 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
1695
1696 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
1697 show auto-load guile-scripts
1698 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
1699
1700 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
1701 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
1702 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
1703 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
1704 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
1705 usage of this option.
1706
1707 set auto-connect-native-target
1708
1709 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
1710 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
1711 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
1712
1713 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
1714 show record btrace replay-memory-access
1715 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
1716
1717 maint set target-async (on|off)
1718 maint show target-async
1719 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
1720 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
1721 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
1722 occurring only in synchronous mode.
1723
1724 set mi-async (on|off)
1725 show mi-async
1726 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
1727 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
1728
1729 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
1730 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
1731
1732 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
1733 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
1734 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
1735 "set target-async on" command.
1736
1737 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1738
1739 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
1740 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
1741 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
1742 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
1743 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
1744
1745 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
1746 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
1747 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
1748
1749 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
1750 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
1751 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
1752 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
1753 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
1754 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
1755 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
1756
1757 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
1758 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
1759
1760 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
1761 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
1762 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
1763
1764 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
1765 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
1766 memory or registers.
1767
1768 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
1769
1770 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
1771 remote. It now works with all targets.
1772
1773 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
1774 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
1775 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
1776 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
1777 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
1778 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
1779 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
1780 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
1781 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
1782 target-stack".
1783
1784 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
1785 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
1786 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
1787
1788 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
1789
1790 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
1791 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
1792 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
1793
1794 * New remote packets
1795
1796 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
1797 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
1798 branch trace incrementally.
1799
1800 * Python Scripting
1801
1802 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
1803 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
1804 available.
1805 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
1806 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
1807 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
1808 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
1809 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
1810
1811 * New targets
1812 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
1813
1814 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1815 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1816 its alias "share", instead.
1817
1818 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
1819 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
1820 instead.
1821
1822 * MI changes
1823
1824 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
1825 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
1826 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
1827 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
1828 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
1829 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
1830 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
1831 commands and CLI execution commands.
1832
1833 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
1834
1835 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
1836 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
1837 recording has been added.
1838
1839 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1840
1841 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
1842 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
1843
1844 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
1845 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
1846 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
1847 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
1848 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
1849 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
1850 "void".
1851
1852 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
1853
1854 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
1855
1856 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
1857 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
1858 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
1859 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
1860
1861 (gdb) p $rax
1862 $1 = <not saved>
1863
1864 (gdb) info registers rax
1865 rax <not saved>
1866
1867 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
1868 "*value not available*".
1869
1870 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
1871 to binaries.
1872
1873 * Python scripting
1874
1875 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
1876 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
1877 ** Line tables representation has been added.
1878 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
1879 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
1880 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
1881
1882 * New targets
1883
1884 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
1885 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
1886 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
1887
1888 * Removed native configurations
1889
1890 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
1891 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
1892
1893 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1894 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1895 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
1896 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
1897 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1898 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1899 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1900
1901 * New commands:
1902 catch rethrow
1903 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
1904 maint check-psymtabs
1905 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
1906 maint check-symtabs
1907 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
1908 maint expand-symtabs
1909 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
1910
1911 show configuration
1912 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1913
1914 maint set|show per-command
1915 maint set|show per-command space
1916 maint set|show per-command time
1917 maint set|show per-command symtab
1918 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
1919
1920 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
1921 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
1922 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
1923 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
1924 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
1925
1926 info exceptions
1927 info exceptions REGEXP
1928 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
1929 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
1930 are listed.
1931
1932 * New options
1933
1934 set debug symfile off|on
1935 show debug symfile
1936 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
1937 symbol tables within those files
1938
1939 set print raw frame-arguments
1940 show print raw frame-arguments
1941 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
1942 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
1943
1944 set remote trace-status-packet
1945 show remote trace-status-packet
1946 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
1947
1948 set debug nios2
1949 show debug nios2
1950 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
1951
1952 set range-stepping
1953 show range-stepping
1954 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
1955
1956 set startup-with-shell
1957 show startup-with-shell
1958 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
1959 directly.
1960
1961 set code-cache
1962 show code-cache
1963 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
1964 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
1965
1966 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
1967 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
1968 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
1969 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
1970 "set height 0".
1971
1972 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
1973 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
1974 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
1975
1976 * New command-line options
1977 --configuration
1978 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1979
1980 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
1981 buffer in Common Trace Format.
1982
1983 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
1984 GDB command gcore.
1985
1986 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
1987
1988 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
1989 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
1990
1991 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
1992 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
1993
1994 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
1995 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
1996 due to an uncaught signal.
1997
1998 * MI changes
1999
2000 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
2001 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
2002 command, which should contain "language-option".
2003
2004 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
2005 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
2006
2007 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
2008 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
2009 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
2010 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2011 "undefined-command-error-code".
2012
2013 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
2014 Trace Format now.
2015
2016 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
2017
2018 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
2019 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
2020 are displayed.
2021
2022 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
2023 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
2024
2025 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
2026 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
2027 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
2028
2029 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
2030 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
2031 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
2032 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
2033 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2034 "exec-run-start-option".
2035
2036 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
2037 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
2038
2039 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
2040 the new "info exceptions" command.
2041
2042 * New system-wide configuration scripts
2043 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
2044 configuration scripts for the following systems:
2045 ** ElinOS
2046 ** Wind River Linux
2047
2048 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
2049 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
2050 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
2051 below.
2052
2053 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
2054 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
2055
2056 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
2057 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
2058 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
2059
2060 * New remote packets
2061
2062 vCont;r
2063
2064 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
2065 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
2066 involvemement at each single-step.
2067
2068 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
2069 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
2070 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
2071 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
2072 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
2073 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
2074 speedup.
2075
2076 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2077
2078 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
2079 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
2080
2081 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
2082 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
2083 trace state variables.
2084
2085 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
2086 target.
2087
2088 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
2089 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
2090
2091 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
2092
2093 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
2094 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
2095 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
2096 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2097
2098 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
2099
2100 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
2101 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
2102 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
2103 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
2104
2105 set|show record full insn-number-max
2106 set|show record full stop-at-limit
2107 set|show record full memory-query
2108
2109 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
2110 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
2111 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
2112 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
2113 This new recording method can be enabled using:
2114
2115 record btrace
2116
2117 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
2118 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
2119
2120 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
2121 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
2122 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
2123
2124 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
2125 instruction granularity
2126
2127 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
2128 function granularity
2129
2130 * New native configurations
2131
2132 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
2133 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
2134 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2135 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2136
2137 * New targets
2138
2139 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2140 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2141 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2142 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2143 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2144
2145 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2146 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2147 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2148 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2149 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2150 --data-directory command-line option.
2151
2152 * New command line options:
2153
2154 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2155 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2156
2157 * Removed command line options
2158
2159 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2160 Emacs.
2161
2162 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2163 type formatting.
2164
2165 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2166
2167 * Python scripting
2168
2169 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2170
2171 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2172
2173 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2174
2175 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2176
2177 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2178 of architecture in the Python API.
2179
2180 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2181 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2182
2183 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2184
2185 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2186 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2187 ** $_strlen(str)
2188 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2189
2190 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2191 given an argument.
2192
2193 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2194 default for GCC since November 2000.
2195
2196 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2197
2198 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2199 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2200
2201 * New configure options
2202
2203 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2204 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2205 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2206 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2207 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2208 options allow the user to override that default.
2209 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2210 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2211 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2212
2213 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2214
2215 catch signal
2216 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2217 conditions to be attached.
2218
2219 maint info bfds
2220 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2221
2222 python-interactive [command]
2223 pi [command]
2224 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2225 and print the result of expressions.
2226
2227 py [command]
2228 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2229
2230 enable type-printer [name]...
2231 disable type-printer [name]...
2232 Enable or disable type printers.
2233
2234 * Removed commands
2235
2236 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2237 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2238 instead.
2239
2240 * New options
2241
2242 set print type methods (on|off)
2243 show print type methods
2244 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2245 The default is to show them.
2246
2247 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2248 show print type typedefs
2249 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2250 The default is to show them.
2251
2252 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2253 show filename-display
2254 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2255 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
2256
2257 set trace-buffer-size
2258 show trace-buffer-size
2259 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
2260
2261 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
2262 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
2263 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
2264
2265 set debug aarch64
2266 show debug aarch64
2267 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
2268 The default is off.
2269
2270 set debug coff-pe-read
2271 show debug coff-pe-read
2272 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
2273 exported symbols.
2274
2275 set debug mach-o
2276 show debug mach-o
2277 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
2278 processing.
2279
2280 set debug notification
2281 show debug notification
2282 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
2283
2284 * MI changes
2285
2286 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
2287 "=cmd-param-changed".
2288 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
2289 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
2290 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
2291 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
2292 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
2293 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
2294 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
2295 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
2296 "=memory-changed".
2297 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
2298 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
2299 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
2300 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
2301 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
2302 library load/unload events.
2303 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
2304 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
2305 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
2306 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
2307 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
2308 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
2309 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
2310 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
2311
2312 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
2313 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
2314 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
2315 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
2316
2317 * New remote packets
2318
2319 QTBuffer:size
2320 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
2321 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2322
2323 Qbtrace:bts
2324 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
2325 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
2326 qSupported query.
2327
2328 Qbtrace:off
2329 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
2330 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2331
2332 qXfer:btrace:read
2333 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
2334 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2335
2336 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
2337
2338 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
2339 for more x32 ABI info.
2340
2341 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
2342
2343 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
2344
2345 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2346 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
2347 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
2348 "info os files" lists file descriptors
2349 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
2350 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
2351 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
2352 "info os msg" lists message queues
2353 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
2354
2355 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
2356 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
2357 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
2358 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
2359 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
2360 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
2361
2362 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
2363 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
2364 record/replay support.
2365
2366 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
2367
2368 * Python scripting
2369
2370 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
2371 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
2372
2373 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
2374
2375 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
2376 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
2377
2378 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
2379
2380 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
2381 the source at which the symbol was defined.
2382
2383 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
2384 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
2385 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
2386 symbol's value.
2387
2388 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
2389 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
2390
2391 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2392 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2393 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2394
2395 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2396 object associated with a PC value.
2397
2398 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2399 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2400
2401 * Go language support.
2402 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2403 language.
2404
2405 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2406 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2407
2408 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2409 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2410
2411 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2412 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2413 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2414 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2415 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2416 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
2417
2418 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
2419 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
2420 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
2421 build/libcpp/expr.c.
2422
2423 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
2424 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
2425
2426 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
2427 since December 2007.
2428
2429 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
2430 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
2431 command does. For instance:
2432
2433 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
2434
2435 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
2436 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
2437 created, using the "condition" command.
2438
2439 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
2440 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
2441
2442 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
2443
2444 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
2445 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
2446 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
2447 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
2448 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
2449 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
2450 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
2451 files with older .gdb_index sections.
2452
2453 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
2454 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
2455 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
2456 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
2457 the .gdb_index section.
2458
2459 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
2460
2461 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
2462 target.
2463
2464 * MI changes
2465
2466 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
2467
2468 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
2469
2470 * New commands
2471
2472 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2473 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2474 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
2475
2476 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
2477 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
2478
2479 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
2480 several hits.
2481
2482 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
2483 C++ and Java objects.
2484
2485 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
2486 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
2487 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
2488 configured with '--with-python'.
2489
2490 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
2491 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
2492 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
2493 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
2494 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
2495 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
2496 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
2497
2498 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
2499 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
2500 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
2501 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
2502
2503 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
2504 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
2505 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
2506 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
2507
2508 ** "set print symbol"
2509 "show print symbol"
2510 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
2511 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
2512 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
2513
2514 * Deprecated commands
2515
2516 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
2517 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
2518
2519 * New targets
2520
2521 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2522 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
2523
2524 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
2525 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
2526 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
2527 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
2528 evaluates to true.
2529
2530 * New options
2531
2532 set mips compression
2533 show mips compression
2534 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
2535 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
2536 mips16
2537 micromips
2538 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
2539
2540 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
2541 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
2542 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
2543 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
2544 available mode.
2545 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
2546 target.
2547
2548 set auto-load off
2549 Disable auto-loading globally.
2550
2551 show auto-load
2552 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
2553
2554 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
2555 show auto-load gdb-scripts
2556 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
2557
2558 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
2559 show auto-load python-scripts
2560 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
2561
2562 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
2563 show auto-load local-gdbinit
2564 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
2565
2566 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
2567 show auto-load libthread-db
2568 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
2569
2570 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2571 show auto-load scripts-directory
2572 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
2573 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
2574 of the directories listed by this option.
2575 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2576
2577 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2578 show auto-load safe-path
2579 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
2580 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2581
2582 set debug auto-load on|off
2583 show debug auto-load
2584 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
2585
2586 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
2587 show dprintf-style
2588 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
2589 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
2590 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
2591 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
2592
2593 set dprintf-function <expr>
2594 show dprintf-function
2595 set dprintf-channel <expr>
2596 show dprintf-channel
2597 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
2598 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
2599
2600 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
2601 show disconnected-dprintf
2602 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
2603 after GDB disconnects.
2604
2605 * New configure options
2606
2607 --with-auto-load-dir
2608 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
2609 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
2610 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
2611 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
2612 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
2613
2614 --with-auto-load-safe-path
2615 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
2616 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
2617
2618 --without-auto-load-safe-path
2619 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
2620 security feature.
2621
2622 * New remote packets
2623
2624 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
2625
2626 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
2627 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
2628 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
2629 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
2630
2631 QProgramSignals:
2632
2633 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
2634 program without GDB involvement.
2635
2636 * New command line options
2637
2638 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
2639 before loading inferior.
2640 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
2641 execute it before loading inferior.
2642
2643 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
2644
2645 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
2646 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
2647 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
2648 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
2649 inferior changes.
2650
2651 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
2652 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
2653
2654 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
2655 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
2656 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
2657 target hardware watchpoint.
2658
2659 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
2660 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
2661 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
2662 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
2663
2664 * Python scripting
2665
2666 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
2667 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
2668 existing one.
2669
2670 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
2671 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
2672 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
2673 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
2674 now "message", which just prints the error message without
2675 the stack trace.
2676
2677 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
2678 Python API.
2679
2680 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
2681 modules library. This module provides functionality for
2682 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
2683 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
2684 corresponding value.
2685
2686 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
2687 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
2688 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
2689 on GDB start-up.
2690
2691 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
2692 static_block will return the global and static blocks
2693 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
2694 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
2695
2696 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
2697
2698 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
2699 "gdb.breakpoints".
2700
2701 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
2702 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
2703 available in the CLI.
2704
2705 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
2706 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
2707 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
2708 "some_type.items()".
2709
2710 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
2711 new object file.
2712
2713 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
2714 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
2715 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
2716 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
2717 any anonymous fields.
2718
2719 * MI changes
2720
2721 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
2722 "solib-event".
2723
2724 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
2725 "=breakpoint-modified".
2726
2727 ** New command -ada-task-info.
2728
2729 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
2730 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
2731 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
2732 lives.
2733
2734 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
2735 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
2736 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
2737 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
2738 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
2739
2740 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
2741 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
2742
2743 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
2744 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
2745 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
2746 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
2747 use this option to specify where to find it.
2748
2749 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2750 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
2751 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
2752 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
2753 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
2754 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2755 section in the user manual for more details.
2756
2757 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
2758 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
2759 become available after that.
2760
2761 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
2762
2763 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
2764 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
2765 gcc version 4.7.
2766
2767 * New commands
2768
2769 !SHELL COMMAND
2770 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
2771 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
2772
2773 * Changed commands
2774
2775 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
2776 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
2777 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
2778
2779 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
2780 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
2781 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
2782
2783 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
2784 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
2785 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
2786 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
2787 name starts with a hyphen.
2788
2789 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
2790 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
2791 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
2792 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
2793 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
2794 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
2795 number of bytes that will be collected.
2796
2797 tstart [NOTES]
2798 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
2799 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
2800 setting the variable trace-notes.
2801
2802 tstop [NOTES]
2803 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
2804 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
2805 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
2806 trace-stop-notes.
2807
2808 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
2809 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
2810 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
2811 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
2812 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
2813 is running.
2814
2815 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
2816 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
2817 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
2818
2819 * New options
2820
2821 set debug dwarf2-read
2822 show debug dwarf2-read
2823 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
2824 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
2825
2826 set debug symtab-create
2827 show debug symtab-create
2828 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
2829 creation. The default is off.
2830
2831 set extended-prompt
2832 show extended-prompt
2833 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
2834 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
2835 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
2836 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
2837 prompt is displayed.
2838
2839 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
2840 show print entry-values
2841 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
2842 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
2843 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
2844
2845 set debug entry-values
2846 show debug entry-values
2847 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
2848 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
2849
2850 set basenames-may-differ
2851 show basenames-may-differ
2852 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
2853 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
2854 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
2855 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
2856 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
2857 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
2858 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
2859 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
2860
2861 set trace-user
2862 show trace-user
2863 set trace-notes
2864 show trace-notes
2865 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
2866 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
2867 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
2868 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
2869
2870 set trace-stop-notes
2871 show trace-stop-notes
2872 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
2873 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
2874 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
2875 started by someone else.
2876
2877 * New remote packets
2878
2879 QTEnable
2880
2881 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2882
2883 QTDisable
2884
2885 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2886
2887 QTNotes
2888
2889 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
2890
2891 qTP
2892
2893 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
2894
2895 qTMinFTPILen
2896
2897 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
2898 be placed.
2899
2900 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
2901 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
2902
2903 * New targets
2904
2905 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
2906
2907 * New Simulators
2908
2909 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2910
2911 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
2912
2913 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
2914
2915 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
2916
2917 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
2918 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
2919 matches the given regular expression.
2920
2921 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
2922
2923 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
2924 dumping the instruction opcodes.
2925
2926 * New command line options
2927
2928 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
2929 This is mostly for testing purposes.
2930
2931 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
2932 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
2933
2934 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
2935 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
2936 source path list instead of augmenting it.
2937
2938 * GDB now understands thread names.
2939
2940 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
2941 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
2942
2943 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
2944 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
2945
2946 * OpenCL C
2947 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
2948 has been integrated into GDB.
2949
2950 * Python scripting
2951
2952 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
2953 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
2954 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
2955
2956 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2957 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
2958 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
2959 and allows for more dynamic content.
2960
2961 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
2962 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
2963 have an is_valid method.
2964
2965 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2966 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
2967 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
2968
2969 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
2970
2971 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
2972 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
2973 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
2974 that function like so:
2975
2976 result = some_value (10,20)
2977
2978 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
2979 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
2980 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
2981
2982 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
2983 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
2984 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
2985 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
2986 New function: register_pretty_printer.
2987
2988 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
2989 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
2990
2991 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
2992
2993 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
2994 selected thread.
2995
2996 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
2997 holds the thread's name.
2998
2999 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
3000 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
3001 occurring in the process being debugged.
3002 The following events are currently supported:
3003 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
3004 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
3005 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
3006
3007 * C++ Improvements:
3008
3009 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
3010 instantiation. For example, if you have:
3011
3012 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
3013
3014 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
3015 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
3016 was added to GCC 4.5.
3017
3018 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
3019 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
3020 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
3021 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
3022 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
3023 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
3024
3025 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
3026 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
3027 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
3028 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
3029 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
3030
3031 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
3032 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
3033 execution to a label.
3034
3035 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
3036 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
3037 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
3038 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
3039
3040 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
3041 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
3042 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
3043 of scope.
3044
3045 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
3046
3047 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
3048 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
3049 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
3050 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
3051 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
3052 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
3053
3054 (gdb) info threads
3055 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
3056
3057 While now you see this:
3058
3059 (gdb) info threads
3060 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
3061
3062 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
3063 dumps.
3064
3065 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
3066 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
3067 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
3068 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
3069
3070 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3071 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
3072 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
3073 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3074 section in the user manual for more details.
3075
3076 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3077
3078 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
3079 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
3080
3081 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
3082
3083 * New native configurations
3084
3085 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3086
3087 * New targets:
3088
3089 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
3090
3091 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
3092 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
3093 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
3094 in the GDB user manual.
3095
3096 * Guile support was removed.
3097
3098 * New features in the GNU simulator
3099
3100 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
3101
3102 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
3103
3104 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
3105
3106 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
3107
3108 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
3109 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
3110 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
3111 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
3112 was always disabled for such configurations.
3113
3114 * C++ Improvements:
3115
3116 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
3117
3118 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
3119 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
3120 For example:
3121 namespace A
3122 {
3123 class B { };
3124 void foo (B) { }
3125 }
3126 ...
3127 A::B b
3128 foo(b)
3129 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
3130 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
3131 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
3132
3133 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
3134
3135 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
3136 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
3137 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
3138 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3139 entry.
3140 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3141 mentioned flavors of operators.
3142
3143 ** static const class members
3144
3145 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3146 class definition has been fixed.
3147
3148 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3149
3150 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3151 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3152 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3153 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3154 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3155 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3156
3157 * Static tracepoints
3158
3159 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3160 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3161 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3162 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3163 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3164 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3165 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3166 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3167 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3168 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3169 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3170 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3171 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3172 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3173 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3174 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3175 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3176 the "New remote packets" section below.
3177
3178 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3179
3180 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3181 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3182 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3183 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3184
3185 * Observer mode
3186
3187 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3188 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3189 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3190 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3191 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3192 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3193 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3194
3195 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3196 current thread.
3197
3198 * New remote packets
3199
3200 qGetTIBAddr
3201
3202 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3203
3204 qRelocInsn
3205
3206 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3207 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3208 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3209 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3210 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3211 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3212
3213 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
3214
3215 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3216
3217 qTSTMat
3218
3219 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3220 program.
3221
3222 qXfer:statictrace:read
3223
3224 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3225 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3226 to gdb's qSupported query.
3227
3228 QAllow
3229
3230 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3231
3232 QTDPsrc
3233
3234 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3235 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3236
3237 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3238 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3239 a directory.
3240
3241 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3242
3243 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3244 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3245 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3246 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3247
3248 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3249 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3250 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3251 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3252 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3253 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3254 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3255
3256 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
3257 for static tracepoints support.
3258
3259 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
3260
3261 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
3262 it understands register description.
3263
3264 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
3265
3266 * X86 general purpose registers
3267
3268 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
3269 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
3270 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
3271 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
3272 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
3273
3274 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
3275 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
3276 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
3277 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
3278 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
3279 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
3280
3281 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
3282 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
3283 in the specified file.
3284
3285 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
3286 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
3287 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
3288 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
3289 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
3290 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
3291 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
3292 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
3293 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
3294 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
3295
3296 * New commands
3297
3298 eval template, expressions...
3299 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
3300 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
3301
3302 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
3303 show target-file-system-kind
3304 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
3305 names.
3306
3307 save breakpoints <filename>
3308 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
3309 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
3310 definitions, use the `source' command.
3311
3312 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
3313 is now deprecated.
3314
3315 info static-tracepoint-markers
3316 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
3317
3318 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
3319 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
3320 function, line, address, or marker ID.
3321
3322 set observer on|off
3323 show observer
3324 Enable and disable observer mode.
3325
3326 set may-write-registers on|off
3327 set may-write-memory on|off
3328 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
3329 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
3330 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
3331 set may-interrupt on|off
3332 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
3333 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
3334 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
3335 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
3336 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
3337 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
3338 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
3339
3340 set record memory-query on|off
3341 show record memory-query
3342 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
3343 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
3344
3345 * Changed commands
3346
3347 disassemble
3348 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
3349
3350 * Python scripting
3351
3352 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
3353 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
3354 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
3355 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
3356 GDB using Python' in the manual.
3357
3358 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
3359 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
3360 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
3361 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
3362
3363 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
3364 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
3365
3366 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
3367
3368 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
3369
3370 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
3371
3372 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
3373 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
3374 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
3375
3376 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
3377 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
3378 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
3379 regular breakpoints.
3380
3381 * New targets
3382
3383 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
3384
3385 * D language support.
3386 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
3387 language.
3388
3389 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
3390 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
3391 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3392 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3393 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3394
3395 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3396 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3397 conditions of the form:
3398
3399 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3400
3401 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3402 interface mentioned above.
3403
3404 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
3405
3406 * C++ Improvements
3407
3408 ** Namespace Support
3409
3410 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3411 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3412 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3413 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3414 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3415
3416 ** Bug Fixes
3417
3418 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
3419 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
3420 qualified name.
3421
3422 ** Cast Operators
3423
3424 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
3425 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
3426
3427 * New targets
3428
3429 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
3430 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
3431
3432 * New Simulators
3433
3434 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
3435 Renesas RX rx
3436
3437 * Multi-program debugging.
3438
3439 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
3440 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
3441 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
3442 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
3443 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
3444 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
3445 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
3446 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
3447
3448 * New tracing features
3449
3450 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
3451
3452 ** Trace state variables
3453
3454 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
3455 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
3456 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
3457 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
3458 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
3459 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
3460 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
3461 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
3462 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
3463 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
3464
3465 ** Fast tracepoints
3466
3467 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
3468 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
3469 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
3470 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
3471 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
3472 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
3473 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
3474 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
3475 the regular trace command.
3476
3477 ** Disconnected tracing
3478
3479 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
3480 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
3481 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
3482 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
3483 connection is lost unexpectedly.
3484
3485 ** Trace files
3486
3487 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
3488 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
3489 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
3490 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
3491 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
3492 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
3493 <name>".
3494
3495 ** Circular trace buffer
3496
3497 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
3498 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
3499 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
3500 not be available for all target agents.
3501
3502 * Changed commands
3503
3504 disassemble
3505 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
3506 the arguments to be comma-separated.
3507
3508 info variables
3509 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
3510 which only declare a variable are not shown.
3511
3512 source
3513 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
3514 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
3515 support.
3516
3517 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
3518 "set script-extension" (see below).
3519
3520 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3521
3522 record save [<FILENAME>]
3523 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
3524 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
3525
3526 record restore <FILENAME>
3527 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
3528 earlier time, for replay debugging.
3529
3530 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
3531 Add a new inferior.
3532
3533 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
3534 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
3535 inferior has loaded.
3536
3537 remove-inferior ID
3538 Remove an inferior.
3539
3540 maint info program-spaces
3541 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
3542
3543 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
3544 show remote interrupt-sequence
3545 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
3546 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
3547 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
3548 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
3549 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
3550
3551 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
3552 show remote interrupt-on-connect
3553 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
3554 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
3555 Linux kernel.
3556
3557 set remotebreak [on | off]
3558 show remotebreak
3559 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
3560
3561 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
3562 Create or modify a trace state variable.
3563
3564 info tvariables
3565 List trace state variables and their values.
3566
3567 delete tvariable $NAME ...
3568 Delete one or more trace state variables.
3569
3570 teval EXPR, ...
3571 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
3572 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
3573
3574 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
3575 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
3576
3577 * New expression syntax
3578
3579 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
3580 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
3581
3582 * New options
3583
3584 set follow-exec-mode new|same
3585 show follow-exec-mode
3586 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
3587 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
3588 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
3589
3590 set default-collect EXPR, ...
3591 show default-collect
3592 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
3593 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
3594 such as registers or a critical global variable.
3595
3596 set disconnected-tracing
3597 show disconnected-tracing
3598 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
3599 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
3600 upon disconnection.
3601
3602 set circular-trace-buffer
3603 show circular-trace-buffer
3604 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
3605 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
3606 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
3607 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
3608
3609 set script-extension off|soft|strict
3610 show script-extension
3611 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
3612 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
3613 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
3614 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
3615 evaluation failed.
3616 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
3617
3618 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
3619 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
3620 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
3621 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
3622 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
3623 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
3624 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
3625 is on.
3626
3627 * Python API Improvements
3628
3629 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
3630 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
3631 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
3632
3633 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
3634 `is_base_class' attribute.
3635
3636 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
3637
3638 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
3639 evaluate an expression.
3640
3641 * New remote packets
3642
3643 QTDV
3644 Define a trace state variable.
3645
3646 qTV
3647 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
3648
3649 QTDisconnected
3650 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
3651
3652 QTBuffer:circular
3653 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
3654
3655 qTfP, qTsP
3656 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
3657
3658 * Bug fixes
3659
3660 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
3661
3662 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
3663 much more reliable. In particular:
3664 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
3665 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
3666 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
3667 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
3668 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
3669 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
3670 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
3671 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
3672 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
3673 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
3674 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
3675 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
3676 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
3677 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
3678 non-threaded programs.
3679
3680 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
3681 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
3682 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
3683 executable program.
3684
3685 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
3686
3687 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
3688 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
3689 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
3690 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
3691 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
3692
3693 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
3694 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
3695 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
3696 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
3697 for tracepoint actions.
3698
3699 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
3700 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
3701 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
3702
3703 * Process record and replay
3704
3705 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
3706 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
3707 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
3708 execute commands.
3709
3710 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
3711 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
3712 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
3713 reverse execution.
3714
3715 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
3716 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
3717 2.6.28 or later.
3718
3719 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
3720 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
3721 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
3722 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
3723 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
3724 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
3725 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
3726 the installation instructions for more information.
3727
3728 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
3729 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
3730 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
3731 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
3732
3733 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
3734 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
3735
3736 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
3737 now complete on file names.
3738
3739 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
3740 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
3741 For instance, consider:
3742
3743 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
3744 # struct example variable;
3745 (gdb) p variable.
3746
3747 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
3748 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
3749
3750 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
3751 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
3752
3753 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
3754 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
3755 macros.
3756
3757 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
3758 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
3759 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
3760
3761 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
3762 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
3763 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
3764 and simulator targets may also provide them.
3765
3766 * New remote packets
3767
3768 qSearch:memory:
3769 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3770
3771 QStartNoAckMode
3772 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
3773 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
3774 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
3775
3776 vKill
3777 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
3778 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
3779
3780 qXfer:osdata:read
3781 Obtains additional operating system information
3782
3783 qXfer:siginfo:read
3784 qXfer:siginfo:write
3785 Read or write additional signal information.
3786
3787 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
3788
3789 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
3790 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
3791 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
3792
3793 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
3794 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
3795
3796 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
3797 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
3798 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
3799
3800 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
3801 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
3802
3803 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
3804
3805 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
3806
3807 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
3808 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
3809
3810 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
3811 list of section offsets.
3812
3813 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
3814 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
3815 have also been fixed.
3816
3817 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
3818 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
3819 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
3820
3821 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
3822 example, given:
3823
3824 template<typename T> class C { };
3825 C<char const *> c;
3826
3827 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
3828
3829 ptype C<char const *>
3830 ptype C<char const*>
3831 ptype C<const char *>
3832 ptype C<const char*>
3833
3834 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
3835
3836 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
3837 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3838
3839 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
3840 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3841 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
3842
3843 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
3844 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
3845
3846 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
3847 gdbserver.
3848
3849 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
3850 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3851
3852 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
3853 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
3854 as appropriate.
3855
3856 * Python scripting
3857
3858 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
3859 available is determined at configure time.
3860
3861 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
3862
3863 * Ada tasking support
3864
3865 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
3866 been introduced:
3867
3868 info tasks
3869 Print the list of Ada tasks.
3870 info task N
3871 Print detailed information about task number N.
3872 task
3873 Print the task number of the current task.
3874 task N
3875 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
3876
3877 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
3878 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
3879
3880 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
3881
3882 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
3883 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
3884 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
3885 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
3886 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
3887 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
3888 below.
3889
3890 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
3891 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
3892 information.
3893
3894 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
3895 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
3896 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
3897 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
3898 more information.
3899
3900 * Multi-architecture debugging.
3901
3902 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
3903 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
3904 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
3905 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
3906 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
3907
3908 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
3909 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
3910 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
3911 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
3912 --enable-targets configure option.
3913
3914 * Non-stop mode debugging.
3915
3916 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
3917 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
3918 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
3919 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
3920 section in the user manual for more information.
3921
3922 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
3923 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
3924 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
3925 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
3926 extensions on linux targets.
3927
3928 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3929
3930 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
3931 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
3932 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
3933 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
3934 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
3935 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
3936 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
3937 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
3938 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
3939
3940 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
3941 val1 [, val2, ...]
3942 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3943
3944 maint set python print-stack
3945 maint show python print-stack
3946 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
3947
3948 python [CODE]
3949 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
3950
3951 macro define
3952 macro list
3953 macro undef
3954 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
3955 interactively.
3956
3957 info os processes
3958 Show operating system information about processes.
3959
3960 info inferiors
3961 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
3962
3963 inferior NUM
3964 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
3965
3966 detach inferior NUM
3967 Detach from inferior number NUM.
3968
3969 kill inferior NUM
3970 Kill inferior number NUM.
3971
3972 * New options
3973
3974 set spu stop-on-load
3975 show spu stop-on-load
3976 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3977
3978 set spu auto-flush-cache
3979 show spu auto-flush-cache
3980 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
3981 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3982
3983 set sh calling-convention
3984 show sh calling-convention
3985 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
3986
3987 set debug timestamp
3988 show debug timestamp
3989 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
3990
3991 set disassemble-next-line
3992 show disassemble-next-line
3993 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
3994 the debuggee stops.
3995
3996 set remote noack-packet
3997 show remote noack-packet
3998 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
3999 under "New remote packets."
4000
4001 set remote query-attached-packet
4002 show remote query-attached-packet
4003 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
4004
4005 set remote read-siginfo-object
4006 show remote read-siginfo-object
4007 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
4008 packet.
4009
4010 set remote write-siginfo-object
4011 show remote write-siginfo-object
4012 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
4013 packet.
4014
4015 set remote reverse-continue
4016 show remote reverse-continue
4017 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
4018
4019 set remote reverse-step
4020 show remote reverse-step
4021 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
4022
4023 set displaced-stepping
4024 show displaced-stepping
4025 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
4026 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
4027 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
4028
4029 set debug displaced
4030 show debug displaced
4031 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
4032
4033 maint set internal-error
4034 maint show internal-error
4035 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
4036
4037 maint set internal-warning
4038 maint show internal-warning
4039 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
4040
4041 set exec-wrapper
4042 show exec-wrapper
4043 unset exec-wrapper
4044 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4045
4046 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
4047 show multiple-symbols
4048 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
4049 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
4050 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
4051
4052 set breakpoint always-inserted
4053 show breakpoint always-inserted
4054 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
4055 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
4056 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
4057
4058 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4059 show arm fallback-mode
4060 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4061 show arm force-mode
4062 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
4063 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
4064 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
4065 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
4066
4067 set disable-randomization
4068 show disable-randomization
4069 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
4070 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
4071 multiple debugging sessions.
4072
4073 set non-stop
4074 show non-stop
4075 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
4076 a breakpoint.
4077
4078 set target-async
4079 show target-async
4080 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
4081 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
4082 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
4083 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
4084
4085 set target-wide-charset
4086 show target-wide-charset
4087 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
4088 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
4089
4090 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
4091 show tcp auto-retry
4092 set tcp connect-timeout
4093 show tcp connect-timeout
4094 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
4095 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
4096 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
4097
4098 set libthread-db-search-path
4099 show libthread-db-search-path
4100 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
4101 libthread_db.
4102
4103 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
4104 show schedule-multiple
4105 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
4106 the current process.
4107
4108 set stack-cache
4109 show stack-cache
4110 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
4111 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
4112 affecting correctness.
4113
4114 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
4115 show interactive-mode
4116 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
4117 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
4118 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
4119 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
4120 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
4121
4122 * Removed commands
4123
4124 info forks
4125 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
4126 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
4127 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
4128 command.
4129
4130 fork NUM
4131 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
4132 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
4133 alias for the `fork' command.
4134
4135 process PID
4136 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
4137 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
4138 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4139
4140 delete fork NUM
4141 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4142 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4143 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4144 fork' command.
4145
4146 detach fork NUM
4147 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4148 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4149 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4150 fork' command.
4151
4152 * New native configurations
4153
4154 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4155
4156 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4157
4158 * New targets
4159
4160 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4161 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4162 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4163 S+core 3 score-*-*
4164
4165 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4166 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4167
4168 * Removed commands
4169
4170 catch load
4171 catch unload
4172 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4173
4174 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4175
4176 * New native configurations
4177
4178 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4179 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4180
4181 * New targets
4182
4183 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4184 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
4185
4186 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4187
4188 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4189 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4190 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4191 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4192
4193 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4194 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4195
4196 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4197 is resolved.
4198
4199 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4200 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4201 and in inlined functions.
4202
4203 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4204 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4205 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4206
4207 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4208
4209 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4210 registers on PowerPC targets.
4211
4212 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4213 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4214
4215 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4216 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4217
4218 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4219 extended-remote mode.
4220
4221 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4222 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4223 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4224 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4225
4226 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4227 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4228 target architectures.
4229
4230 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4231 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4232 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4233 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4234
4235 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4236 breakpoints now.
4237
4238 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4239 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4240 include:
4241 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4242 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4243 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4244 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4245 of an assignment
4246 - Improved command completion in Ada
4247 - Several bug fixes
4248
4249 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4250 process.
4251
4252 * New commands
4253
4254 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4255 show print frame-arguments
4256 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
4257 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
4258
4259 remote put
4260 remote get
4261 remote delete
4262 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4263
4264 * New MI commands
4265
4266 -target-file-put
4267 -target-file-get
4268 -target-file-delete
4269 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4270
4271 * New remote packets
4272
4273 vFile:open:
4274 vFile:close:
4275 vFile:pread:
4276 vFile:pwrite:
4277 vFile:unlink:
4278 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
4279
4280 vAttach
4281 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
4282 mode.
4283
4284 vRun
4285 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
4286
4287 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
4288
4289 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
4290 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
4291 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
4292
4293 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
4294 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
4295 -Bsymbolic linker option.
4296
4297 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
4298 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
4299 is not supported.
4300
4301 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
4302 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
4303
4304 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
4305 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
4306
4307 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
4308
4309 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
4310 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
4311 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
4312
4313 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
4314 automatically displayed as character or string data.
4315
4316 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
4317 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
4318 as strings.
4319
4320 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
4321 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
4322 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
4323
4324 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
4325 iWMMXt coprocessor.
4326
4327 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
4328 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
4329 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
4330
4331 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
4332
4333 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
4334
4335 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
4336 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
4337 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
4338
4339 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
4340 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
4341
4342 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
4343 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
4344 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
4345 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
4346 Windows and SymbianOS).
4347
4348 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
4349 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
4350
4351 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
4352 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
4353
4354 * New commands
4355
4356 set remoteflow
4357 show remoteflow
4358 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
4359 when debugging using remote targets.
4360
4361 set mem inaccessible-by-default
4362 show mem inaccessible-by-default
4363 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4364 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4365 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
4366 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
4367 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
4368
4369 set breakpoint auto-hw
4370 show breakpoint auto-hw
4371 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4372 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4373 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
4374 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
4375 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
4376 including "next" and "finish".
4377
4378 catch exception
4379 catch exception unhandled
4380 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
4381
4382 catch assert
4383 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
4384
4385 set sysroot
4386 show sysroot
4387 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
4388 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
4389 an alias to "set sysroot".
4390
4391 info spu
4392 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4393 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4394 architecture.
4395
4396 * New native configurations
4397
4398 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4399
4400 set tdesc filename
4401 unset tdesc filename
4402 show tdesc filename
4403 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4404 not query the target for its built-in description.
4405
4406 * New targets
4407
4408 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4409 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4410 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4411
4412 * New remote packets
4413
4414 QPassSignals:
4415 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4416 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4417
4418 qXfer:features:read:
4419 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
4420 features.
4421
4422 qXfer:spu:read:
4423 qXfer:spu:write:
4424 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
4425 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
4426
4427 qXfer:libraries:read:
4428 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
4429 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
4430 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
4431 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
4432
4433 * Removed targets
4434
4435 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
4436
4437 alpha*-*-osf1*
4438 alpha*-*-osf2*
4439 d10v-*-*
4440 hppa*-*-hiux*
4441 i[34567]86-ncr-*
4442 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
4443 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
4444 i[34567]86-*-netware*
4445 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
4446 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
4447 i[34567]86-*-sco*
4448 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
4449 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
4450 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
4451 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
4452 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
4453 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
4454 i[34567]86-*-isc*
4455 m68*-cisco*-*
4456 m68*-tandem-*
4457 mips*-*-pe
4458 rs6000-*-lynxos*
4459 sh*-*-pe
4460
4461 * Other removed features
4462
4463 target abug
4464 target cpu32bug
4465 target est
4466 target rom68k
4467
4468 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
4469
4470 target hms
4471 target e7000
4472 target sh3
4473 target sh3e
4474
4475 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
4476 H8/300.
4477
4478 target ocd
4479
4480 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
4481 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
4482 interfaces.
4483
4484 DWARF 1 support
4485
4486 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
4487 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
4488
4489 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
4490
4491 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
4492 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
4493 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
4494 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
4495
4496 MIPS ".pdr" sections
4497
4498 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
4499 in debugging information.
4500
4501 Scheme support
4502
4503 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
4504 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
4505
4506 set mips stack-arg-size
4507 set mips saved-gpreg-size
4508
4509 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
4510
4511 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
4512
4513 * New targets
4514
4515 Xtensa xtensa-elf
4516 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
4517
4518 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
4519 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
4520 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
4521
4522 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
4523 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
4524 supported.
4525
4526 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
4527 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
4528
4529 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
4530 stub provides the required support.
4531
4532 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
4533 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
4534
4535 * New commands
4536
4537 set substitute-path
4538 unset substitute-path
4539 show substitute-path
4540 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
4541 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
4542 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
4543 between compilation and debugging.
4544
4545 set trace-commands
4546 show trace-commands
4547 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
4548 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
4549 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
4550
4551 * REMOVED features
4552
4553 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
4554
4555 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
4556 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
4557
4558 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
4559
4560 * New remote packets
4561
4562 qSupported:
4563 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
4564 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
4565 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
4566 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
4567 target.
4568
4569 qXfer:auxv:read:
4570 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
4571 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
4572
4573 qXfer:memory-map:read:
4574 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
4575 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
4576
4577 vFlashErase:
4578 vFlashWrite:
4579 vFlashDone:
4580 Erase and program a flash memory device.
4581
4582 * Removed remote packets
4583
4584 qPart:auxv:read:
4585 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
4586 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
4587
4588 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
4589
4590 * New targets
4591
4592 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
4593
4594 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4595
4596 * New commands
4597
4598 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
4599 only if it doesn't already have a value.
4600
4601 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
4602
4603 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
4604
4605 restart <n> Return the program state to a
4606 previously saved state.
4607
4608 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
4609
4610 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
4611
4612 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
4613 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
4614
4615 info forks List forks of the user program that
4616 are available to be debugged.
4617
4618 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
4619 forks of the user program that are
4620 available to be debugged.
4621
4622 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4623 that are available to be debugged (and
4624 kill the forked process).
4625
4626 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4627 that are available to be debugged (and
4628 allow the process to continue).
4629
4630 * New architecture
4631
4632 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
4633
4634 * Improved Windows host support
4635
4636 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
4637 native console support, and remote communications using either
4638 network sockets or serial ports.
4639
4640 * Improved Modula-2 language support
4641
4642 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
4643 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
4644 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
4645 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
4646 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
4647 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
4648
4649 * REMOVED features
4650
4651 The ARM rdi-share module.
4652
4653 The Netware NLM debug server.
4654
4655 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
4656
4657 * New native configurations
4658
4659 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
4660 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
4661
4662 * New targets
4663
4664 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4665
4666 * New command line options
4667
4668 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
4669 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
4670 the child (debugged) program exited with.
4671 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
4672 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
4673 specified multiple times and in conjunction
4674 with the --command (-x) option.
4675
4676 * Deprecated commands removed
4677
4678 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
4679 removed:
4680
4681 Command Replacement
4682 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
4683 othernames set arm disassembler
4684 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
4685 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
4686 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
4687 regs info registers
4688
4689 * New BSD user-level threads support
4690
4691 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
4692 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
4693 configurations are:
4694
4695 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4696 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
4697 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
4698
4699 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
4700 are not yet supported.
4701
4702 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
4703 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
4704
4705 * REMOVED configurations and files
4706
4707 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
4708 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4709 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
4710
4711 * New "set print array-indexes" command
4712
4713 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
4714 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
4715 behavior.
4716
4717 * VAX floating point support
4718
4719 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
4720
4721 * User-defined command support
4722
4723 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
4724 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
4725 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
4726
4727 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
4728
4729 * New command line option
4730
4731 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
4732 debugging.
4733
4734 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
4735
4736 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
4737 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
4738 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
4739 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
4740 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
4741
4742 * Internationalization
4743
4744 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
4745 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
4746 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
4747
4748 * Ada
4749
4750 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
4751 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
4752 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
4753
4754 * New native configurations
4755
4756 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
4757
4758 * Remote 'p' packet
4759
4760 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
4761 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
4762
4763 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
4764
4765 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4766 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
4767 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
4768 i386 application).
4769
4770 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
4771 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
4772 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
4773 configurations:
4774
4775 hppa-*-hpux
4776 ia64-*-aix
4777 mips-*-irix*
4778 *-*-lynx
4779 mips-*-linux-gnu
4780 sds protocol
4781 xdr protocol
4782 powerpc bdm protocol
4783
4784 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4785 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
4786
4787 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4788
4789 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4790 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4791 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4792 permanently REMOVED.
4793
4794 h8300-*-*
4795 mcore-*-*
4796 mn10300-*-*
4797 ns32k-*-*
4798 sh64-*-*
4799 v850-*-*
4800
4801 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
4802
4803 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
4804
4805 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
4806 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
4807 been fixed.
4808
4809 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
4810
4811 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
4812 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
4813 IRIX long double values).
4814
4815 * VAX and "next"
4816
4817 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
4818 command. This problem has been fixed.
4819
4820 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
4821
4822 * Fix for ``many threads''
4823
4824 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
4825 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
4826 error message:
4827
4828 ptrace: No such process.
4829 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
4830
4831 This problem has been fixed.
4832
4833 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
4834
4835 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
4836 GDB to dump core).
4837
4838 * New ``start'' command.
4839
4840 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
4841
4842 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
4843
4844 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
4845 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
4846 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
4847
4848 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4849 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
4850 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
4851 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
4852 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
4853 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4854 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
4855 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
4856 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4857
4858 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
4859
4860 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
4861 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
4862 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
4863 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
4864 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
4865
4866 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
4867 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
4868 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
4869
4870 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
4871
4872 * New native configurations
4873
4874 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
4875 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
4876 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
4877 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
4878 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
4879 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
4880 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
4881
4882 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
4883
4884 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4885 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
4886 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
4887 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
4888 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
4889 work, was also included.
4890
4891 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
4892 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
4893
4894 h8300-*-*
4895 mcore-*-*
4896 mn10300-*-*
4897 ns32k-*-*
4898 sh64-*-*
4899 v850-*-*
4900 xstormy16-*-*
4901
4902 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4903 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
4904
4905 * REMOVED configurations and files
4906
4907 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
4908 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
4909 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
4910 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
4911 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
4912 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
4913 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
4914 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
4915 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
4916 sonymips mips-sony-*
4917 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
4918
4919 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
4920
4921 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
4922
4923 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
4924 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
4925 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
4926 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
4927 with GDB".
4928
4929 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
4930
4931 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
4932 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
4933 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
4934 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
4935 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
4936 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
4937 are created.
4938
4939 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
4940
4941 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
4942
4943 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
4944 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
4945 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
4946
4947 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
4948
4949 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
4950 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
4951
4952 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
4953
4954 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
4955 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
4956 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
4957
4958 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
4959
4960 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
4961 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
4962
4963 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
4964
4965 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
4966 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
4967 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
4968
4969 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
4970
4971 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
4972 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
4973 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
4974
4975 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
4976
4977 * Removed --with-mmalloc
4978
4979 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
4980 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
4981
4982 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
4983
4984 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
4985 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
4986 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
4987 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
4988
4989 * Revised SPARC target
4990
4991 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
4992 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
4993 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
4994 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
4995 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
4996
4997 * New C++ demangler
4998
4999 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
5000 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
5001 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
5002 programs.
5003
5004 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5005
5006 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
5007 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
5008 encountered these.
5009
5010 * C++ nested types and namespaces
5011
5012 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
5013 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
5014 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
5015 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
5016 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
5017 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
5018 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
5019 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
5020 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
5021
5022 * New native configurations
5023
5024 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
5025 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5026 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
5027 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5028 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
5029
5030 * New debugging protocols
5031
5032 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
5033
5034 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
5035
5036 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
5037 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
5038 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
5039
5040 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5041
5042 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5043 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5044 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5045 permanently REMOVED.
5046
5047 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5048 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5049 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5050 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5051 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5052 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5053 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5054 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5055 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5056 sonymips mips-sony-*
5057 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5058
5059 * REMOVED configurations and files
5060
5061 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5062 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5063 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5064 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5065 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5066 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5067 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5068 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5069 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5070 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
5071 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5072 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5073 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5074 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
5075 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
5076 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5077 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5078
5079 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
5080
5081 * Objective-C
5082
5083 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
5084 integrated into GDB.
5085
5086 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
5087
5088 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
5089 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
5090 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
5091 backtraces.
5092
5093 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
5094 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
5095 DWARF 2 CFI support.
5096
5097 * Hosted file I/O.
5098
5099 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
5100 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
5101 remote protocol documentation for details.
5102
5103 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
5104
5105 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
5106 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
5107 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
5108 ppc32 on ppc64).
5109
5110 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
5111
5112 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
5113 per-thread variables.
5114
5115 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
5116
5117 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
5118 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
5119
5120 * Separate debug info.
5121
5122 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
5123 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
5124 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
5125 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
5126 and optional debug files.
5127
5128 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5129
5130 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
5131 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
5132 debugger.
5133
5134 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
5135 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5136
5137 * Java
5138
5139 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5140 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5141 considered "useable".
5142
5143 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5144
5145 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5146 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5147 kernel.
5148
5149 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5150
5151 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5152 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5153
5154 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5155
5156 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5157 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5158 command.
5159
5160 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5161
5162 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5163 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5164
5165 * Profiling support
5166
5167 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5168 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5169 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5170 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5171 data, for more informative profiling results.
5172
5173 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5174
5175 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5176 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5177 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5178
5179 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5180 removed.
5181
5182 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5183 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5184 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5185 in a subsequent -var-update.
5186
5187 * New native configurations.
5188
5189 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5190
5191 * Multi-arched targets.
5192
5193 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5194 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5195
5196 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5197
5198 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5199 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5200 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5201 permanently REMOVED.
5202
5203 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5204 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5205 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5206 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5207 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5208 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5209 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5210 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5211 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5212 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5213 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5214 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5215
5216 * REMOVED configurations and files
5217
5218 V850EA ISA
5219 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5220 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5221 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5222 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5223 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5224 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5225 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
5226 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5227 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5228 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5229 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5230 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5231 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5232
5233 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5234
5235 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5236 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5237 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5238 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5239 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5240
5241 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5242
5243 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5244
5245 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5246 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5247 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5248 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5249 shared libs like mad''.
5250
5251 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5252
5253 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5254 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5255 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5256 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
5257
5258 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
5259
5260 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
5261 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
5262 they expand.
5263
5264 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
5265 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
5266
5267 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
5268 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
5269
5270 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
5271 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
5272 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
5273 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
5274
5275 * Multi-arched targets.
5276
5277 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
5278 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
5279 NEC V850 v850-*-*
5280 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
5281 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
5282 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5283
5284 * New targets.
5285
5286 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
5287
5288
5289 * New native configurations
5290
5291 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
5292 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
5293 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
5294 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
5295
5296 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5297
5298 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5299 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5300 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5301 permanently REMOVED.
5302
5303 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5304 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5305 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5306 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5307 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5308 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5309 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5310 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5311 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5312 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5313 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
5314 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5315 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5316
5317 * OBSOLETE languages
5318
5319 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
5320
5321 * REMOVED configurations and files
5322
5323 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5324 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5325 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5326 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5327 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5328
5329 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5330
5331 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
5332
5333 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
5334 commands. The default is 1024.
5335
5336 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
5337
5338 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
5339
5340 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
5341
5342 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
5343 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
5344 from a file into memory (restore).
5345
5346 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
5347
5348 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
5349 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
5350 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
5351
5352 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
5353
5354 * New targets.
5355
5356 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
5357
5358 * Bug fixes
5359
5360 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
5361 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
5362 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
5363
5364 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
5365 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
5366 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
5367
5368 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
5369 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
5370 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
5371
5372 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
5373 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
5374 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
5375
5376 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
5377
5378 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
5379
5380 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
5381 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
5382 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
5383 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
5384 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
5385 (notably embedded) targets.
5386
5387 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
5388
5389 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
5390 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
5391 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5392 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5393
5394 * New command line option
5395
5396 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5397
5398 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5399
5400 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5401 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5402 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5403 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5404 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5405 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5406 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5407 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5408 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5409 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5410
5411 * Changes in ARM configurations.
5412
5413 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5414 configuration is fully multi-arch.
5415
5416 * New native configurations
5417
5418 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
5419 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
5420 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
5421 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
5422
5423 * New targets
5424
5425 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
5426
5427 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5428
5429 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5430 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5431 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5432 permanently REMOVED.
5433
5434 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5435 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5436 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5437 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5438 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5439
5440 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5441
5442 * REMOVED configurations and files
5443
5444 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5445 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5446 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5447 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5448 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5449 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5450 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5451 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5452 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5453 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5454 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5455 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5456 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
5457
5458 * Changes to command line processing
5459
5460 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
5461 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
5462
5463 * Changes to key bindings
5464
5465 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
5466
5467 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
5468
5469 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
5470
5471 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
5472 corrupted.
5473
5474 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
5475
5476 Numerous documentation fixes.
5477
5478 Numerous testsuite fixes.
5479
5480 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
5481
5482 * New native configurations
5483
5484 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
5485 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
5486 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
5487 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5488 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
5489 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
5490
5491 * New targets
5492
5493 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
5494 CRIS cris-axis
5495 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
5496
5497 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5498
5499 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
5500 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5501 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5502 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5503 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5504 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5505 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5506 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5507 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5508 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5509 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5510 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5511 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5512 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
5513
5514 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
5515 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
5516
5517 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5518 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5519 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5520 permanently REMOVED.
5521
5522 * REMOVED configurations and files
5523
5524 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5525 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5526 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
5527 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5528 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
5529 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
5530
5531 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
5532
5533 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
5534 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
5535 present.
5536
5537 * Other news:
5538
5539 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
5540
5541 * The MI enabled by default.
5542
5543 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
5544 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
5545 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
5546 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
5547 which is now deprecated.
5548
5549 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
5550
5551 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
5552 main features are supported:
5553
5554 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
5555
5556 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
5557 extension;
5558
5559 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
5560
5561 - a Pascal expression parser.
5562
5563 However, some important features are not yet supported.
5564
5565 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
5566
5567 - there are some problems with boolean types;
5568
5569 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
5570 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
5571
5572 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
5573
5574 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
5575
5576 * Changes in completion.
5577
5578 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
5579 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
5580 users expect at the shell prompt.
5581
5582 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
5583 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
5584 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
5585 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
5586 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
5587 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
5588 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
5589
5590 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
5591
5592 * New platform-independent commands:
5593
5594 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
5595 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
5596 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
5597
5598 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
5599
5600 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
5601 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
5602 many threads as your system allows you to have.
5603
5604 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
5605
5606 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
5607 multi-threaded programs though.
5608
5609 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
5610
5611 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
5612
5613 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
5614 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
5615 supported.)
5616
5617 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
5618
5619 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
5620 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
5621 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
5622 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
5623 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
5624 registers.
5625
5626 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
5627 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
5628 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
5629
5630 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
5631
5632 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
5633 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
5634
5635 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
5636 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
5637 IDT.
5638
5639 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
5640 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
5641 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
5642 a given linear address.
5643
5644 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
5645 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
5646 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
5647
5648 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
5649
5650 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
5651
5652 * Changes in documentation.
5653
5654 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
5655 Documentation License.
5656
5657 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5658 manual.
5659
5660 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
5661
5662 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5663 manual.
5664
5665 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
5666 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
5667 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
5668
5669 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
5670
5671 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
5672 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
5673 contents of this file.
5674
5675 * gdba.el deleted
5676
5677 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
5678
5679 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
5680
5681 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
5682
5683 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
5684 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
5685 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
5686 greater level of detail.
5687
5688 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
5689
5690 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
5691 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
5692 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
5693 written.
5694
5695 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
5696
5697 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
5698 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
5699 machines ``out of the box''.
5700
5701 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
5702 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
5703 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
5704 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
5705 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
5706
5707 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
5708 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
5709 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
5710 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
5711 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
5712
5713 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
5714 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
5715 also works.
5716
5717 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
5718 GDB.
5719
5720 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
5721 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
5722 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
5723 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
5724
5725 * New native configurations
5726
5727 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
5728 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5729
5730 * New targets
5731
5732 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
5733 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
5734 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
5735 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5736
5737 * OBSOLETE configurations
5738
5739 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5740 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5741 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
5742 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5743 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
5744
5745 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5746 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5747 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5748 be permanently REMOVED.
5749
5750 * Gould support removed
5751
5752 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
5753
5754 * New features for SVR4
5755
5756 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
5757 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
5758 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
5759
5760 * Many C++ enhancements
5761
5762 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
5763 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
5764
5765 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
5766
5767 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
5768 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
5769 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
5770 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
5771
5772 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
5773 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
5774
5775 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
5776
5777 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
5778 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
5779 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
5780
5781 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
5782 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
5783
5784 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
5785
5786 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
5787 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
5788 include ``set remote P-packet''.
5789
5790 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
5791
5792 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
5793 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
5794 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
5795
5796 * ``apropos'' command added.
5797
5798 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
5799 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
5800 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
5801
5802 * New MI interface
5803
5804 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
5805 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
5806 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
5807 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
5808 enabled by configuring with:
5809
5810 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
5811
5812 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
5813
5814 * New native configurations
5815
5816 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
5817 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
5818 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
5819
5820 * New targets
5821
5822 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5823 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
5824 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5825
5826 * OBSOLETE configurations
5827
5828 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
5829
5830 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5831 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5832 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5833 be permanently REMOVED.
5834
5835 * ANSI/ISO C
5836
5837 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
5838 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
5839 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
5840 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
5841 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
5842 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
5843 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
5844 already.
5845
5846 * Readline 2.2
5847
5848 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
5849
5850 * set extension-language
5851
5852 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
5853 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
5854 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
5855 set extension-language .c c++
5856 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
5857 and their associated languages.
5858
5859 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
5860
5861 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
5862 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
5863 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
5864
5865 set processor NAME
5866
5867 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
5868 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
5869
5870 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
5871 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
5872 403 IBM PowerPC 403
5873 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
5874 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
5875 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
5876 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
5877 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
5878 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
5879 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
5880 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
5881
5882 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
5883 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
5884 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
5885 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
5886
5887 * HP-UX support
5888
5889 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
5890 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
5891 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
5892 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
5893 for xdb and dbx commands.
5894
5895 * Catchpoints
5896
5897 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
5898 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
5899 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
5900
5901 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
5902 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
5903 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
5904
5905 * Debugging across forks
5906
5907 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
5908 in the inferior.
5909
5910 * TUI
5911
5912 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
5913 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
5914 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
5915
5916 * GDB remote protocol additions
5917
5918 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
5919 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
5920 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
5921 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
5922
5923 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
5924 full 64-bit address. The command
5925
5926 set remoteaddresssize 32
5927
5928 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
5929 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
5930 will be discarded.
5931
5932 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
5933 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
5934
5935 maint packet heythere
5936
5937 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
5938 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
5939 time.
5940
5941 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
5942 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
5943 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
5944
5945 * Tracing can collect general expressions
5946
5947 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
5948 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
5949 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
5950
5951 * mask-address variable for Mips
5952
5953 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
5954 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
5955 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
5956
5957 * Higher serial baud rates
5958
5959 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
5960 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
5961 to achieve all of these rates.)
5962
5963 * i960 simulator
5964
5965 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
5966 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
5967
5968
5969 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
5970
5971 * New native configurations
5972
5973 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
5974 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
5975 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5976 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5977 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5978 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
5979 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
5980
5981 * New targets
5982
5983 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5984 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
5985 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5986 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
5987 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
5988 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
5989 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
5990 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
5991 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5992 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5993 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
5994
5995 * New debugging protocols
5996
5997 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
5998 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
5999 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
6000 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6001 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6002 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6003
6004 * DWARF 2
6005
6006 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
6007 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
6008 information.
6009
6010 * Java frontend
6011
6012 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
6013 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
6014
6015 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
6016
6017 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
6018 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
6019 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
6020
6021 * Live range splitting
6022
6023 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
6024 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
6025 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
6026
6027 * Hurd support
6028
6029 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
6030 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
6031
6032 * ARM Thumb support
6033
6034 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
6035 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
6036 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
6037 accordingly.
6038
6039 * MIPS16 support
6040
6041 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
6042 instruction set.
6043
6044 * Overlay support
6045
6046 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
6047 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
6048 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
6049 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
6050 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
6051 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
6052
6053 * info symbol
6054
6055 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
6056 the symbol at the specified address.
6057
6058 * Trace support
6059
6060 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
6061 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
6062 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
6063 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
6064 file tracepoint.c for more details.
6065
6066 * MIPS simulator
6067
6068 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
6069 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
6070 of most MIPS variants.
6071
6072 * Sparc simulator
6073
6074 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
6075 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
6076 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
6077
6078 * set architecture
6079
6080 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
6081 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
6082 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
6083 the possible architectures.
6084
6085 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
6086
6087 * New native configurations
6088
6089 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
6090 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
6091 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
6092 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
6093 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6094 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
6095
6096 * New targets
6097
6098 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
6099 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6100 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
6101 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
6102 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
6103 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
6104 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6105
6106 * PowerPC simulator
6107
6108 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
6109 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
6110 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
6111 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
6112 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
6113
6114 * Solaris 2.5
6115
6116 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
6117
6118 * Windows 95/NT native
6119
6120 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
6121 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
6122 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
6123 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
6124 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
6125
6126 * dont-repeat command
6127
6128 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
6129 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
6130 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
6131 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
6132
6133 * Send break instead of ^C
6134
6135 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
6136 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
6137 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6138
6139 * Remote protocol timeout
6140
6141 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6142 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6143 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6144
6145 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6146
6147 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6148 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6149 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6150 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6151 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6152
6153 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6154 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6155 automatically on hpux10.
6156
6157 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6158
6159 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6160
6161 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6162
6163 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6164 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6165 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6166 every character. The default value is 1050.
6167
6168 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6169
6170 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6171 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6172 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6173 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6174 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6175 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6176
6177 * Speedups for remote debugging
6178
6179 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6180 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6181 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6182
6183 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6184
6185 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6186 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6187
6188 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6189
6190 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6191
6192 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6193 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6194
6195 * Remote targets use caching
6196
6197 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6198 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6199 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6200 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6201 off' turns the the data cache off.
6202
6203 * Remote targets may have threads
6204
6205 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6206 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6207 gdb/remote.c for details.
6208
6209 * NetROM support
6210
6211 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6212 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6213 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6214 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6215 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6216 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6217 sequence is something like
6218
6219 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6220 load <prog>
6221 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6222
6223 * Macintosh host
6224
6225 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6226 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6227 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6228 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6229 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6230 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6231 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6232 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6233
6234 * Autoconf
6235
6236 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6237 but does simplify configuration and building.
6238
6239 * hpux10
6240
6241 GDB now supports hpux10.
6242
6243 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6244
6245 * New native configurations
6246
6247 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6248 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6249 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6250 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6251
6252 * New targets
6253
6254 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6255 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6256 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
6257 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
6258 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6259
6260 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
6261
6262 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
6263 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
6264 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
6265 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
6266 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
6267
6268 * Arguments to user-defined commands
6269
6270 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
6271 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
6272 trivial example:
6273 define adder
6274 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
6275
6276 To execute the command use:
6277 adder 1 2 3
6278
6279 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
6280 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
6281 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
6282
6283 * New `if' and `while' commands
6284
6285 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
6286 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
6287 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
6288 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
6289 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
6290 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
6291 if the expression is zero.
6292
6293 * Fortran source language mode
6294
6295 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
6296 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
6297 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
6298 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
6299 Fortran compilers.
6300
6301 * Better HPUX support
6302
6303 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
6304 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
6305 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
6306 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
6307 that behavior do the following before running the program:
6308
6309 adb -w a.out
6310 __dld_flags?W 0x5
6311 control-d
6312
6313 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
6314 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
6315
6316 adb -w a.out
6317 __dld_flags?W 0x4
6318 control-d
6319
6320 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
6321 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
6322 external linkage.
6323
6324 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
6325 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
6326
6327 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
6328
6329 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
6330 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
6331 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
6332 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
6333 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
6334 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
6335
6336 * New DOS host serial code
6337
6338 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
6339 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
6340 a PC's serial port.
6341
6342 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
6343
6344 * New "complete" command
6345
6346 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
6347 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
6348
6349 * Trailing space optional in prompt
6350
6351 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
6352 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
6353
6354 * Breakpoint hit counts
6355
6356 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
6357 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
6358 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
6359 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
6360 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
6361 that breakpoint.
6362
6363 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
6364
6365 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
6366 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
6367 arrays actually contain only short strings.
6368
6369 * Shared library breakpoints
6370
6371 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
6372 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
6373
6374 * Hardware watchpoints
6375
6376 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
6377 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
6378
6379 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
6380
6381 * Annotations
6382
6383 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
6384 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
6385
6386 * Improved Irix 5 support
6387
6388 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
6389
6390 * Improved HPPA support
6391
6392 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6393
6394 * New native configurations
6395
6396 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6397 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6398 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6399 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6400
6401 * New targets
6402
6403 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6404 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6405 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
6406
6407 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6408
6409 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6410 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6411
6412 * Fixes
6413
6414 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6415 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6416
6417 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6418
6419 * Irix 5 is now supported
6420
6421 * HPPA support
6422
6423 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
6424 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
6425 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
6426 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
6427 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
6428
6429
6430 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
6431
6432 * User visible changes:
6433
6434 * Remote Debugging
6435
6436 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
6437 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
6438 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
6439 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
6440 debugging info for the mips target).
6441
6442 * DEC Alpha native support
6443
6444 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
6445 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
6446 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
6447 Alpha-specific notes.
6448
6449 * Preliminary thread implementation
6450
6451 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
6452
6453 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
6454
6455 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
6456 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
6457 for details).
6458
6459 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
6460
6461 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
6462 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
6463 call methods, ...etc.
6464
6465 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
6466
6467 * User visible changes:
6468
6469 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
6470 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
6471 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
6472 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
6473
6474 Filename completion now works.
6475
6476 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
6477 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
6478 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
6479
6480 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
6481 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
6482 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
6483 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
6484 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
6485
6486 * DEC alpha support
6487
6488 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
6489 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
6490
6491
6492 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
6493
6494 * Testsuite
6495
6496 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
6497 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
6498 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
6499
6500 * C++ demangling
6501
6502 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
6503 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
6504 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
6505 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
6506 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
6507
6508 * Simulators
6509
6510 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
6511 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
6512 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
6513
6514 * New targets supported
6515
6516 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6517 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6518 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
6519 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6520 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
6521
6522 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
6523 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
6524 GO32 memory extender.
6525
6526 * New remote protocols
6527
6528 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
6529
6530 * New source languages supported
6531
6532 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
6533 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
6534 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
6535
6536
6537 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
6538
6539 * HP Precision Architecture supported
6540
6541 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
6542 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
6543 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
6544 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
6545 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
6546 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
6547
6548 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
6549
6550 * Faster and better demangling
6551
6552 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
6553 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
6554 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
6555 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
6556 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
6557 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
6558 symbol lookups.
6559
6560 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
6561 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
6562 compiler does not actually implement.
6563
6564 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
6565
6566 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
6567 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
6568 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
6569 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
6570 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
6571 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
6572 fix.
6573
6574 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
6575 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
6576
6577 * Improved configure script
6578
6579 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
6580 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
6581 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
6582 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
6583
6584 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
6585 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
6586 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
6587 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
6588 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
6589 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
6590
6591 * Documentation improvements
6592
6593 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
6594 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
6595 before submitting changes.
6596
6597 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
6598 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
6599 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
6600 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
6601 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
6602
6603 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
6604 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
6605 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
6606 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
6607 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
6608 around this problem.
6609
6610 * New features
6611
6612 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
6613 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
6614 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
6615 the target program.
6616
6617 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
6618 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
6619
6620 * New native hosts supported
6621
6622 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
6623 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
6624
6625 * New targets supported
6626
6627 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
6628
6629 * New file formats supported
6630
6631 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
6632 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
6633
6634 * Major bug fixes
6635
6636 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
6637
6638 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
6639 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
6640
6641 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
6642 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
6643 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
6644
6645 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
6646 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
6647
6648 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
6649 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
6650 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
6651 libraries.
6652
6653 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
6654 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
6655 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
6656 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
6657 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
6658
6659 * Internal improvements
6660
6661 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
6662 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
6663
6664 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
6665 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
6666 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
6667 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
6668 shared code that handles any of them.
6669
6670 * New command line options
6671
6672 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
6673
6674 * Mmalloc licensing
6675
6676 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
6677 General Public License.
6678
6679 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
6680
6681 * Host/native/target split
6682
6683 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
6684 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
6685 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
6686 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
6687 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
6688
6689 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
6690 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
6691 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
6692 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
6693 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
6694 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
6695 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
6696
6697 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
6698 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
6699 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
6700
6701 * New hosts supported
6702
6703 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
6704 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6705 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
6706
6707 * New targets supported
6708
6709 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6710 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
6711
6712 * New native hosts supported
6713
6714 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6715 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
6716 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
6717
6718 * New file formats supported
6719
6720 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
6721 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
6722 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
6723
6724 * New commands
6725
6726 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
6727 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
6728 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
6729
6730 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
6731
6732 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
6733 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
6734 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
6735 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
6736
6737 * C++ improvements
6738
6739 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
6740 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
6741 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
6742
6743 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
6744
6745 * Major bug fixes
6746
6747 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
6748 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
6749 by the compiler.
6750
6751 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
6752 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
6753
6754 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
6755 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
6756 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
6757 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
6758 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
6759 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
6760
6761 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
6762 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
6763 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
6764 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
6765
6766 * AMD 29k support
6767
6768 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
6769 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
6770 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
6771 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
6772 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
6773
6774 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
6775 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
6776 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
6777 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
6778
6779 * Remote interfaces
6780
6781 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
6782 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
6783 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
6784 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
6785 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
6786 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
6787 each instruction being stepped through.
6788
6789 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
6790 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
6791
6792 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
6793 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
6794 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
6795 processor with a serial port.
6796
6797 * Configuration
6798
6799 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
6800 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
6801 supported, and what files each one uses.
6802
6803 * Library changes
6804
6805 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
6806 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
6807 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
6808 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
6809
6810 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
6811 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
6812 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
6813 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
6814
6815 * Documentation
6816
6817 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
6818 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
6819 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
6820 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
6821 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
6822 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
6823
6824 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
6825
6826
6827 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
6828
6829 * Better support for C++ function names
6830
6831 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
6832 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
6833 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
6834 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
6835 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
6836
6837 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
6838 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
6839 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
6840 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
6841 for the list of formats.
6842
6843 * G++ symbol mangling problem
6844
6845 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
6846 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
6847 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
6848 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
6849 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
6850 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
6851 this problem.)
6852
6853 * New 'maintenance' command
6854
6855 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
6856 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
6857 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
6858
6859 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
6860 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
6861 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
6862 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
6863 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
6864 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
6865
6866 The following commands are new:
6867
6868 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
6869 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
6870 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
6871
6872 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
6873
6874 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
6875 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
6876 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
6877 read after argv processing.
6878
6879 * New hosts supported
6880
6881 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
6882
6883 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
6884
6885 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
6886 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
6887 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
6888 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
6889 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
6890 It costs extra.
6891
6892 * New targets supported
6893
6894 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6895
6896 * More smarts about finding #include files
6897
6898 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
6899 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
6900 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
6901 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
6902 the one that contains your sources.
6903
6904 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
6905 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
6906 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
6907
6908 * Interesting infernals change
6909
6910 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
6911 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
6912 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
6913 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
6914
6915 * Bug fixes (of course!)
6916
6917 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
6918 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
6919 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
6920
6921 See the ChangeLog for details.
6922
6923 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
6924
6925 * New machines supported (host and target)
6926
6927 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
6928
6929 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
6930
6931 * New malloc package
6932
6933 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
6934 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
6935 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
6936 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
6937 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
6938 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
6939
6940 * info proc
6941
6942 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
6943 'help info proc' for details.
6944
6945 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
6946
6947 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
6948 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
6949 possible.
6950
6951 * File name changes for MS-DOS
6952
6953 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
6954 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
6955 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
6956 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
6957 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
6958 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
6959
6960 * Cross byte order fixes
6961
6962 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
6963 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
6964
6965 * New -mapped and -readnow options
6966
6967 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
6968 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
6969 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
6970 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
6971 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
6972 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
6973 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
6974 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
6975 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
6976 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
6977
6978 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
6979 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
6980 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
6981 slower, but makes future operations faster.
6982
6983 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
6984 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
6985 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
6986 use is:
6987
6988 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
6989
6990 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
6991 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
6992 shared across multiple host platforms.
6993
6994 * longjmp() handling
6995
6996 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
6997 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
6998 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
6999 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
7000
7001 * Solaris 2.0
7002
7003 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
7004 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
7005 reading symbols.
7006
7007 * Bug fixes
7008
7009 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
7010 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
7011 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
7012
7013 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
7014
7015 * New machines supported (host and target)
7016
7017 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7018 (except core files)
7019 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
7020 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
7021
7022 * New machines supported (target)
7023
7024 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7025
7026 * C++ support
7027
7028 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
7029 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
7030 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
7031
7032 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
7033 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
7034 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
7035 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
7036 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
7037 released.
7038
7039 * New features for SVR4
7040
7041 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
7042 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
7043 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
7044
7045 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
7046 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
7047 it prints the address mappings of the process.
7048
7049 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
7050 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
7051
7052 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
7053
7054 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
7055 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
7056 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
7057 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
7058 same code linked statically.
7059
7060 * New Getopt
7061
7062 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
7063 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
7064 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
7065 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
7066 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
7067 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
7068
7069 * Bugs fixed
7070
7071 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7072 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7073 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7074
7075
7076 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
7077
7078 * New machines supported (host and target)
7079
7080 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
7081 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
7082 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7083
7084 * Almost SCO Unix support
7085
7086 We had hoped to support:
7087 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7088 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
7089 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
7090 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
7091
7092 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
7093
7094 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
7095 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
7096 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
7097 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
7098 reqired (if any).
7099
7100 * New Readline
7101
7102 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
7103 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
7104 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
7105
7106 * Bugs fixed
7107
7108 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7109 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7110 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7111
7112 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
7113
7114 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
7115 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
7116 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
7117
7118 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
7119 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
7120 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
7121 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
7122 version 2.
7123
7124 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
7125 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
7126 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
7127 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
7128 situation somewhat.
7129
7130 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
7131 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
7132 methods.
7133
7134 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
7135 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
7136 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7137
7138
7139 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7140
7141 * Improved configuration
7142
7143 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7144 Porting BFD is simpler.
7145
7146 * Stepping improved
7147
7148 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7149 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7150 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7151 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7152
7153 * Bug fixing
7154
7155 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7156
7157 * New host supported (not target)
7158
7159 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7160
7161
7162 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7163
7164 * Multiple source language support
7165
7166 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7167 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7168 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7169 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7170 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7171 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7172
7173 * GDB and Modula-2
7174
7175 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7176 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7177 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7178 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7179
7180 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7181 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7182 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7183
7184 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7185 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7186
7187 * set write on/off
7188
7189 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7190 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7191 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7192 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7193 effect immediately.
7194
7195 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7196
7197 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7198 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7199 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7200 examining core files.
7201
7202 * set listsize
7203
7204 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7205 The default is 10.
7206
7207 * New machines supported (host and target)
7208
7209 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7210 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7211 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7212
7213 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7214
7215 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7216
7217 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7218
7219 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7220 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7221 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7222
7223 * New remote interfaces
7224
7225 AMD 29000 Adapt
7226 AMD 29000 Minimon
7227
7228
7229 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7230
7231 * New Facilities
7232
7233 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7234
7235 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7236 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7237 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7238 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7239 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7240 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7241 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7242 stub on the target system.
7243
7244 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7245
7246 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7247 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7248 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7249
7250 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7251 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7252
7253
7254 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7255
7256 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
7257 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
7258
7259 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
7260 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
7261 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
7262
7263 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
7264 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
7265 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
7266 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
7267
7268 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
7269 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
7270 it is already running. Default is ON.
7271
7272 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
7273 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
7274 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
7275 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
7276 Default is ON.
7277
7278 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
7279 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
7280 or the value of the environment variable
7281 GDBHISTFILE.
7282
7283 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
7284 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
7285 HISTSIZE.
7286
7287 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
7288 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
7289 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
7290
7291 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
7292 history expansion will be performed on
7293 command line input. The default is OFF.
7294
7295 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
7296 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
7297 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
7298
7299 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
7300 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
7301 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7302 variable TERM.
7303
7304 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
7305 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
7306 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7307 variable TERM.
7308
7309 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
7310 ``set width'' instead.
7311
7312 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
7313 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
7314 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
7315 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
7316
7317 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
7318 is OFF.
7319
7320 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
7321 "raw" form if off.
7322
7323 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
7324 like instructions.
7325
7326 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
7327
7328
7329 * Support for Epoch Environment.
7330
7331 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
7332 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
7333 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
7334 window.
7335
7336
7337 * Support for Shared Libraries
7338
7339 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
7340 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
7341 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
7342 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
7343 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
7344 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
7345 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
7346 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
7347
7348 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
7349 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
7350 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
7351
7352 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
7353
7354
7355 * Watchpoints
7356
7357 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
7358 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
7359 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
7360 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
7361 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
7362 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
7363
7364 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
7365
7366 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
7367
7368 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7369 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7370 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7371
7372
7373 * C++ multiple inheritance
7374
7375 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
7376 for C++ programs.
7377
7378 * C++ exception handling
7379
7380 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
7381 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
7382 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
7383 handler's context).
7384
7385 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
7386 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
7387 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
7388
7389 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
7390 current stack frame.
7391
7392
7393 * Minor command changes
7394
7395 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7396 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7397 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7398
7399 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7400 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7401 frames without printing.
7402
7403 * New directory command
7404
7405 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7406 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7407 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7408 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7409 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7410
7411 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7412
7413 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7414 for more details.
7415
7416 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7417 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7418 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
7419 where the program that you are debugging will run.
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