1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.9
6 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
7 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
8 and may include things like its command line arguments.
12 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
13 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
14 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
18 maint print symbol-cache
19 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
21 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
22 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
24 maint flush-symbol-cache
25 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
31 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
32 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
33 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
34 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
36 maint set symbol-cache-size
37 maint show symbol-cache-size
38 Control the size of the symbol cache.
40 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
41 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
43 * Python/Guile scripting
45 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
46 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
48 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
50 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
54 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
55 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
56 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
57 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
58 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
59 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
60 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
61 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
62 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
63 selecting a new file to debug.
64 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
65 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
67 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
70 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
71 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
72 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
73 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
75 * New Python-based convenience functions:
77 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
78 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
79 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
80 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
82 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
83 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
84 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
85 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
86 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
87 interface with this new feature are:
89 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
90 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
94 demangle [-l language] [--] name
95 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
96 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
97 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
98 as "maint demangler-warning".
100 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
101 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
103 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
104 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
107 maint print user-registers
108 List all currently available "user" registers.
110 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
111 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
112 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
114 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
115 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
116 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
119 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
120 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
121 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
122 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
125 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
126 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
127 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
128 switched threads meanwhile.
130 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
132 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
133 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
134 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
135 is now the default mode.
139 set debug symbol-lookup
140 show debug symbol-lookup
141 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
145 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
146 inferiors that have exited.
150 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
154 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
156 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
157 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
158 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
159 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
160 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
162 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
163 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
164 its alias "share", instead.
166 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
168 * New command line options
171 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
173 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
174 as specified in ISO C99.
176 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
177 with or without disassembly.
181 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
182 available is determined at configure time.
183 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
184 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
186 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
190 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
194 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
196 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
197 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
199 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
200 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
204 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
205 show print symbol-loading
206 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
207 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
208 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
211 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
212 show guile print-stack
213 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
215 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
216 show auto-load guile-scripts
217 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
219 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
220 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
221 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
222 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
223 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
224 usage of this option.
226 set auto-connect-native-target
228 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
229 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
230 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
232 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
233 show record btrace replay-memory-access
234 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
236 maint set target-async (on|off)
237 maint show target-async
238 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
239 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
240 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
241 occurring only in synchronous mode.
243 set mi-async (on|off)
245 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
246 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
248 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
249 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
251 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
252 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
253 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
254 "set target-async on" command.
256 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
258 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
259 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
260 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
261 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
262 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
264 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
265 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
266 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
268 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
269 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
270 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
271 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
272 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
273 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
274 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
276 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
277 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
279 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
280 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
281 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
283 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
284 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
287 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
289 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
290 remote. It now works with all targets.
292 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
293 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
294 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
295 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
296 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
297 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
298 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
299 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
300 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
303 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
304 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
305 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
307 * GDB now supports access to Intel(R) MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
309 * Support for Intel(R) AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
310 Support displaying and modifying Intel(R) AVX-512 registers
311 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
315 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
316 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
317 branch trace incrementally.
321 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
322 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
324 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
325 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
326 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
327 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
328 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
331 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
333 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
334 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
335 its alias "share", instead.
337 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
338 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
343 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
344 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
345 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
346 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
347 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
348 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
349 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
350 commands and CLI execution commands.
352 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
354 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
355 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
356 recording has been added.
358 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
360 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
361 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
363 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
364 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
365 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
366 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
367 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
368 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
371 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
373 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
375 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
376 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
377 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
378 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
383 (gdb) info registers rax
386 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
387 "*value not available*".
389 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
394 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
395 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
396 ** Line tables representation has been added.
397 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
398 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
399 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
403 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
404 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
405 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
407 * Removed native configurations
409 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
410 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
412 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
413 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
414 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
415 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
416 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
417 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
418 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
422 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
424 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
426 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
428 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
431 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
433 maint set|show per-command
434 maint set|show per-command space
435 maint set|show per-command time
436 maint set|show per-command symtab
437 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
439 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
440 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
441 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
442 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
443 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
446 info exceptions REGEXP
447 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
448 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
453 set debug symfile off|on
455 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
456 symbol tables within those files
458 set print raw frame-arguments
459 show print raw frame-arguments
460 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
461 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
463 set remote trace-status-packet
464 show remote trace-status-packet
465 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
469 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
473 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
475 set startup-with-shell
476 show startup-with-shell
477 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
482 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
483 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
485 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
486 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
487 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
488 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
491 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
492 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
493 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
495 * New command-line options
497 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
499 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
500 buffer in Common Trace Format.
502 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
505 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
507 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
508 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
510 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
511 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
513 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
514 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
515 due to an uncaught signal.
519 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
520 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
521 command, which should contain "language-option".
523 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
524 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
526 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
527 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
528 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
529 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
530 "undefined-command-error-code".
532 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
535 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
537 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
538 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
541 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
542 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
544 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
545 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
546 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
548 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
549 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
550 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
551 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
552 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
553 "exec-run-start-option".
555 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
556 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
558 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
559 the new "info exceptions" command.
561 * New system-wide configuration scripts
562 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
563 configuration scripts for the following systems:
567 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
568 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
569 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
572 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
573 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
575 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
576 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
577 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
583 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
584 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
585 involvemement at each single-step.
587 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
588 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
589 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
590 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
591 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
592 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
595 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
597 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
598 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
600 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
601 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
602 trace state variables.
604 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
607 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
608 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
610 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
612 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
613 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
614 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
615 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
617 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
619 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
620 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
621 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
622 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
624 set|show record full insn-number-max
625 set|show record full stop-at-limit
626 set|show record full memory-query
628 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
629 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
630 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
631 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
632 This new recording method can be enabled using:
636 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
637 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
639 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
640 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
641 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
643 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
644 instruction granularity
646 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
649 * New native configurations
651 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
652 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
653 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
654 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
658 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
659 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
660 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
661 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
662 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
664 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
665 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
666 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
667 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
668 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
669 --data-directory command-line option.
671 * New command line options:
673 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
674 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
676 * Removed command line options
678 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
681 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
684 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
688 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
690 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
692 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
694 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
696 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
697 of architecture in the Python API.
699 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
700 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
702 * New Python-based convenience functions:
704 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
705 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
707 ** $_regex(str, regex)
709 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
712 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
713 default for GCC since November 2000.
715 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
717 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
718 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
720 * New configure options
722 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
723 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
724 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
725 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
726 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
727 options allow the user to override that default.
728 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
729 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
730 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
732 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
735 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
736 conditions to be attached.
739 List the BFDs known to GDB.
741 python-interactive [command]
743 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
744 and print the result of expressions.
747 "py" is a new alias for "python".
749 enable type-printer [name]...
750 disable type-printer [name]...
751 Enable or disable type printers.
755 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
756 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
761 set print type methods (on|off)
762 show print type methods
763 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
764 The default is to show them.
766 set print type typedefs (on|off)
767 show print type typedefs
768 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
769 The default is to show them.
771 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
772 show filename-display
773 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
774 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
776 set trace-buffer-size
777 show trace-buffer-size
778 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
780 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
781 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
782 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
786 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
789 set debug coff-pe-read
790 show debug coff-pe-read
791 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
796 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
799 set debug notification
800 show debug notification
801 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
805 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
806 "=cmd-param-changed".
807 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
808 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
809 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
810 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
811 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
812 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
813 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
814 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
816 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
817 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
818 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
819 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
820 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
821 library load/unload events.
822 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
823 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
824 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
825 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
826 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
827 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
828 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
829 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
831 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
832 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
833 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
834 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
839 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
840 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
843 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
844 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
848 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
849 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
852 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
853 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
855 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
857 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
858 for more x32 ABI info.
860 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
862 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
864 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
865 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
866 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
867 "info os files" lists file descriptors
868 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
869 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
870 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
871 "info os msg" lists message queues
872 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
874 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
875 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
876 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
877 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
878 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
879 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
881 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
882 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
883 record/replay support.
885 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
889 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
892 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
894 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
895 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
897 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
899 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
900 the source at which the symbol was defined.
902 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
903 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
904 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
907 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
908 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
910 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
911 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
912 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
914 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
915 object associated with a PC value.
917 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
918 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
920 * Go language support.
921 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
924 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
925 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
927 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
928 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
930 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
931 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
932 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
933 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
934 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
937 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
938 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
939 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
942 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
943 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
945 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
948 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
949 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
950 command does. For instance:
952 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
954 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
955 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
956 created, using the "condition" command.
958 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
959 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
961 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
963 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
964 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
965 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
966 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
967 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
968 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
969 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
970 files with older .gdb_index sections.
972 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
973 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
974 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
975 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
976 the .gdb_index section.
978 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
980 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
985 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
987 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
991 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
992 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
993 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
995 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
996 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
998 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
1001 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
1002 C++ and Java objects.
1004 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
1005 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
1006 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
1007 configured with '--with-python'.
1009 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
1010 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
1011 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
1012 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
1013 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
1014 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
1015 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
1017 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
1018 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
1019 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
1020 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
1022 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
1023 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
1024 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
1025 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
1027 ** "set print symbol"
1029 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
1030 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
1031 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
1033 * Deprecated commands
1035 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
1036 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
1040 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1041 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
1043 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
1044 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
1045 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
1046 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
1051 set mips compression
1052 show mips compression
1053 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
1054 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
1057 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
1059 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
1060 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
1061 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
1062 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
1064 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
1068 Disable auto-loading globally.
1071 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
1073 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
1074 show auto-load gdb-scripts
1075 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
1077 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
1078 show auto-load python-scripts
1079 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
1081 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
1082 show auto-load local-gdbinit
1083 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
1085 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
1086 show auto-load libthread-db
1087 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
1089 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
1090 show auto-load scripts-directory
1091 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
1092 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
1093 of the directories listed by this option.
1094 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1096 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
1097 show auto-load safe-path
1098 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
1099 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1101 set debug auto-load on|off
1102 show debug auto-load
1103 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
1105 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
1107 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
1108 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
1109 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
1110 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
1112 set dprintf-function <expr>
1113 show dprintf-function
1114 set dprintf-channel <expr>
1115 show dprintf-channel
1116 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
1117 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
1119 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
1120 show disconnected-dprintf
1121 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
1122 after GDB disconnects.
1124 * New configure options
1126 --with-auto-load-dir
1127 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
1128 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
1129 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
1130 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
1131 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
1133 --with-auto-load-safe-path
1134 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
1135 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
1137 --without-auto-load-safe-path
1138 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
1141 * New remote packets
1143 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
1145 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
1146 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
1147 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
1148 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
1152 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
1153 program without GDB involvement.
1155 * New command line options
1157 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
1158 before loading inferior.
1159 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
1160 execute it before loading inferior.
1162 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
1164 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
1165 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
1166 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
1167 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
1170 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
1171 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
1173 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
1174 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
1175 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
1176 target hardware watchpoint.
1178 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
1179 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
1180 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
1181 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
1185 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
1186 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
1189 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
1190 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
1191 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
1192 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
1193 now "message", which just prints the error message without
1196 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
1199 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
1200 modules library. This module provides functionality for
1201 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
1202 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
1203 corresponding value.
1205 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
1206 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
1207 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
1210 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
1211 static_block will return the global and static blocks
1212 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
1213 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
1215 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
1217 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
1220 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
1221 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
1222 available in the CLI.
1224 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
1225 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
1226 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
1227 "some_type.items()".
1229 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
1232 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
1233 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
1234 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
1235 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
1236 any anonymous fields.
1240 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
1243 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
1244 "=breakpoint-modified".
1246 ** New command -ada-task-info.
1248 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
1249 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
1250 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
1253 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
1254 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
1255 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
1256 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
1257 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
1259 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
1260 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
1262 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
1263 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
1264 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
1265 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
1266 use this option to specify where to find it.
1268 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1269 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
1270 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
1271 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
1272 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
1273 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1274 section in the user manual for more details.
1276 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
1277 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
1278 become available after that.
1280 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
1282 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
1283 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
1289 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
1290 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
1294 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
1295 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
1296 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
1298 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
1299 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
1300 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
1302 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
1303 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
1304 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
1305 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
1306 name starts with a hyphen.
1308 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
1309 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
1310 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
1311 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
1312 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
1313 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
1314 number of bytes that will be collected.
1317 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
1318 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
1319 setting the variable trace-notes.
1322 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
1323 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
1324 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
1327 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
1328 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
1329 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
1330 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
1331 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
1334 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
1335 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
1336 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
1340 set debug dwarf2-read
1341 show debug dwarf2-read
1342 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
1343 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
1345 set debug symtab-create
1346 show debug symtab-create
1347 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
1348 creation. The default is off.
1351 show extended-prompt
1352 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
1353 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
1354 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
1355 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
1356 prompt is displayed.
1358 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
1359 show print entry-values
1360 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
1361 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
1362 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
1364 set debug entry-values
1365 show debug entry-values
1366 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
1367 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
1369 set basenames-may-differ
1370 show basenames-may-differ
1371 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
1372 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
1373 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
1374 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
1375 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
1376 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
1377 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
1378 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
1384 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
1385 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
1386 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
1387 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
1389 set trace-stop-notes
1390 show trace-stop-notes
1391 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
1392 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
1393 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
1394 started by someone else.
1396 * New remote packets
1400 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1404 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1408 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
1412 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
1416 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
1419 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
1420 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
1424 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
1428 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1430 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
1432 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
1434 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
1436 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
1437 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
1438 matches the given regular expression.
1440 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1442 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1443 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1445 * New command line options
1447 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1448 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1450 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1451 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1453 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1454 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1455 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1457 * GDB now understands thread names.
1459 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1460 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1462 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1463 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1466 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1467 has been integrated into GDB.
1471 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1472 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1473 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1475 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1476 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1477 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1478 and allows for more dynamic content.
1480 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1481 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1482 have an is_valid method.
1484 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1485 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1486 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1488 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1490 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1491 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1492 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1493 that function like so:
1495 result = some_value (10,20)
1497 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1498 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1499 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1501 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1502 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1503 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1504 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1505 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1507 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1508 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1510 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1512 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1515 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1516 holds the thread's name.
1518 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1519 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
1520 occurring in the process being debugged.
1521 The following events are currently supported:
1522 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1523 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1524 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1528 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1529 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1531 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1533 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1534 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1535 was added to GCC 4.5.
1537 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1538 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1539 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1540 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1541 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1542 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1544 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1545 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1546 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1547 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1548 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1550 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1551 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1552 execution to a label.
1554 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1555 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1556 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1557 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1559 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
1560 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
1561 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1564 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1566 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1567 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1568 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1569 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1570 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1571 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1574 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1576 While now you see this:
1579 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1581 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1584 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1585 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1586 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1587 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1589 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1590 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1591 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1592 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1593 section in the user manual for more details.
1595 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1597 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1598 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
1600 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1602 * New native configurations
1604 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1608 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1610 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1611 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1612 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1613 in the GDB user manual.
1615 * Guile support was removed.
1617 * New features in the GNU simulator
1619 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1621 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1623 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
1625 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
1627 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1628 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1629 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1630 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1631 was always disabled for such configurations.
1635 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1637 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1638 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1648 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1649 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1650 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1652 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1654 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1655 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1656 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1657 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1659 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1660 mentioned flavors of operators.
1662 ** static const class members
1664 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1665 class definition has been fixed.
1667 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
1669 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1670 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1671 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1672 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1673 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1674 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1676 * Static tracepoints
1678 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1679 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1680 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1681 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1682 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1683 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1684 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1685 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1686 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1687 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1688 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1689 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1690 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1691 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1692 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1693 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1694 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1695 the "New remote packets" section below.
1697 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1699 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1700 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1701 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1702 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1706 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1707 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1708 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1709 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1710 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1711 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1712 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1714 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1717 * New remote packets
1721 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1725 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1726 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1727 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1728 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1729 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1730 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1734 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1738 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1741 qXfer:statictrace:read
1743 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1744 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1745 to gdb's qSupported query.
1749 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1753 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1754 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1756 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1757 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1760 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1762 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1763 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1764 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1765 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1767 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1768 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1769 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1770 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1771 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1772 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1773 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1775 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1776 for static tracepoints support.
1778 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1780 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1781 it understands register description.
1783 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1785 * X86 general purpose registers
1787 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1788 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1789 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1790 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1791 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1793 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
1794 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1795 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1796 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1797 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1798 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
1800 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1801 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1802 in the specified file.
1804 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1805 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1806 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1807 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1808 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1809 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1810 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1811 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1812 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1813 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1817 eval template, expressions...
1818 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1819 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1821 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1822 show target-file-system-kind
1823 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1826 save breakpoints <filename>
1827 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1828 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1829 definitions, use the `source' command.
1831 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1834 info static-tracepoint-markers
1835 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1837 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1838 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1839 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1843 Enable and disable observer mode.
1845 set may-write-registers on|off
1846 set may-write-memory on|off
1847 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1848 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1849 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1850 set may-interrupt on|off
1851 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1852 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1853 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1854 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1855 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1856 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1857 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1859 set record memory-query on|off
1860 show record memory-query
1861 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1862 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1867 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1871 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1872 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1873 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1874 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1875 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1877 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
1878 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1879 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1880 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
1882 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
1883 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1885 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
1887 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
1889 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1891 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1892 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1893 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1895 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1896 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1897 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1898 regular breakpoints.
1902 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1904 * D language support.
1905 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1908 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1909 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1910 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1911 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1912 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1914 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1915 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1916 conditions of the form:
1918 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1920 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1921 interface mentioned above.
1923 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
1927 ** Namespace Support
1929 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1930 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1931 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1932 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1933 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1937 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1938 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1943 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1944 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1948 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
1953 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
1956 * Multi-program debugging.
1958 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1959 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1960 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1961 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1962 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1963 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1964 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1965 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1967 * New tracing features
1969 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1971 ** Trace state variables
1973 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1974 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1975 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1976 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1977 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1978 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1979 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1980 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1981 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1982 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
1986 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1987 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1988 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1989 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1990 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1991 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1992 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1993 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1994 the regular trace command.
1996 ** Disconnected tracing
1998 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1999 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
2000 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
2001 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
2002 connection is lost unexpectedly.
2006 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
2007 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
2008 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
2009 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
2010 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
2011 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
2014 ** Circular trace buffer
2016 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
2017 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
2018 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
2019 not be available for all target agents.
2024 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
2025 the arguments to be comma-separated.
2028 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
2029 which only declare a variable are not shown.
2032 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
2033 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
2036 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
2037 "set script-extension" (see below).
2039 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2041 record save [<FILENAME>]
2042 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
2043 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
2045 record restore <FILENAME>
2046 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
2047 earlier time, for replay debugging.
2049 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
2052 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
2053 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
2054 inferior has loaded.
2059 maint info program-spaces
2060 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
2062 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
2063 show remote interrupt-sequence
2064 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
2065 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
2066 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
2067 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
2068 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
2070 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
2071 show remote interrupt-on-connect
2072 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
2073 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
2076 set remotebreak [on | off]
2078 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
2080 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
2081 Create or modify a trace state variable.
2084 List trace state variables and their values.
2086 delete tvariable $NAME ...
2087 Delete one or more trace state variables.
2090 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
2091 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
2093 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
2094 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
2096 * New expression syntax
2098 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
2099 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
2103 set follow-exec-mode new|same
2104 show follow-exec-mode
2105 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
2106 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
2107 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
2109 set default-collect EXPR, ...
2110 show default-collect
2111 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
2112 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
2113 such as registers or a critical global variable.
2115 set disconnected-tracing
2116 show disconnected-tracing
2117 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
2118 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
2121 set circular-trace-buffer
2122 show circular-trace-buffer
2123 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
2124 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
2125 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
2126 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
2128 set script-extension off|soft|strict
2129 show script-extension
2130 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
2131 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
2132 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
2133 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
2135 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
2137 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
2138 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
2139 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
2140 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
2141 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
2142 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
2143 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
2146 * Python API Improvements
2148 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
2149 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
2150 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
2152 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
2153 `is_base_class' attribute.
2155 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
2157 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
2158 evaluate an expression.
2160 * New remote packets
2163 Define a trace state variable.
2166 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
2169 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
2172 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
2175 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
2179 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
2181 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
2182 much more reliable. In particular:
2183 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
2184 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
2185 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
2186 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
2187 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
2188 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
2189 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
2190 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
2191 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
2192 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
2193 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
2194 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
2195 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
2196 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
2197 non-threaded programs.
2199 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
2200 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
2201 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
2204 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
2206 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
2207 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
2208 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
2209 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
2210 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
2212 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
2213 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
2214 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
2215 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
2216 for tracepoint actions.
2218 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
2219 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
2220 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
2222 * Process record and replay
2224 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
2225 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
2226 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
2229 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
2230 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
2231 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
2234 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
2235 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
2238 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
2239 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
2240 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
2241 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
2242 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
2243 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
2244 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
2245 the installation instructions for more information.
2247 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
2248 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
2249 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
2250 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
2252 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
2253 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
2255 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
2256 now complete on file names.
2258 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
2259 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
2260 For instance, consider:
2262 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
2263 # struct example variable;
2266 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
2267 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
2269 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
2270 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
2272 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
2273 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
2276 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
2277 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
2278 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
2280 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
2281 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
2282 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
2283 and simulator targets may also provide them.
2285 * New remote packets
2288 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2291 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
2292 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
2293 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
2296 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
2297 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
2300 Obtains additional operating system information
2304 Read or write additional signal information.
2306 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
2308 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
2309 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
2310 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
2312 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
2313 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
2315 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
2316 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
2317 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
2319 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
2320 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
2322 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
2324 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
2326 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
2327 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
2329 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
2330 list of section offsets.
2332 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
2333 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
2334 have also been fixed.
2336 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
2337 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
2338 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
2340 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
2343 template<typename T> class C { };
2346 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
2348 ptype C<char const *>
2349 ptype C<char const*>
2350 ptype C<const char *>
2351 ptype C<const char*>
2353 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
2355 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
2356 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2358 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
2359 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2360 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
2362 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
2363 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
2365 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
2368 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
2369 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2371 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
2372 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
2377 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
2378 available is determined at configure time.
2380 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
2382 * Ada tasking support
2384 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
2388 Print the list of Ada tasks.
2390 Print detailed information about task number N.
2392 Print the task number of the current task.
2394 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
2396 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
2397 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
2399 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
2401 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
2402 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
2403 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
2404 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
2405 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
2406 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
2409 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
2410 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
2413 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
2414 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
2415 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
2416 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
2419 * Multi-architecture debugging.
2421 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
2422 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
2423 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
2424 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
2425 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
2427 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
2428 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
2429 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
2430 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
2431 --enable-targets configure option.
2433 * Non-stop mode debugging.
2435 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
2436 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
2437 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
2438 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
2439 section in the user manual for more information.
2441 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2442 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2443 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2444 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2445 extensions on linux targets.
2447 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2449 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2450 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2451 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2452 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2453 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2454 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2455 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2456 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2457 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2459 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2461 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2463 maint set python print-stack
2464 maint show python print-stack
2465 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2468 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2473 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2477 Show operating system information about processes.
2480 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2483 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2486 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2489 Kill inferior number NUM.
2493 set spu stop-on-load
2494 show spu stop-on-load
2495 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2497 set spu auto-flush-cache
2498 show spu auto-flush-cache
2499 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2500 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2502 set sh calling-convention
2503 show sh calling-convention
2504 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2507 show debug timestamp
2508 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2510 set disassemble-next-line
2511 show disassemble-next-line
2512 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2515 set remote noack-packet
2516 show remote noack-packet
2517 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2518 under "New remote packets."
2520 set remote query-attached-packet
2521 show remote query-attached-packet
2522 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2524 set remote read-siginfo-object
2525 show remote read-siginfo-object
2526 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2529 set remote write-siginfo-object
2530 show remote write-siginfo-object
2531 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2534 set remote reverse-continue
2535 show remote reverse-continue
2536 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2538 set remote reverse-step
2539 show remote reverse-step
2540 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2542 set displaced-stepping
2543 show displaced-stepping
2544 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2545 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2546 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2549 show debug displaced
2550 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2552 maint set internal-error
2553 maint show internal-error
2554 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2556 maint set internal-warning
2557 maint show internal-warning
2558 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
2563 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2565 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2566 show multiple-symbols
2567 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2568 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2569 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2571 set breakpoint always-inserted
2572 show breakpoint always-inserted
2573 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2574 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2575 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2577 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2578 show arm fallback-mode
2579 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2581 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2582 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2583 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2584 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2586 set disable-randomization
2587 show disable-randomization
2588 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2589 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2590 multiple debugging sessions.
2594 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2599 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2600 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2601 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2602 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2604 set target-wide-charset
2605 show target-wide-charset
2606 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2607 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2609 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2611 set tcp connect-timeout
2612 show tcp connect-timeout
2613 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2614 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2615 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2617 set libthread-db-search-path
2618 show libthread-db-search-path
2619 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2622 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2623 show schedule-multiple
2624 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2625 the current process.
2629 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2630 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2631 affecting correctness.
2633 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2634 show interactive-mode
2635 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2636 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2637 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2638 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2639 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2644 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2645 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2646 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2650 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2651 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2652 alias for the `fork' command.
2655 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2656 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2657 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2660 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2661 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2662 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2666 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2667 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2668 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2671 * New native configurations
2673 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2675 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2679 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
2680 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
2681 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
2684 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2685 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2691 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2693 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
2695 * New native configurations
2697 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
2698 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
2702 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
2703 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
2705 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2707 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2708 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2709 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2710 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2712 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2713 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2715 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
2718 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
2719 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2720 and in inlined functions.
2722 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2723 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2724 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2726 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2728 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2729 registers on PowerPC targets.
2731 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2732 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2734 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2735 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2737 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2738 extended-remote mode.
2740 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
2741 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2742 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2743 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
2745 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2746 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2747 target architectures.
2749 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2750 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2751 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2752 stored in two consecutive float registers.
2754 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2757 * Improved support for debugging Ada
2758 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2760 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2761 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2762 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2763 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2765 - Improved command completion in Ada
2768 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2773 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2774 show print frame-arguments
2775 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2776 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2781 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2788 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2790 * New remote packets
2797 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
2800 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2804 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2806 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
2808 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2809 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2810 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2812 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2813 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2814 -Bsymbolic linker option.
2816 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2817 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2820 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2821 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2823 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
2824 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
2826 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2828 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2829 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2830 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2832 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2833 automatically displayed as character or string data.
2835 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2836 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2839 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2840 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
2841 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
2843 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2846 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2847 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2848 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2850 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2852 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2854 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2855 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2856 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2858 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2859 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2861 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2862 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2863 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2864 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2865 Windows and SymbianOS).
2867 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2868 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
2870 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2871 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
2877 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2878 when debugging using remote targets.
2880 set mem inaccessible-by-default
2881 show mem inaccessible-by-default
2882 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2883 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2884 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2885 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2886 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2888 set breakpoint auto-hw
2889 show breakpoint auto-hw
2890 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2891 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2892 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2893 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2894 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2895 including "next" and "finish".
2898 catch exception unhandled
2899 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2902 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2906 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2907 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2908 an alias to "set sysroot".
2911 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2912 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2915 * New native configurations
2917 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2920 unset tdesc filename
2922 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2923 not query the target for its built-in description.
2927 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
2928 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
2929 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
2931 * New remote packets
2934 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2935 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2937 qXfer:features:read:
2938 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2943 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2944 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2946 qXfer:libraries:read:
2947 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2948 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2949 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2950 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2954 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2962 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2963 i[34567]86-*-netware*
2964 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2965 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2967 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2970 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2971 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2980 * Other removed features
2987 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2994 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2999 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
3000 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
3005 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
3006 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
3008 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
3010 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
3011 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
3012 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
3013 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
3015 MIPS ".pdr" sections
3017 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
3018 in debugging information.
3022 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
3023 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
3025 set mips stack-arg-size
3026 set mips saved-gpreg-size
3028 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
3030 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
3035 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
3037 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
3038 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
3039 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
3041 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
3042 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
3045 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
3046 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
3048 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
3049 stub provides the required support.
3051 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
3052 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
3057 unset substitute-path
3058 show substitute-path
3059 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
3060 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
3061 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
3062 between compilation and debugging.
3066 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
3067 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
3068 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
3072 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
3074 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
3075 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
3077 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
3079 * New remote packets
3082 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
3083 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
3084 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
3085 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
3089 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
3090 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
3092 qXfer:memory-map:read:
3093 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
3094 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
3099 Erase and program a flash memory device.
3101 * Removed remote packets
3104 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
3105 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
3107 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
3111 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
3113 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3117 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
3118 only if it doesn't already have a value.
3120 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
3122 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
3124 restart <n> Return the program state to a
3125 previously saved state.
3127 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
3129 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
3131 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
3132 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
3134 info forks List forks of the user program that
3135 are available to be debugged.
3137 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
3138 forks of the user program that are
3139 available to be debugged.
3141 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3142 that are available to be debugged (and
3143 kill the forked process).
3145 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3146 that are available to be debugged (and
3147 allow the process to continue).
3151 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
3153 * Improved Windows host support
3155 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
3156 native console support, and remote communications using either
3157 network sockets or serial ports.
3159 * Improved Modula-2 language support
3161 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
3162 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
3163 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
3164 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
3165 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
3166 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
3170 The ARM rdi-share module.
3172 The Netware NLM debug server.
3174 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
3176 * New native configurations
3178 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
3179 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
3183 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3185 * New command line options
3187 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
3188 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
3189 the child (debugged) program exited with.
3190 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
3191 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
3192 specified multiple times and in conjunction
3193 with the --command (-x) option.
3195 * Deprecated commands removed
3197 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
3201 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
3202 othernames set arm disassembler
3203 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
3204 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
3205 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
3208 * New BSD user-level threads support
3210 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
3211 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
3214 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3215 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
3216 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
3218 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
3219 are not yet supported.
3221 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
3222 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
3224 * REMOVED configurations and files
3226 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
3227 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3228 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
3230 * New "set print array-indexes" command
3232 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
3233 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
3236 * VAX floating point support
3238 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
3240 * User-defined command support
3242 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
3243 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
3244 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
3246 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
3248 * New command line option
3250 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
3253 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
3255 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
3256 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
3257 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
3258 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
3259 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
3261 * Internationalization
3263 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
3264 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
3265 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
3269 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
3270 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
3271 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
3273 * New native configurations
3275 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
3279 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
3280 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
3282 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
3284 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3285 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
3286 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
3289 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
3290 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
3291 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
3301 powerpc bdm protocol
3303 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3304 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
3306 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3308 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3309 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3310 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3311 permanently REMOVED.
3320 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
3322 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
3324 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
3325 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
3328 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
3330 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
3331 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
3332 IRIX long double values).
3336 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
3337 command. This problem has been fixed.
3339 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
3341 * Fix for ``many threads''
3343 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
3344 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
3347 ptrace: No such process.
3348 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
3350 This problem has been fixed.
3352 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
3354 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
3357 * New ``start'' command.
3359 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
3361 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
3363 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
3364 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
3365 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
3367 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3368 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
3369 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
3370 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
3371 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
3372 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3373 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
3374 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
3375 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3377 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
3379 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
3380 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
3381 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
3382 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
3383 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
3385 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
3386 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
3387 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3389 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
3391 * New native configurations
3393 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
3394 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
3395 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
3396 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
3397 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
3398 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
3399 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
3401 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
3403 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3404 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
3405 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
3406 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
3407 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
3408 work, was also included.
3410 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
3411 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
3421 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3422 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
3424 * REMOVED configurations and files
3426 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3427 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3428 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3429 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3430 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3431 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3432 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3433 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3434 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3435 sonymips mips-sony-*
3436 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3438 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3440 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3442 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3443 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3444 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3445 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3448 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3450 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3451 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3452 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3453 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3454 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3455 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3458 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3460 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
3462 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3463 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3464 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3466 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3468 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3469 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3471 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3473 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3474 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3475 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3477 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3479 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3480 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3482 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3484 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3485 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3486 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3488 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3490 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3491 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3492 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3494 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
3496 * Removed --with-mmalloc
3498 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3499 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3501 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
3503 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3504 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3505 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3506 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3508 * Revised SPARC target
3510 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3511 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
3512 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3513 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3514 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
3518 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3519 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3520 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3523 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3525 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3526 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3529 * C++ nested types and namespaces
3531 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3532 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3533 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3534 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3535 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3536 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3537 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3538 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3539 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3541 * New native configurations
3543 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
3544 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3545 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
3546 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3547 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
3549 * New debugging protocols
3551 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3553 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3555 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3556 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3557 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3559 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3561 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3562 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3563 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3564 permanently REMOVED.
3566 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3567 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3568 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3569 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3570 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3571 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3572 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3573 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3574 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3575 sonymips mips-sony-*
3576 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3578 * REMOVED configurations and files
3580 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3581 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3582 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3583 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3584 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3585 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3586 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3587 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3588 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3589 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
3590 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3591 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3592 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3593 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3594 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
3595 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3596 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3598 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3602 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3603 integrated into GDB.
3605 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3607 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3608 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3609 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3612 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3613 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3614 DWARF 2 CFI support.
3618 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3619 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3620 remote protocol documentation for details.
3622 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
3624 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3625 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3626 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3629 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3631 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3632 per-thread variables.
3634 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3636 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3637 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3639 * Separate debug info.
3641 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3642 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3643 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3644 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3645 and optional debug files.
3647 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3649 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3650 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3653 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3654 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3658 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3659 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3660 considered "useable".
3662 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3664 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3665 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3668 * GDB supports logging output to a file
3670 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3671 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
3673 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3675 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3676 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3679 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
3681 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3682 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3686 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3687 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3688 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3689 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3690 data, for more informative profiling results.
3692 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3694 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3695 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
3696 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
3698 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3701 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3702 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3703 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3704 in a subsequent -var-update.
3706 * New native configurations.
3708 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3710 * Multi-arched targets.
3712 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
3713 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3715 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3717 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3718 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3719 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3720 permanently REMOVED.
3722 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3723 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3724 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3725 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3726 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3727 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3728 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3729 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3730 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3731 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3732 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3733 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3735 * REMOVED configurations and files
3738 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3739 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3740 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3741 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3742 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3743 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3745 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3746 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3747 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3748 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3749 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3750 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3752 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
3754 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3755 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3756 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3757 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3758 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3760 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
3762 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3764 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3765 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3766 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3767 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3768 shared libs like mad''.
3770 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
3772 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3773 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3774 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3775 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
3777 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3779 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3780 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3783 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3784 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3786 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3787 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3789 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3790 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3791 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3792 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3794 * Multi-arched targets.
3796 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3797 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
3799 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
3800 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3801 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3805 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3808 * New native configurations
3810 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
3811 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
3812 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
3813 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
3815 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3817 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3818 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3819 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3820 permanently REMOVED.
3822 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3823 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3824 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3825 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3826 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3827 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3828 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3829 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3830 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3831 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3833 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3834 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3836 * OBSOLETE languages
3838 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3840 * REMOVED configurations and files
3842 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3843 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3844 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3845 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3846 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3848 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3850 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3852 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3853 commands. The default is 1024.
3855 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3857 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3859 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3861 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3862 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3863 from a file into memory (restore).
3865 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3867 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3868 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3869 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3871 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3879 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3880 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3881 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3883 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3884 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3885 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3887 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3888 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3889 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3891 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3892 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3893 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3895 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
3897 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3899 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3900 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3901 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3902 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3903 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3904 (notably embedded) targets.
3906 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3908 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3909 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3910 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3911 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
3913 * New command line option
3915 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3917 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3919 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3920 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3921 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3922 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3923 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3924 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3925 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3926 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3927 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3928 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3930 * Changes in ARM configurations.
3932 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3933 configuration is fully multi-arch.
3935 * New native configurations
3937 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
3938 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
3939 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
3940 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
3944 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3946 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3948 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3949 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3950 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3951 permanently REMOVED.
3953 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3954 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3955 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3956 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3957 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3959 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3961 * REMOVED configurations and files
3963 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3965 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3966 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3967 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3968 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3969 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3970 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3971 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3972 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3973 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3974 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3975 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
3977 * Changes to command line processing
3979 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3980 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3982 * Changes to key bindings
3984 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3986 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3988 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3990 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3993 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3995 Numerous documentation fixes.
3997 Numerous testsuite fixes.
3999 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
4001 * New native configurations
4003 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
4004 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
4005 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
4006 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4007 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
4008 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
4012 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
4014 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
4016 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4018 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
4019 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
4020 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4021 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
4022 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4024 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
4025 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4026 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4027 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
4028 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
4029 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4030 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
4031 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
4033 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
4034 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
4036 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4037 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4038 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4039 permanently REMOVED.
4041 * REMOVED configurations and files
4043 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4044 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4046 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4050 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
4052 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
4053 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
4058 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
4060 * The MI enabled by default.
4062 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
4063 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
4064 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
4065 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
4066 which is now deprecated.
4068 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
4070 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
4071 main features are supported:
4073 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
4075 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
4078 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
4080 - a Pascal expression parser.
4082 However, some important features are not yet supported.
4084 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
4086 - there are some problems with boolean types;
4088 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
4089 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
4091 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
4093 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
4095 * Changes in completion.
4097 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
4098 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
4099 users expect at the shell prompt.
4101 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
4102 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
4103 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
4104 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
4105 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
4106 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
4107 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
4109 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
4111 * New platform-independent commands:
4113 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
4114 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
4115 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
4117 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
4119 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
4120 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
4121 many threads as your system allows you to have.
4123 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
4125 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
4126 multi-threaded programs though.
4128 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
4130 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
4132 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
4133 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
4136 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
4138 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
4139 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
4140 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
4141 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
4142 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
4145 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
4146 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
4147 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
4149 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
4151 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
4152 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
4154 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
4155 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
4158 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
4159 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
4160 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
4161 a given linear address.
4163 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
4164 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
4165 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
4167 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
4169 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
4171 * Changes in documentation.
4173 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
4174 Documentation License.
4176 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4179 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
4181 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4184 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
4185 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
4186 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
4188 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
4190 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
4191 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
4192 contents of this file.
4196 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
4198 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
4200 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
4202 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
4203 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
4204 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
4205 greater level of detail.
4207 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
4209 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
4210 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
4211 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
4214 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
4216 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
4217 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
4218 machines ``out of the box''.
4220 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
4221 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
4222 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
4223 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
4224 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
4226 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
4227 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
4228 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
4229 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
4230 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
4232 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
4233 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
4236 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
4239 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
4240 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
4241 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
4242 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
4244 * New native configurations
4246 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
4247 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4251 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
4252 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
4253 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
4254 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4256 * OBSOLETE configurations
4258 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4259 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4261 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4264 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4265 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4266 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4267 be permanently REMOVED.
4269 * Gould support removed
4271 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
4273 * New features for SVR4
4275 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
4276 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
4277 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
4279 * Many C++ enhancements
4281 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
4282 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
4284 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
4286 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
4287 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
4288 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
4289 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
4291 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
4292 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
4294 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
4296 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
4297 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
4298 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
4300 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
4301 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
4303 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
4305 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
4306 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
4307 include ``set remote P-packet''.
4309 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
4311 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
4312 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
4313 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
4315 * ``apropos'' command added.
4317 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
4318 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
4319 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
4323 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
4324 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
4325 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
4326 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
4327 enabled by configuring with:
4329 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
4331 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
4333 * New native configurations
4335 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
4336 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
4337 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
4341 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4342 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
4343 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4345 * OBSOLETE configurations
4347 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
4349 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4350 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4351 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4352 be permanently REMOVED.
4356 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
4357 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
4358 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
4359 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
4360 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
4361 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
4362 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
4367 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
4369 * set extension-language
4371 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
4372 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
4373 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
4374 set extension-language .c c++
4375 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
4376 and their associated languages.
4378 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
4380 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
4381 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
4382 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
4386 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
4387 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
4389 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
4390 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
4392 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
4393 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
4394 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
4395 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
4396 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
4397 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
4398 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
4399 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
4401 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
4402 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
4403 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
4404 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
4408 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
4409 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
4410 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
4411 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
4412 for xdb and dbx commands.
4416 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
4417 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
4418 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
4420 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
4421 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
4422 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
4424 * Debugging across forks
4426 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
4431 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
4432 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
4433 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
4435 * GDB remote protocol additions
4437 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
4438 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
4439 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4440 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4442 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4443 full 64-bit address. The command
4445 set remoteaddresssize 32
4447 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4448 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4451 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4452 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4454 maint packet heythere
4456 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4457 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4460 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4461 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4462 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4464 * Tracing can collect general expressions
4466 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4467 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4468 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4470 * mask-address variable for Mips
4472 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4473 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4474 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4476 * Higher serial baud rates
4478 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4479 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4480 to achieve all of these rates.)
4484 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4485 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4488 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4490 * New native configurations
4492 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4493 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4494 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4495 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4496 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4497 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4498 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4502 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4503 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4504 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4505 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4506 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4507 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4508 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4509 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4510 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4511 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4512 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4514 * New debugging protocols
4516 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4517 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4518 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4519 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4520 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4521 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4525 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4526 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4531 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4532 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4534 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4536 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4537 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4538 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4540 * Live range splitting
4542 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4543 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4544 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4548 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4549 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4553 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4554 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4555 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4560 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4565 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4566 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4567 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4568 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4569 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4570 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4574 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4575 the symbol at the specified address.
4579 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4580 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4581 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4582 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4583 file tracepoint.c for more details.
4587 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4588 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4589 of most MIPS variants.
4593 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4594 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4595 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4599 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4600 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4601 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4602 the possible architectures.
4604 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4606 * New native configurations
4608 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4609 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4610 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4611 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4612 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4613 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4617 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4618 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4619 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4620 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4621 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4623 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4627 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4628 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4629 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4630 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4631 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4635 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4637 * Windows 95/NT native
4639 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4640 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4641 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4642 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4643 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4645 * dont-repeat command
4647 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4648 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4649 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4650 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4652 * Send break instead of ^C
4654 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4655 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4656 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4658 * Remote protocol timeout
4660 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4661 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4662 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4664 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4666 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4667 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4668 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4669 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4670 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4672 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4673 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4674 automatically on hpux10.
4676 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4678 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4680 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4682 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4683 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4684 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4685 every character. The default value is 1050.
4687 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4689 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4690 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4691 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4692 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4693 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4694 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4696 * Speedups for remote debugging
4698 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4699 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4700 and more efficient S-record downloading.
4702 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4704 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4705 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4707 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4709 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
4711 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4712 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4714 * Remote targets use caching
4716 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4717 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4718 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4719 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4720 off' turns the the data cache off.
4722 * Remote targets may have threads
4724 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4725 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4726 gdb/remote.c for details.
4730 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4731 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4732 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4733 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4734 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4735 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4736 sequence is something like
4738 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4740 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4744 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4745 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4746 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4747 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4748 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4749 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4750 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4751 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4755 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4756 but does simplify configuration and building.
4760 GDB now supports hpux10.
4762 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4764 * New native configurations
4766 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4767 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4768 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4769 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4773 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4774 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4775 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4776 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4779 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4781 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4782 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4783 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4784 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4785 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4787 * Arguments to user-defined commands
4789 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4790 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4793 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4795 To execute the command use:
4798 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4799 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4800 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4802 * New `if' and `while' commands
4804 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4805 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4806 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4807 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4808 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4809 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4810 if the expression is zero.
4812 * Fortran source language mode
4814 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4815 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4816 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4817 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4820 * Better HPUX support
4822 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4823 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4824 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4825 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4826 that behavior do the following before running the program:
4832 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4833 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4839 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4840 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4843 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4844 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4846 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4848 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4849 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4850 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4851 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4852 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4853 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4855 * New DOS host serial code
4857 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4858 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4861 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4863 * New "complete" command
4865 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4866 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4868 * Trailing space optional in prompt
4870 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4871 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4873 * Breakpoint hit counts
4875 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4876 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4877 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4878 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4879 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4882 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4884 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4885 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4886 arrays actually contain only short strings.
4888 * Shared library breakpoints
4890 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4891 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4893 * Hardware watchpoints
4895 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4896 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4898 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
4902 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4903 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4905 * Improved Irix 5 support
4907 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4909 * Improved HPPA support
4911 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4913 * New native configurations
4915 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4916 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4917 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4918 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4922 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4923 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4926 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4928 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4929 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4933 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4934 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4936 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4938 * Irix 5 is now supported
4942 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4943 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4944 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4945 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4946 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4949 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4951 * User visible changes:
4955 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4956 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4957 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4958 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4959 debugging info for the mips target).
4961 * DEC Alpha native support
4963 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4964 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4965 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4966 Alpha-specific notes.
4968 * Preliminary thread implementation
4970 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4972 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
4974 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4975 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4978 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4980 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4981 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4982 call methods, ...etc.
4984 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4986 * User visible changes:
4988 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4989 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4990 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4991 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4993 Filename completion now works.
4995 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4996 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4997 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4999 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
5000 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
5001 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
5002 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
5003 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
5007 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
5008 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
5011 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
5015 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
5016 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
5017 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
5021 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
5022 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
5023 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
5024 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
5025 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
5029 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
5030 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
5031 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
5033 * New targets supported
5035 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5036 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5037 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
5038 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5039 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
5041 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
5042 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
5043 GO32 memory extender.
5045 * New remote protocols
5047 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
5049 * New source languages supported
5051 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
5052 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
5053 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
5056 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
5058 * HP Precision Architecture supported
5060 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
5061 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
5062 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
5063 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
5064 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
5065 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
5067 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
5069 * Faster and better demangling
5071 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
5072 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
5073 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
5074 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
5075 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
5076 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
5079 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
5080 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
5081 compiler does not actually implement.
5083 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
5085 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
5086 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
5087 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
5088 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
5089 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
5090 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
5093 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
5094 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
5096 * Improved configure script
5098 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
5099 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
5100 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
5101 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
5103 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
5104 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
5105 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
5106 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
5107 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
5108 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
5110 * Documentation improvements
5112 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
5113 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
5114 before submitting changes.
5116 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
5117 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
5118 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
5119 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
5120 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
5122 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
5123 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
5124 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
5125 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
5126 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
5127 around this problem.
5131 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
5132 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
5133 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
5136 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
5137 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
5139 * New native hosts supported
5141 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
5142 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
5144 * New targets supported
5146 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
5148 * New file formats supported
5150 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
5151 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
5155 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
5157 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
5158 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
5160 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
5161 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
5162 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
5164 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
5165 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
5167 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
5168 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
5169 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
5172 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
5173 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
5174 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
5175 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
5176 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
5178 * Internal improvements
5180 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
5181 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
5183 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
5184 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
5185 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
5186 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
5187 shared code that handles any of them.
5189 * New command line options
5191 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
5195 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
5196 General Public License.
5198 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
5200 * Host/native/target split
5202 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
5203 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
5204 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
5205 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
5206 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
5208 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
5209 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
5210 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
5211 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
5212 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
5213 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
5214 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
5216 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
5217 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
5218 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
5220 * New hosts supported
5222 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
5223 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5224 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
5226 * New targets supported
5228 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5229 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
5231 * New native hosts supported
5233 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5234 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
5235 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
5237 * New file formats supported
5239 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
5240 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
5241 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
5245 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
5246 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
5247 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
5249 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
5251 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
5252 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
5253 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
5254 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
5258 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
5259 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
5260 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
5262 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
5266 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
5267 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
5270 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
5271 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
5273 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
5274 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
5275 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
5276 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
5277 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
5278 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
5280 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
5281 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
5282 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
5283 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
5287 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
5288 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
5289 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
5290 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
5291 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
5293 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
5294 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
5295 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
5296 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
5300 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
5301 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
5302 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
5303 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
5304 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
5305 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
5306 each instruction being stepped through.
5308 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
5309 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
5311 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
5312 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
5313 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
5314 processor with a serial port.
5318 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
5319 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
5320 supported, and what files each one uses.
5324 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
5325 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
5326 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
5327 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
5329 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
5330 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
5331 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
5332 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
5336 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
5337 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
5338 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
5339 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
5340 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
5341 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
5343 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
5346 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
5348 * Better support for C++ function names
5350 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
5351 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
5352 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
5353 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
5354 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
5356 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
5357 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
5358 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
5359 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
5360 for the list of formats.
5362 * G++ symbol mangling problem
5364 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
5365 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
5366 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
5367 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
5368 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
5369 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
5372 * New 'maintenance' command
5374 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
5375 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
5376 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
5378 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
5379 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
5380 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
5381 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
5382 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
5383 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
5385 The following commands are new:
5387 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
5388 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
5389 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
5391 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
5393 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
5394 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
5395 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
5396 read after argv processing.
5398 * New hosts supported
5400 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
5402 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
5404 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
5405 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
5406 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
5407 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
5408 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
5411 * New targets supported
5413 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5415 * More smarts about finding #include files
5417 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
5418 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
5419 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
5420 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
5421 the one that contains your sources.
5423 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
5424 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
5425 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
5427 * Interesting infernals change
5429 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
5430 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
5431 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
5432 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
5434 * Bug fixes (of course!)
5436 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
5437 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
5438 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5440 See the ChangeLog for details.
5442 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5444 * New machines supported (host and target)
5446 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5448 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5450 * New malloc package
5452 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5453 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5454 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5455 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5456 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5457 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5461 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5462 'help info proc' for details.
5464 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5466 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5467 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5470 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5472 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5473 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5474 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5475 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5476 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5477 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5479 * Cross byte order fixes
5481 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5482 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5484 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5486 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5487 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5488 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5489 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5490 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5491 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5492 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5493 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5494 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5495 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5497 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5498 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5499 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5500 slower, but makes future operations faster.
5502 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5503 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5504 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5507 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5509 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5510 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5511 shared across multiple host platforms.
5513 * longjmp() handling
5515 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5516 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5517 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5518 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5522 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5523 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5528 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5529 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5530 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5532 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5534 * New machines supported (host and target)
5536 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5538 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5539 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5541 * New machines supported (target)
5543 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5547 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5548 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5549 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5551 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5552 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5553 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5554 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5555 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5558 * New features for SVR4
5560 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5561 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5562 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5564 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5565 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5566 it prints the address mappings of the process.
5568 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5569 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5571 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5573 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5574 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5575 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5576 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5577 same code linked statically.
5581 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5582 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5583 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5584 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5585 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5586 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5590 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5591 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5592 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5595 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5597 * New machines supported (host and target)
5599 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5600 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5601 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5603 * Almost SCO Unix support
5605 We had hoped to support:
5606 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5607 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5608 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5609 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5611 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5613 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5614 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5615 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5616 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5621 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5622 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5623 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5627 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5628 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5629 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5631 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5633 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5634 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5635 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5637 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5638 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5639 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5640 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5643 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5644 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5645 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5646 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5649 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5650 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5653 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5654 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5655 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5658 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5660 * Improved configuration
5662 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5663 Porting BFD is simpler.
5667 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5668 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5669 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5670 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5674 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5676 * New host supported (not target)
5678 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5681 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5683 * Multiple source language support
5685 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5686 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5687 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5688 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5689 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5690 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5694 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5695 currently under development at the State University of New York at
5696 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5697 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5699 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5700 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5701 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5703 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5704 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5708 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5709 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5710 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5711 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5714 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5716 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5717 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5718 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5719 examining core files.
5723 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5726 * New machines supported (host and target)
5728 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5729 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5730 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5732 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5734 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5736 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5738 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5739 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5740 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5742 * New remote interfaces
5748 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5752 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5754 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5755 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5756 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5757 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5758 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5759 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5760 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5761 stub on the target system.
5763 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5765 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5766 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5767 object file types such as a.out and coff.
5769 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5770 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5773 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5775 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5776 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5778 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5779 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5780 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5782 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5783 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5784 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5785 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5787 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5788 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5789 it is already running. Default is ON.
5791 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5792 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5793 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5794 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5797 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5798 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5799 or the value of the environment variable
5802 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5803 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5806 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5807 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5808 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5810 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5811 history expansion will be performed on
5812 command line input. The default is OFF.
5814 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5815 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5816 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5818 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5819 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5820 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5823 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5824 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5825 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5828 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5829 ``set width'' instead.
5831 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5832 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5833 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5834 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5836 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5839 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5842 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5845 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5848 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5850 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5851 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5852 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5856 * Support for Shared Libraries
5858 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5859 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5860 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5861 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5862 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5863 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5864 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5865 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5867 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5868 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5869 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5871 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5876 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5877 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5878 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5879 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5880 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5881 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5883 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5885 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5887 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5888 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5889 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5892 * C++ multiple inheritance
5894 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5897 * C++ exception handling
5899 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5900 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5901 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5904 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5905 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5906 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5908 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5909 current stack frame.
5912 * Minor command changes
5914 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5915 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5916 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5918 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5919 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5920 frames without printing.
5922 * New directory command
5924 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5925 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5926 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5927 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5928 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5930 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5932 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5935 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5936 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5937 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5938 where the program that you are debugging will run.