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