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