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