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