Remove path name from test case
[binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 14
5
6 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++17 compiler.
7 For example, GCC 9 or later.
8
9 * GDB index now contains information about the main function. This speeds up
10 startup when it is being used for some large binaries.
11
12 * Changed commands
13
14 disassemble
15 Attempting to use both the 'r' and 'b' flags with the disassemble
16 command will now give an error. Previously the 'b' flag would
17 always override the 'r' flag.
18
19 * New Commands
20
21 info missing-debug-handler
22 List all the registered missing debug handlers.
23
24 enable missing-debug-handler LOCUS HANDLER
25 disable missing-debug-handler LOCUS HANDLER
26 Enable or disable a missing debug handler with a name matching the
27 regular expression HANDLER, in LOCUS.
28
29 LOCUS can be 'global' to operate on global missing debug handler,
30 'progspace' to operate on handlers within the current program space,
31 or can be a regular expression which is matched against the filename
32 of the primary executable in each program space.
33
34 * Python API
35
36 ** New function gdb.notify_mi(NAME, DATA), that emits custom
37 GDB/MI async notification.
38
39 ** New read/write attribute gdb.Value.bytes that contains a bytes
40 object holding the contents of this value.
41
42 ** New module gdb.missing_debug that facilitates dealing with
43 objfiles that are missing any debug information.
44
45 ** New function gdb.missing_debug.register_handler that can register
46 an instance of a sub-class of gdb.missing_debug.MissingDebugInfo
47 as a handler for objfiles that are missing debug information.
48
49 ** New class gdb.missing_debug.MissingDebugInfo which can be
50 sub-classed to create handlers for objfiles with missing debug
51 information.
52
53 * New commands
54
55 maintenance info linux-lwps
56 List all LWPs under control of the linux-nat target.
57
58 set remote thread-options-packet
59 show remote thread-options-packet
60 Set/show the use of the thread options packet.
61
62 * New remote packets
63
64 New stop reason: clone
65 Indicates that a clone system call was executed.
66
67 QThreadOptions
68 Enable/disable optional event reporting, on a per-thread basis.
69 Currently supported options are GDB_THREAD_OPTION_CLONE, to enable
70 clone event reporting, and GDB_THREAD_OPTION_EXIT to enable thread
71 exit event reporting.
72
73 QThreadOptions in qSupported
74 The qSupported packet allows GDB to inform the stub it supports the
75 QThreadOptions packet, and the qSupported response can contain the
76 set of thread options the remote stub supports.
77
78 *** Changes in GDB 14
79
80 * GDB now supports the AArch64 Scalable Matrix Extension 2 (SME2), which
81 includes a new 512 bit lookup table register named ZT0.
82
83 * GDB now supports the AArch64 Scalable Matrix Extension (SME), which includes
84 a new matrix register named ZA, a new thread register TPIDR2 and a new vector
85 length register SVG (streaming vector granule). GDB also supports tracking
86 ZA state across signal frames.
87
88 Some features are still under development or are dependent on ABI specs that
89 are still in alpha stage. For example, manual function calls with ZA state
90 don't have any special handling, and tracking of SVG changes based on
91 DWARF information is still not implemented, but there are plans to do so in
92 the future.
93
94 * GDB now recognizes the NO_COLOR environment variable and disables
95 styling according to the spec. See https://no-color.org/.
96 Styling can be re-enabled with "set style enabled on".
97
98 * The AArch64 'org.gnu.gdb.aarch64.pauth' Pointer Authentication feature string
99 has been deprecated in favor of the 'org.gnu.gdb.aarch64.pauth_v2' feature
100 string.
101
102 * GDB now has some support for integer types larger than 64 bits.
103
104 * Removed targets and native configurations
105
106 GDB no longer supports AIX 4.x, AIX 5.x and AIX 6.x. The minimum supported
107 AIX version is now AIX 7.1.
108
109 * Multi-target feature configuration
110
111 GDB now supports the individual configuration of remote targets' feature
112 sets. Based on the current selection of a target, the commands 'set remote
113 <name>-packet (on|off|auto)' and 'show remote <name>-packet' can be used to
114 configure a target's feature packet and to display its configuration,
115 respectively.
116
117 The individual packet sizes can be configured and shown using the commands
118 ** 'set remote memory-read-packet-size (number of bytes|fixed|limit)'
119 ** 'set remote memory-write-packet-size (number of bytes|fixed|limit)'
120 ** 'show remote memory-read-packet-size'
121 ** 'show remote memory-write-packet-size'.
122
123 The configuration of the packet itself, as well as the size of a memory-read
124 or memory-write packet applies to the currently selected target (if
125 available). If no target is selected, it applies to future remote
126 connections. Similarly, the show commands print the configuration of the
127 currently selected target. If no remote target is selected, the default
128 configuration for future connections is shown.
129
130 * GDB has initial built-in support for the Debugger Adapter Protocol.
131 This support requires that GDB be built with Python scripting
132 enabled.
133
134 * For the break command, multiple uses of the 'thread' or 'task'
135 keywords will now give an error instead of just using the thread or
136 task id from the last instance of the keyword. E.g.:
137 break foo thread 1 thread 2
138 will now give an error rather than using 'thread 2'.
139
140 * For the watch command, multiple uses of the 'task' keyword will now
141 give an error instead of just using the task id from the last
142 instance of the keyword. E.g.:
143 watch my_var task 1 task 2
144 will now give an error rather than using 'task 2'. The 'thread'
145 keyword already gave an error when used multiple times with the
146 watch command, this remains unchanged.
147
148 * The 'set print elements' setting now helps when printing large arrays.
149 If an array would otherwise exceed max-value-size, but 'print elements'
150 is set such that the size of elements to print is less than or equal
151 to 'max-value-size', GDB will now still print the array, however only
152 'max-value-size' worth of data will be added into the value history.
153
154 * For both the break and watch commands, it is now invalid to use both
155 the 'thread' and 'task' keywords within the same command. For
156 example the following commnds will now give an error:
157 break foo thread 1 task 1
158 watch var thread 2 task 3
159
160 * The printf command now accepts a '%V' output format which will
161 format an expression just as the 'print' command would. Print
162 options can be placed withing '[...]' after the '%V' to modify how
163 the value is printed. E.g:
164 printf "%V", some_array
165 printf "%V[-array-indexes on]", some_array
166 will print the array without, or with array indexes included, just
167 as the array would be printed by the 'print' command. This
168 functionality is also available for dprintf when dprintf-style is
169 'gdb'.
170
171 * When the printf command requires a string to be fetched from the
172 inferior, GDB now uses the existing 'max-value-size' setting to the
173 limit the memory allocated within GDB. The default 'max-value-size'
174 is 64k. To print longer strings you should increase
175 'max-value-size'.
176
177 * The Ada 2022 Enum_Rep and Enum_Val attributes are now supported.
178
179 * The Ada 2022 target name symbol ('@') is now supported by the Ada
180 expression parser.
181
182 * The 'list' command now accepts '.' as an argument, which tells GDB to
183 print the location around the point of execution within the current frame.
184 If the inferior hasn't started yet, the command will print around the
185 beginning of the 'main' function.
186
187 * Using the 'list' command with no arguments in a situation where the
188 command would attempt to list past the end of the file now warns the
189 user that the end of file has been reached, refers the user to the
190 newly added '.' argument
191
192 * Breakpoints can now be inferior-specific. This is similar to the
193 existing thread-specific breakpoint support. Breakpoint conditions
194 can include the 'inferior' keyword followed by an inferior id (as
195 displayed in the 'info inferiors' output). It is invalid to use the
196 'inferior' keyword with either the 'thread' or 'task' keywords when
197 creating a breakpoint.
198
199 * New convenience function "$_shell", to execute a shell command and
200 return the result. This lets you run shell commands in expressions.
201 Some examples:
202
203 (gdb) p $_shell("true")
204 $1 = 0
205 (gdb) p $_shell("false")
206 $2 = 1
207 (gdb) break func if $_shell("some command") == 0
208
209 * Configure changes
210
211 --additional-debug-dirs=PATHs
212
213 Provide a colon-separated list of additional directories to search for
214 separate debug info. These directories are added to the default value of
215 the 'debug-file-directory' GDB parameter.
216
217 * New commands
218
219 set debug breakpoint on|off
220 show debug breakpoint
221 Print additional debug messages about breakpoint insertion and removal.
222
223 maintenance print record-instruction [ N ]
224 Print the recorded information for a given instruction. If N is not given
225 prints how GDB would undo the last instruction executed. If N is negative,
226 prints how GDB would undo the N-th previous instruction, and if N is
227 positive, it prints how GDB will redo the N-th following instruction.
228
229 maintenance info frame-unwinders
230 List the frame unwinders currently in effect, starting with the highest
231 priority.
232
233 maintenance wait-for-index-cache
234 Wait until all pending writes to the index cache have completed.
235
236 set always-read-ctf on|off
237 show always-read-ctf
238 When off, CTF is only read if DWARF is not present. When on, CTF is
239 read regardless of whether DWARF is present. Off by default.
240
241 info main
242 Get main symbol to identify entry point into program.
243
244 set tui mouse-events [on|off]
245 show tui mouse-events
246 When on (default), mouse clicks control the TUI and can be accessed by
247 Python extensions. When off, mouse clicks are handled by the terminal,
248 enabling terminal-native text selection.
249
250 * MI changes
251
252 ** MI version 1 has been removed.
253
254 ** mi now reports 'no-history' as a stop reason when hitting the end of the
255 reverse execution history.
256
257 ** When creating a thread-specific breakpoint using the '-p' option,
258 the -break-insert command would report the 'thread' field twice in
259 the reply. The content of both fields was always identical. This
260 has now been fixed; the 'thread' field will be reported just once
261 for thread-specific breakpoints, or not at all for breakpoints
262 without a thread restriction. The same is also true for the 'task'
263 field of an Ada task-specific breakpoint.
264
265 ** It is no longer possible to create a thread-specific breakpoint for
266 a thread that doesn't exist using '-break-insert -p ID'. Creating
267 breakpoints for non-existent threads is not allowed when using the
268 CLI, that the MI allowed it was a long standing bug, which has now
269 been fixed.
270
271 ** The '--simple-values' argument to the '-stack-list-arguments',
272 '-stack-list-locals', '-stack-list-variables', and '-var-list-children'
273 commands now takes reference types into account: that is, a value is now
274 considered simple if it is neither an array, structure, or union, nor a
275 reference to an array, structure, or union. (Previously all references were
276 considered simple.) Support for this feature can be verified by using the
277 '-list-features' command, which should contain "simple-values-ref-types".
278
279 ** The -break-insert command now accepts a '-g thread-group-id' option
280 to allow for the creation of inferior-specific breakpoints.
281
282 ** The bkpt tuple, which appears in breakpoint-created notifications,
283 and in the result of the -break-insert command can now include an
284 optional 'inferior' field for both the main breakpoint, and each
285 location, when the breakpoint is inferior-specific.
286
287 * Python API
288
289 ** gdb.ThreadExitedEvent added. Emits a ThreadEvent.
290
291 ** The gdb.unwinder.Unwinder.name attribute is now read-only.
292
293 ** The name argument passed to gdb.unwinder.Unwinder.__init__ must
294 now be of type 'str' otherwise a TypeError will be raised.
295
296 ** The gdb.unwinder.Unwinder.enabled attribute can now only accept
297 values of type 'bool'. Changing this attribute will now
298 invalidate GDB's frame-cache, which means GDB will need to
299 rebuild its frame-cache when next required - either with, or
300 without the particular unwinder, depending on how 'enabled' was
301 changed.
302
303 ** New methods added to the gdb.PendingFrame class. These methods
304 have the same behaviour as the corresponding methods on
305 gdb.Frame. The new methods are:
306
307 - gdb.PendingFrame.name: Return the name for the frame's
308 function, or None.
309 - gdb.PendingFrame.is_valid: Return True if the pending frame
310 object is valid.
311 - gdb.PendingFrame.pc: Return the $pc register value for this
312 frame.
313 - gdb.PendingFrame.language: Return a string containing the
314 language for this frame, or None.
315 - gdb.PendingFrame.find_sal: Return a gdb.Symtab_and_line
316 object for the current location within the pending frame, or
317 None.
318 - gdb.PendingFrame.block: Return a gdb.Block for the current
319 pending frame, or None.
320 - gdb.PendingFrame.function: Return a gdb.Symbol for the
321 current pending frame, or None.
322
323 ** The frame-id passed to gdb.PendingFrame.create_unwind_info can
324 now use either an integer or a gdb.Value object for each of its
325 'sp', 'pc', and 'special' attributes.
326
327 ** A new class gdb.unwinder.FrameId has been added. Instances of
328 this class are constructed with 'sp' (stack-pointer) and 'pc'
329 (program-counter) values, and can be used as the frame-id when
330 calling gdb.PendingFrame.create_unwind_info.
331
332 ** It is now no longer possible to sub-class the
333 gdb.disassembler.DisassemblerResult type.
334
335 ** The Disassembler API from the gdb.disassembler module has been
336 extended to include styling support:
337
338 - The DisassemblerResult class can now be initialized with a list
339 of parts. Each part represents part of the disassembled
340 instruction along with the associated style information. This
341 list of parts can be accessed with the new
342 DisassemblerResult.parts property.
343
344 - New constants gdb.disassembler.STYLE_* representing all the
345 different styles part of an instruction might have.
346
347 - New methods DisassembleInfo.text_part and
348 DisassembleInfo.address_part which are used to create the new
349 styled parts of a disassembled instruction.
350
351 - Changes are backwards compatible, the older API can still be
352 used to disassemble instructions without styling.
353
354 ** New function gdb.execute_mi(COMMAND, [ARG]...), that invokes a
355 GDB/MI command and returns the output as a Python dictionary.
356
357 ** New function gdb.block_signals(). This returns a context manager
358 that blocks any signals that GDB needs to handle itself.
359
360 ** New class gdb.Thread. This is a subclass of threading.Thread
361 that calls gdb.block_signals in its "start" method.
362
363 ** gdb.parse_and_eval now has a new "global_context" parameter.
364 This can be used to request that the parse only examine global
365 symbols.
366
367 ** gdb.Inferior now has a new "arguments" attribute. This holds the
368 command-line arguments to the inferior, if known.
369
370 ** gdb.Inferior now has a new "main_name" attribute. This holds the
371 name of the inferior's "main", if known.
372
373 ** gdb.Inferior now has new methods "clear_env", "set_env", and
374 "unset_env". These can be used to modify the inferior's
375 environment before it is started.
376
377 ** gdb.Value now has the 'assign' method.
378
379 ** gdb.Value now has the 'to_array' method. This converts an
380 array-like Value to an array.
381
382 ** gdb.Progspace now has the new method "objfile_for_address". This
383 returns the gdb.Objfile, if any, that covers a given address.
384
385 ** gdb.Breakpoint now has an "inferior" attribute. If the
386 Breakpoint object is inferior specific then this attribute holds
387 the inferior-id (an integer). If the Breakpoint object is not
388 inferior specific, then this field contains None. This field can
389 be written too.
390
391 ** gdb.Type now has the "is_array_like" and "is_string_like"
392 methods. These reflect GDB's internal idea of whether a type
393 might be array- or string-like, even if they do not have the
394 corresponding type code.
395
396 ** gdb.ValuePrinter is a new class that can be used as the base
397 class for the result of applying a pretty-printer. As a base
398 class, it signals to gdb that the printer may implement new
399 pretty-printer methods.
400
401 ** New attribute Progspace.symbol_file. This attribute holds the
402 gdb.Objfile that corresponds to Progspace.filename (when
403 Progspace.filename is not None), otherwise, this attribute is
404 itself None.
405
406 ** New attribute Progspace.executable_filename. This attribute
407 holds a string containing a file name set by the "exec-file" or
408 "file" commands, or None if no executable file is set. This
409 isn't the exact string passed by the user to these commands; the
410 file name will have been partially resolved to an absolute file
411 name.
412
413 ** A new executable_changed event registry is available. This event
414 emits ExecutableChangedEvent objects, which have 'progspace' (a
415 gdb.Progspace) and 'reload' (a Boolean) attributes. This event
416 is emitted when gdb.Progspace.executable_filename changes.
417
418 ** New event registries gdb.events.new_progspace and
419 gdb.events.free_progspace, these emit NewProgspaceEvent and
420 FreeProgspaceEvent event types respectively. Both of these event
421 types have a single 'progspace' attribute, which is the
422 gdb.Progspace that is either being added to GDB, or removed from
423 GDB.
424
425 ** gdb.LazyString now implements the __str__ method.
426
427 ** New method gdb.Frame.static_link that returns the outer frame
428 of a nested function frame.
429
430 *** Changes in GDB 13
431
432 * MI version 1 is deprecated, and will be removed in GDB 14.
433
434 * GDB now supports dumping memory tag data for AArch64 MTE. It also supports
435 reading memory tag data for AArch64 MTE from core files generated by
436 the gcore command or the Linux kernel.
437
438 When a process uses memory-mapped pages protected by memory tags (for
439 example, AArch64 MTE), this additional information will be recorded in
440 the core file in the event of a crash or if GDB generates a core file
441 from the current process state. GDB will show this additional information
442 automatically, or through one of the memory-tag subcommands.
443
444 * Scheduler-locking and new threads
445
446 When scheduler-locking is in effect, only the current thread may run
447 when the inferior is resumed. However, previously, new threads
448 created by the resumed thread would still be able to run free. Now,
449 they are held stopped.
450
451 * "info breakpoints" now displays enabled breakpoint locations of
452 disabled breakpoints as in the "y-" state. For example:
453
454 (gdb) info breakpoints
455 Num Type Disp Enb Address What
456 1 breakpoint keep n <MULTIPLE>
457 1.1 y- 0x00000000000011b6 in ...
458 1.2 y- 0x00000000000011c2 in ...
459 1.3 n 0x00000000000011ce in ...
460
461 * Support for Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on FreeBSD arm and
462 aarch64 architectures.
463
464 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on FreeBSD/Aarch64.
465
466 * Remove support for building against Python 2, it is now only possible to
467 build GDB against Python 3.
468
469 * DBX mode has been removed.
470
471 * GDB now honours the DWARF prologue_end line-table entry flag the compiler can
472 emit to indicate where a breakpoint should be placed to break in a function
473 past its prologue.
474
475 * Completion now also offers "NUMBER" for "set" commands that accept
476 a numeric argument and the "unlimited" keyword. For example:
477
478 (gdb) set width <TAB>
479 NUMBER unlimited
480
481 and consequently:
482
483 (gdb) complete set width
484 set width NUMBER
485 set width unlimited
486
487 * Disassembler styling using libopcodes. GDB now supports
488 disassembler styling using libopcodes. This is only available for
489 some targets (currently x86 and RISC-V). For unsupported targets
490 Python Pygments is still used. For supported targets, libopcodes
491 styling is used by default.
492
493 * The Windows native target now supports target async.
494
495 * gdb now supports zstd compressed debug sections (ELFCOMPRESS_ZSTD) for ELF.
496
497 * The format of 'disassemble /r' and 'record instruction-history /r'
498 has changed. The instruction bytes could now be grouped together,
499 and displayed in the endianness of the instruction. This is the
500 same layout as used by GNU objdump when disassembling.
501
502 There is now 'disassemble /b' and 'record instruction-history /b'
503 which will always display the instructions bytes one at a time in
504 memory order, that is, the byte at the lowest address first.
505
506 For both /r and /b GDB is now better at using whitespace in order to
507 align the disassembled instruction text.
508
509 * The TUI no longer styles the source and assembly code highlighted by
510 the current position indicator by default. You can however
511 re-enable styling using the new "set style tui-current-position"
512 command.
513
514 * New convenience variable $_inferior_thread_count contains the number
515 of live threads in the current inferior.
516
517 * When a breakpoint with multiple code locations is hit, GDB now prints
518 the code location using the syntax <breakpoint_number>.<location_number>
519 such as in:
520 Thread 1 "zeoes" hit Breakpoint 2.3, some_func () at zeoes.c:8
521
522 * When a breakpoint is hit, GDB now sets the convenience variables $_hit_bpnum
523 and $_hit_locno to the hit breakpoint number and code location number.
524 This allows to disable the last hit breakpoint using
525 (gdb) disable $_hit_bpnum
526 or disable only the specific breakpoint code location using
527 (gdb) disable $_hit_bpnum.$_hit_locno
528 These commands can be used inside the command list of a breakpoint to
529 automatically disable the just encountered breakpoint (or the just
530 encountered specific breakpoint code location).
531 When a breakpoint has only one location, $_hit_locno is set to 1 so that
532 (gdb) disable $_hit_bpnum.$_hit_locno
533 and
534 (gdb) disable $_hit_bpnum
535 are both disabling the breakpoint.
536
537 * New commands
538
539 maintenance set ignore-prologue-end-flag on|off
540 maintenance show ignore-prologue-end-flag
541 This setting, which is off by default, controls whether GDB ignores the
542 PROLOGUE-END flag from the line-table when skipping prologue. This can be
543 used to force GDB to use prologue analyzers if the line-table is constructed
544 from erroneous debug information.
545
546 set print nibbles [on|off]
547 show print nibbles
548 This controls whether the 'print/t' command will display binary values
549 in groups of four bits, known as "nibbles". The default is 'off'.
550
551 maintenance set libopcodes-styling on|off
552 maintenance show libopcodes-styling
553 These can be used to force off libopcodes based styling, the Python
554 Pygments styling will then be used instead.
555
556 set style disassembler comment
557 show style disassembler comment
558 set style disassembler immediate
559 show style disassembler immediate
560 set style disassembler mnemonic
561 show style disassembler mnemonic
562 set style disassembler register
563 show style disassembler register
564 set style disassembler address
565 show style disassembler address
566 set style disassembler symbol
567 show style disassembler symbol
568 For targets that support libopcodes based styling, these settings
569 control how various aspects of the disassembler output are styled.
570 The 'disassembler address' and 'disassembler symbol' styles are
571 aliases for the 'address' and 'function' styles respectively.
572
573 maintenance print frame-id [ LEVEL ]
574 Print GDB's internal frame-id for the frame at LEVEL. If LEVEL is
575 not given, then print the frame-id for the currently selected frame.
576
577 set debug infcall on|off
578 show debug infcall
579 Print additional debug messages about inferior function calls.
580
581 set debug solib on|off
582 show debug solib
583 Print additional debug messages about shared library handling.
584
585 set style tui-current-position [on|off]
586 Whether to style the source and assembly code highlighted by the
587 TUI's current position indicator. The default is off.
588
589 set print characters LIMIT
590 show print characters
591 This new setting is like 'set print elements', but controls how many
592 characters of a string are printed. This functionality used to be
593 covered by 'set print elements', but it can be controlled separately
594 now. LIMIT can be set to a numerical value to request that particular
595 character count, to 'unlimited' to print all characters of a string,
596 or to 'elements', which is also the default, to follow the setting of
597 'set print elements' as it used to be.
598
599 print -characters LIMIT
600 This new option to the 'print' command has the same effect as a temporary
601 use of 'set print characters'.
602
603 * Changed commands
604
605 document user-defined
606 It is now possible to document user-defined aliases.
607 When a user-defined alias is documented, the help and apropos commands
608 use the provided documentation instead of the documentation of the
609 aliased command.
610 Documenting a user-defined alias is particularly useful when the alias
611 is a set of nested 'with' commands to avoid showing the help of
612 the with command for an alias that will in fact launch the
613 last command given in the nested commands.
614
615 maintenance info line-table
616 Add a PROLOGUE-END column to the output which indicates that an
617 entry corresponds to an address where a breakpoint should be placed
618 to be at the first instruction past a function's prologue.
619
620 * Removed commands
621
622 set debug aix-solib on|off
623 show debug aix-solib
624 set debug solib-frv on|off
625 show debug solib-frv
626 Removed in favor of "set/show debug solib".
627
628 maintenance info program-spaces
629 This command now includes a 'Core File' column which indicates the
630 name of the core file associated with each program space.
631
632 * New targets
633
634 GNU/Linux/LoongArch (gdbserver) loongarch*-*-linux*
635
636 GNU/Linux/CSKY (gdbserver) csky*-*linux*
637
638 AMDGPU amdgcn-*-*
639
640 * MI changes
641
642 ** The async record stating the stopped reason 'breakpoint-hit' now
643 contains an optional field locno giving the code location number
644 when the breakpoint has multiple code locations.
645
646 * Python API
647
648 ** GDB will now reformat the doc string for gdb.Command and
649 gdb.Parameter sub-classes to remove unnecessary leading
650 whitespace from each line before using the string as the help
651 output.
652
653 ** New function gdb.format_address(ADDRESS, PROGSPACE, ARCHITECTURE),
654 that formats ADDRESS as 'address <symbol+offset>', where symbol is
655 looked up in PROGSPACE, and ARCHITECTURE is used to format address.
656 This is the same format that GDB uses when printing address, symbol,
657 and offset information from the disassembler.
658
659 ** New function gdb.current_language that returns the name of the
660 current language. Unlike gdb.parameter('language'), this will
661 never return 'auto'.
662
663 ** New method gdb.Frame.language that returns the name of the
664 frame's language.
665
666 ** New Python API for wrapping GDB's disassembler:
667
668 - gdb.disassembler.register_disassembler(DISASSEMBLER, ARCH).
669 DISASSEMBLER is a sub-class of gdb.disassembler.Disassembler.
670 ARCH is either None or a string containing a bfd architecture
671 name. DISASSEMBLER is registered as a disassembler for
672 architecture ARCH, or for all architectures if ARCH is None.
673 The previous disassembler registered for ARCH is returned, this
674 can be None if no previous disassembler was registered.
675
676 - gdb.disassembler.Disassembler is the class from which all
677 disassemblers should inherit. Its constructor takes a string,
678 a name for the disassembler, which is currently only used in
679 some debug output. Sub-classes should override the __call__
680 method to perform disassembly, invoking __call__ on this base
681 class will raise an exception.
682
683 - gdb.disassembler.DisassembleInfo is the class used to describe
684 a single disassembly request from GDB. An instance of this
685 class is passed to the __call__ method of
686 gdb.disassembler.Disassembler and has the following read-only
687 attributes: 'address', and 'architecture', as well as the
688 following method: 'read_memory'.
689
690 - gdb.disassembler.builtin_disassemble(INFO, MEMORY_SOURCE),
691 calls GDB's builtin disassembler on INFO, which is a
692 gdb.disassembler.DisassembleInfo object. MEMORY_SOURCE is
693 optional, its default value is None. If MEMORY_SOURCE is not
694 None then it must be an object that has a 'read_memory' method.
695
696 - gdb.disassembler.DisassemblerResult is a class that can be used
697 to wrap the result of a call to a Disassembler. It has
698 read-only attributes 'length' and 'string'.
699
700 ** gdb.Objfile now has an attribute named "is_file". This is True
701 if the objfile comes from a file, and False otherwise.
702
703 ** New function gdb.print_options that returns a dictionary of the
704 prevailing print options, in the form accepted by
705 gdb.Value.format_string.
706
707 ** gdb.Value.format_string now uses the format provided by 'print',
708 if it is called during a 'print' or other similar operation.
709
710 ** gdb.Value.format_string now accepts the 'summary' keyword. This
711 can be used to request a shorter representation of a value, the
712 way that 'set print frame-arguments scalars' does.
713
714 ** New Python type gdb.BreakpointLocation.
715 The new attribute 'locations' of gdb.Breakpoint returns a list of
716 gdb.BreakpointLocation objects specifying the locations where the
717 breakpoint is inserted into the debuggee.
718
719 ** The gdb.register_window_type method now restricts the set of
720 acceptable window names. The first character of a window's name
721 must start with a character in the set [a-zA-Z], every subsequent
722 character of a window's name must be in the set [-_.a-zA-Z0-9].
723
724 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
725
726 ** GDBserver is now supported on LoongArch GNU/Linux.
727
728 ** GDBserver is now supported on CSKY GNU/Linux.
729
730 * LoongArch floating-point support
731
732 GDB now supports floating-point on LoongArch GNU/Linux.
733
734 * AMD GPU ROCm debugging support
735
736 GDB now supports debugging programs offloaded to AMD GPUs using the ROCm
737 platform.
738
739 *** Changes in GDB 12
740
741 * DBX mode is deprecated, and will be removed in GDB 13
742
743 * GDB 12 is the last release of GDB that will support building against
744 Python 2. From GDB 13, it will only be possible to build GDB itself
745 with Python 3 support.
746
747 * The disable-randomization setting now works on Windows.
748
749 * Improved C++ template support
750
751 GDB now treats functions/types involving C++ templates like it does function
752 overloads. Users may omit parameter lists to set breakpoints on families of
753 template functions, including types/functions composed of multiple template types:
754
755 (gdb) break template_func(template_1, int)
756
757 The above will set breakpoints at every function `template_func' where
758 the first function parameter is any template type named `template_1' and
759 the second function parameter is `int'.
760
761 TAB completion also gains similar improvements.
762
763 * The FreeBSD native target now supports async mode.
764
765 * Configure changes
766
767 --enable-threading
768
769 Enable or disable multithreaded symbol loading. This is enabled
770 by default, but passing --disable-threading or --enable-threading=no
771 to configure will disable it.
772
773 Disabling this can cause a performance penalty when there are a lot of
774 symbols to load, but is useful for debugging purposes.
775
776 * New commands
777
778 maint set backtrace-on-fatal-signal on|off
779 maint show backtrace-on-fatal-signal
780 This setting is 'on' by default. When 'on' GDB will print a limited
781 backtrace to stderr in the situation where GDB terminates with a
782 fatal signal. This only supported on some platforms where the
783 backtrace and backtrace_symbols_fd functions are available.
784
785 set source open on|off
786 show source open
787 This setting, which is on by default, controls whether GDB will try
788 to open source code files. Switching this off will stop GDB trying
789 to open and read source code files, which can be useful if the files
790 are located over a slow network connection.
791
792 set varsize-limit
793 show varsize-limit
794 These are now deprecated aliases for "set max-value-size" and
795 "show max-value-size".
796
797 task apply [all | TASK-IDS...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
798 Like "thread apply", but applies COMMAND to Ada tasks.
799
800 watch [...] task ID
801 Watchpoints can now be restricted to a specific Ada task.
802
803 maint set internal-error backtrace on|off
804 maint show internal-error backtrace
805 maint set internal-warning backtrace on|off
806 maint show internal-warning backtrace
807 GDB can now print a backtrace of itself when it encounters either an
808 internal-error, or an internal-warning. This is on by default for
809 internal-error and off by default for internal-warning.
810
811 set logging on|off
812 Deprecated and replaced by "set logging enabled on|off".
813
814 set logging enabled on|off
815 show logging enabled
816 These commands set or show whether logging is enabled or disabled.
817
818 exit
819 You can now exit GDB by using the new command "exit", in addition to
820 the existing "quit" command.
821
822 set debug threads on|off
823 show debug threads
824 Print additional debug messages about thread creation and deletion.
825
826 set debug linux-nat on|off
827 show debug linux-nat
828 These new commands replaced the old 'set debug lin-lwp' and 'show
829 debug lin-lwp' respectively. Turning this setting on prints debug
830 messages relating to GDB's handling of native Linux inferiors.
831
832 maint flush source-cache
833 Flush the contents of the source code cache.
834
835 maint set gnu-source-highlight enabled on|off
836 maint show gnu-source-highlight enabled
837 Whether GDB should use the GNU Source Highlight library for adding
838 styling to source code. When off, the library will not be used, even
839 when available. When GNU Source Highlight isn't used, or can't add
840 styling to a particular source file, then the Python Pygments
841 library will be used instead.
842
843 set suppress-cli-notifications (on|off)
844 show suppress-cli-notifications
845 This controls whether printing the notifications is suppressed for CLI.
846 CLI notifications occur when you change the selected context
847 (i.e., the current inferior, thread and/or the frame), or when
848 the program being debugged stops (e.g., because of hitting a
849 breakpoint, completing source-stepping, an interrupt, etc.).
850
851 set style disassembler enabled on|off
852 show style disassembler enabled
853 If GDB is compiled with Python support, and the Python Pygments
854 package is available, then, when this setting is on, disassembler
855 output will have styling applied.
856
857 set ada source-charset
858 show ada source-charset
859 Set the character set encoding that is assumed for Ada symbols. Valid
860 values for this follow the values that can be passed to the GNAT
861 compiler via the '-gnati' option. The default is ISO-8859-1.
862
863 tui layout
864 tui focus
865 tui refresh
866 tui window height
867 These are the new names for the old 'layout', 'focus', 'refresh',
868 and 'winheight' tui commands respectively. The old names still
869 exist as aliases to these new commands.
870
871 tui window width
872 winwidth
873 The new command 'tui window width', and the alias 'winwidth' allow
874 the width of a tui window to be adjusted when windows are laid out
875 in horizontal mode.
876
877 set debug tui on|off
878 show debug tui
879 Control the display of debug output about GDB's tui.
880
881 * Changed commands
882
883 print
884 Printing of floating-point values with base-modifying formats like
885 /x has been changed to display the underlying bytes of the value in
886 the desired base. This was GDB's documented behavior, but was never
887 implemented correctly.
888
889 maint packet
890 This command can now print a reply, if the reply includes
891 non-printable characters. Any non-printable characters are printed
892 as escaped hex, e.g. \x?? where '??' is replaces with the value of
893 the non-printable character.
894
895 clone-inferior
896 The clone-inferior command now ensures that the TTY, CMD and ARGS
897 settings are copied from the original inferior to the new one.
898 All modifications to the environment variables done using the 'set
899 environment' or 'unset environment' commands are also copied to the new
900 inferior.
901
902 set debug lin-lwp on|off
903 show debug lin-lwp
904 These commands have been removed from GDB. The new command 'set
905 debug linux-nat' and 'show debug linux-nat' should be used
906 instead.
907
908 info win
909 This command now includes information about the width of the tui
910 windows in its output.
911
912 layout
913 focus
914 refresh
915 winheight
916 These commands are now aliases for the 'tui layout', 'tui focus',
917 'tui refresh', and 'tui window height' commands respectively.
918
919 * GDB's Ada parser now supports an extension for specifying the exact
920 byte contents of a floating-point literal. This can be useful for
921 setting floating-point registers to a precise value without loss of
922 precision. The syntax is an extension of the based literal syntax.
923 Use, e.g., "16lf#0123abcd#" -- the number of "l"s controls the width
924 of the floating-point type, and the "f" is the marker for floating
925 point.
926
927 * MI changes
928
929 ** The '-add-inferior' with no option flags now inherits the
930 connection of the current inferior, this restores the behaviour of
931 GDB as it was prior to GDB 10.
932
933 ** The '-add-inferior' command now accepts a '--no-connection'
934 option, which causes the new inferior to start without a
935 connection.
936
937 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 4 (-i=mi4).
938
939 ** The "script" field in breakpoint output (which is syntactically
940 incorrect in MI 3 and below) has changed in MI 4 to become a list.
941 This affects the following commands and events:
942
943 - -break-insert
944 - -break-info
945 - =breakpoint-created
946 - =breakpoint-modified
947
948 The -fix-breakpoint-script-output command can be used to enable
949 this behavior with previous MI versions.
950
951 * New targets
952
953 GNU/Linux/LoongArch loongarch*-*-linux*
954
955 * Removed targets
956
957 S+core score-*-*
958
959 * Python API
960
961 ** New function gdb.add_history(), which takes a gdb.Value object
962 and adds the value it represents to GDB's history list. An
963 integer, the index of the new item in the history list, is
964 returned.
965
966 ** New function gdb.history_count(), which returns the number of
967 values in GDB's value history.
968
969 ** New gdb.events.gdb_exiting event. This event is called with a
970 gdb.GdbExitingEvent object which has the read-only attribute
971 'exit_code', which contains the value of the GDB exit code. This
972 event is triggered once GDB decides it is going to exit, but
973 before GDB starts to clean up its internal state.
974
975 ** New function gdb.architecture_names(), which returns a list
976 containing all of the possible Architecture.name() values. Each
977 entry is a string.
978
979 ** New function gdb.Architecture.integer_type(), which returns an
980 integer type given a size and a signed-ness.
981
982 ** New gdb.TargetConnection object type that represents a connection
983 (as displayed by the 'info connections' command). A sub-class,
984 gdb.RemoteTargetConnection, is used to represent 'remote' and
985 'extended-remote' connections.
986
987 ** The gdb.Inferior type now has a 'connection' property which is an
988 instance of gdb.TargetConnection, the connection used by this
989 inferior. This can be None if the inferior has no connection.
990
991 ** New 'gdb.events.connection_removed' event registry, which emits a
992 'gdb.ConnectionEvent' when a connection is removed from GDB.
993 This event has a 'connection' property, a gdb.TargetConnection
994 object for the connection being removed.
995
996 ** New gdb.connections() function that returns a list of all
997 currently active connections.
998
999 ** New gdb.RemoteTargetConnection.send_packet(PACKET) method. This
1000 is equivalent to the existing 'maint packet' CLI command; it
1001 allows a user specified packet to be sent to the remote target.
1002
1003 ** New function gdb.host_charset(), returns a string, which is the
1004 name of the current host charset.
1005
1006 ** New gdb.set_parameter(NAME, VALUE). This sets the gdb parameter
1007 NAME to VALUE.
1008
1009 ** New gdb.with_parameter(NAME, VALUE). This returns a context
1010 manager that temporarily sets the gdb parameter NAME to VALUE,
1011 then resets it when the context is exited.
1012
1013 ** The gdb.Value.format_string method now takes a 'styling'
1014 argument, which is a boolean. When true, the returned string can
1015 include escape sequences to apply styling. The styling will only
1016 be present if styling is otherwise turned on in GDB (see 'help
1017 set styling'). When false, which is the default if the argument
1018 is not given, then no styling is applied to the returned string.
1019
1020 ** New read-only attribute gdb.InferiorThread.details, which is
1021 either a string, containing additional, target specific thread
1022 state information, or None, if there is no such additional
1023 information.
1024
1025 ** New read-only attribute gdb.Type.is_scalar, which is True for
1026 scalar types, and False for all other types.
1027
1028 ** New read-only attribute gdb.Type.is_signed. This attribute
1029 should only be read when Type.is_scalar is True, and will be True
1030 for signed types, and False for all other types. Attempting to
1031 read this attribute for non-scalar types will raise a ValueError.
1032
1033 ** It is now possible to add GDB/MI commands implemented in Python.
1034
1035 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1036
1037 ** GDBserver is now supported on OpenRISC GNU/Linux.
1038
1039 * New native configurations
1040
1041 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
1042
1043 *** Changes in GDB 11
1044
1045 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
1046 for the ARC target.
1047
1048 * GDB now supports general memory tagging functionality if the underlying
1049 architecture supports the proper primitives and hooks. Currently this is
1050 enabled only for AArch64 MTE.
1051
1052 This includes:
1053
1054 - Additional information when the inferior crashes with a SIGSEGV caused by
1055 a memory tag violation.
1056
1057 - A new modifier 'm' for the "x" command, which displays allocation tags for a
1058 particular memory range.
1059
1060 - Display of memory tag mismatches by "print", for addresses and
1061 pointers, if memory tagging is supported by the architecture.
1062
1063 * Building GDB now requires GMP (The GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic
1064 Library).
1065
1066 * MI changes
1067
1068 ** '-break-insert --qualified' and '-dprintf-insert --qualified'
1069
1070 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
1071 new "--qualified" option that makes GDB interpret a specified
1072 function name as a complete fully-qualified name. This is the
1073 equivalent of the CLI's "break -qualified" and "dprintf
1074 -qualified".
1075
1076 ** '-break-insert --force-condition' and '-dprintf-insert --force-condition'
1077
1078 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
1079 '--force-condition' flag to forcibly define a condition even when
1080 the condition is invalid at all locations of the breakpoint. This
1081 is equivalent to the '-force-condition' flag of the CLI's "break"
1082 command.
1083
1084 ** '-break-condition --force'
1085
1086 The MI -break-condition command now supports a '--force' flag to
1087 forcibly define a condition even when the condition is invalid at
1088 all locations of the selected breakpoint. This is equivalent to
1089 the '-force' flag of the CLI's "cond" command.
1090
1091 ** '-file-list-exec-source-files [--group-by-objfile]
1092 [--basename | --dirname]
1093 [--] [REGEXP]'
1094
1095 The existing -file-list-exec-source-files command now takes an
1096 optional REGEXP which is used to filter the source files that are
1097 included in the results.
1098
1099 By default REGEXP is matched against the full filename of the
1100 source file. When one of --basename or --dirname is given then
1101 REGEXP is only matched against the specified part of the full
1102 source filename.
1103
1104 When the optional --group-by-objfile flag is used the output
1105 format is changed, the results are now a list of object files
1106 (executable and libraries) with the source files that are
1107 associated with each object file.
1108
1109 The results from -file-list-exec-source-files now include a
1110 'debug-fully-read' field which takes the value 'true' or 'false'.
1111 A 'true' value indicates the source file is from a compilation
1112 unit that has had its debug information fully read in by GDB, a
1113 value of 'false' indicates GDB has only performed a partial scan
1114 of the debug information so far.
1115
1116 * GDB now supports core file debugging for x86_64 Cygwin programs.
1117
1118 * GDB will now look for the .gdbinit file in a config directory before
1119 looking for ~/.gdbinit. The file is searched for in the following
1120 locations: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.config/gdb/gdbinit,
1121 $HOME/.gdbinit. On Apple hosts the search order is instead:
1122 $HOME/Library/Preferences/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.gdbinit.
1123
1124 * GDB now supports fixed point types which are described in DWARF
1125 as base types with a fixed-point encoding. Additionally, support
1126 for the DW_AT_GNU_numerator and DW_AT_GNU_denominator has also
1127 been added.
1128
1129 For Ada, this allows support for fixed point types without requiring
1130 the use of the GNAT encoding (based on information added to the type's
1131 name following a GNAT-specific format).
1132
1133 * GDB will now load and process commands from ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit
1134 or ~/.gdbearlyinit if these files are present. These files are
1135 processed earlier than any of the other initialization files and
1136 can affect parts of GDB's startup that previously had already been
1137 completed before the initialization files were read, for example
1138 styling of the initial GDB greeting.
1139
1140 * GDB now has two new options "--early-init-command" and
1141 "--early-init-eval-command" with corresponding short options "-eix"
1142 and "-eiex" that allow options (that would normally appear in a
1143 gdbearlyinit file) to be passed on the command line.
1144
1145 * For RISC-V targets, the target feature "org.gnu.gdb.riscv.vector" is
1146 now understood by GDB, and can be used to describe the vector
1147 registers of a target. The precise requirements of this register
1148 feature are documented in the GDB manual.
1149
1150 * For ARM targets, the "org.gnu.gdb.arm.m-profile-mve" feature is now
1151 supported by GDB and describes a new VPR register from the ARM MVE
1152 (Helium) extension. See the GDB manual for more information.
1153
1154 * TUI improvements
1155
1156 ** TUI windows now support mouse actions. The mouse wheel scrolls
1157 the appropriate window.
1158
1159 ** Key combinations that do not have a specific action on the
1160 focused window are passed to GDB. For example, you now can use
1161 Ctrl-Left/Ctrl-Right to move between words in the command window
1162 regardless of which window is in focus. Previously you would
1163 need to focus on the command window for such key combinations to
1164 work.
1165
1166 * New commands
1167
1168 set debug event-loop
1169 show debug event-loop
1170 Control the display of debug output about GDB's event loop.
1171
1172 set print memory-tag-violations
1173 show print memory-tag-violations
1174 Control whether to display additional information about memory tag violations
1175 when printing pointers and addresses. Architecture support for memory
1176 tagging is required for this option to have an effect.
1177
1178 maintenance flush symbol-cache
1179 maintenance flush register-cache
1180 These new commands are equivalent to the already existing commands
1181 'maintenance flush-symbol-cache' and 'flushregs' respectively.
1182
1183 maintenance flush dcache
1184 A new command to flush the dcache.
1185
1186 maintenance info target-sections
1187 Print GDB's internal target sections table.
1188
1189 maintenance info jit
1190 Print the JIT code objects in the inferior known to GDB.
1191
1192 memory-tag show-logical-tag POINTER
1193 Print the logical tag for POINTER.
1194 memory-tag with-logical-tag POINTER TAG
1195 Print POINTER with logical tag TAG.
1196 memory-tag show-allocation-tag ADDRESS
1197 Print the allocation tag for ADDRESS.
1198 memory-tag set-allocation-tag ADDRESS LENGTH TAGS
1199 Set the allocation tag for [ADDRESS, ADDRESS + LENGTH) to TAGS.
1200 memory-tag check POINTER
1201 Validate that POINTER's logical tag matches the allocation tag.
1202
1203 set startup-quietly on|off
1204 show startup-quietly
1205 When 'on', this causes GDB to act as if "-silent" were passed on the
1206 command line. This command needs to be added to an early
1207 initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to
1208 affect GDB.
1209
1210 set print type hex on|off
1211 show print type hex
1212 When 'on', the 'ptype' command uses hexadecimal notation to print sizes
1213 and offsets of struct members. When 'off', decimal notation is used.
1214
1215 set python ignore-environment on|off
1216 show python ignore-environment
1217 When 'on', this causes GDB's builtin Python to ignore any
1218 environment variables that would otherwise affect how Python
1219 behaves. This command needs to be added to an early initialization
1220 file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to affect GDB.
1221
1222 set python dont-write-bytecode auto|on|off
1223 show python dont-write-bytecode
1224 When 'on', this causes GDB's builtin Python to not write any
1225 byte-code (.pyc files) to disk. This command needs to be added to
1226 an early initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in
1227 order to affect GDB. When 'off' byte-code will always be written.
1228 When set to 'auto' (the default) Python will check the
1229 PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE environment variable.
1230
1231 * Changed commands
1232
1233 break [PROBE_MODIFIER] [LOCATION] [thread THREADNUM]
1234 [-force-condition] [if CONDITION]
1235 This command would previously refuse setting a breakpoint if the
1236 CONDITION expression is invalid at a location. It now accepts and
1237 defines the breakpoint if there is at least one location at which
1238 the CONDITION is valid. The locations for which the CONDITION is
1239 invalid, are automatically disabled. If CONDITION is invalid at all
1240 of the locations, setting the breakpoint is still rejected. However,
1241 the '-force-condition' flag can be used in this case for forcing GDB to
1242 define the breakpoint, making all the current locations automatically
1243 disabled. This may be useful if the user knows the condition will
1244 become meaningful at a future location, e.g. due to a shared library
1245 load.
1246
1247 condition [-force] N COND
1248 The behavior of this command is changed the same way for the 'break'
1249 command as explained above. The '-force' flag can be used to force
1250 GDB into defining the condition even when COND is invalid for all the
1251 current locations of breakpoint N.
1252
1253 flushregs
1254 maintenance flush-symbol-cache
1255 These commands are deprecated in favor of the new commands
1256 'maintenance flush register-cache' and 'maintenance flush
1257 symbol-cache' respectively.
1258
1259 set style version foreground COLOR
1260 set style version background COLOR
1261 set style version intensity VALUE
1262 Control the styling of GDB's version number text.
1263
1264 inferior [ID]
1265 When the ID parameter is omitted, then this command prints information
1266 about the current inferior. When the ID parameter is present, the
1267 behavior of the command is unchanged and have the inferior ID become
1268 the current inferior.
1269
1270 maintenance info sections
1271 The ALLOBJ keyword has been replaced with an -all-objects command
1272 line flag. It is now possible to filter which sections are printed
1273 even when -all-objects is passed.
1274
1275 ptype[/FLAGS] TYPE | EXPRESSION
1276 The 'ptype' command has two new flags. When '/x' is set, hexadecimal
1277 notation is used when printing sizes and offsets of struct members.
1278 When '/d' is set, decimal notation is used when printing sizes and
1279 offsets of struct members. Default behavior is given by 'show print
1280 type hex'.
1281
1282 info sources
1283 The info sources command output has been restructured. The results
1284 are now based around a list of objfiles (executable and libraries),
1285 and for each objfile the source files that are part of that objfile
1286 are listed.
1287
1288 * Removed targets and native configurations
1289
1290 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1291
1292 * New remote packets
1293
1294 qMemTags
1295 Request the remote to send allocation tags for a particular memory range.
1296 QMemTags
1297 Request the remote to store the specified allocation tags to the requested
1298 memory range.
1299
1300 * Guile API
1301
1302 ** Improved support for rvalue reference values:
1303 TYPE_CODE_RVALUE_REF is now exported as part of the API and the
1304 value-referenced-value procedure now handles rvalue reference
1305 values.
1306
1307 ** New procedures for obtaining value variants:
1308 value-reference-value, value-rvalue-reference-value and
1309 value-const-value.
1310
1311 ** Temporary breakpoints can now be created with make-breakpoint and
1312 tested for using breakpoint-temporary?.
1313
1314 * Python API
1315
1316 ** Inferior objects now contain a read-only 'connection_num' attribute that
1317 gives the connection number as seen in 'info connections' and
1318 'info inferiors'.
1319
1320 ** New method gdb.Frame.level() which returns the stack level of the
1321 frame object.
1322
1323 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.level() which returns the stack level
1324 of the frame object.
1325
1326 ** When hitting a catchpoint, the Python API will now emit a
1327 gdb.BreakpointEvent rather than a gdb.StopEvent. The
1328 gdb.Breakpoint attached to the event will have type BP_CATCHPOINT.
1329
1330 ** Python TUI windows can now receive mouse click events. If the
1331 Window object implements the click method, it is called for each
1332 mouse click event in this window.
1333
1334 *** Changes in GDB 10
1335
1336 * There are new feature names for ARC targets: "org.gnu.gdb.arc.core"
1337 and "org.gnu.gdb.arc.aux". The old names are still supported but
1338 must be considered obsolete. They will be deprecated after some
1339 grace period.
1340
1341 * Help and apropos commands will now show the documentation of a
1342 command only once, even if that command has one or more aliases.
1343 These commands now show the command name, then all of its aliases,
1344 and finally the description of the command.
1345
1346 * 'help aliases' now shows only the user defined aliases. GDB predefined
1347 aliases are shown together with their aliased command.
1348
1349 * GDB now supports debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF
1350 debugging information as well as source code.
1351
1352 When built with debuginfod, GDB can automatically query debuginfod
1353 servers for the separate debug files and source code of the executable
1354 being debugged.
1355
1356 To build GDB with debuginfod, pass --with-debuginfod to configure (this
1357 requires libdebuginfod, the debuginfod client library).
1358
1359 debuginfod is distributed with elfutils, starting with version 0.178.
1360
1361 You can get the latest version from https://sourceware.org/elfutils.
1362
1363 * Multi-target debugging support
1364
1365 GDB now supports debugging multiple target connections
1366 simultaneously. For example, you can now have each inferior
1367 connected to different remote servers running in different machines,
1368 or have one inferior debugging a local native process, an inferior
1369 debugging a core dump, etc.
1370
1371 This support is experimental and comes with some limitations -- you
1372 can only resume multiple targets simultaneously if all targets
1373 support non-stop mode, and all remote stubs or servers must support
1374 the same set of remote protocol features exactly. See also "info
1375 connections" and "add-inferior -no-connection" below, and "maint set
1376 target-non-stop" in the user manual.
1377
1378 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1379
1380 ** GDBserver is now supported on ARC GNU/Linux.
1381
1382 ** GDBserver is now supported on RISC-V GNU/Linux.
1383
1384 ** GDBserver no longer supports these host triplets:
1385
1386 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1387 powerpc-*-lynxos*
1388 i[34567]86-*-nto*
1389 bfin-*-*linux*
1390 crisv32-*-linux*
1391 cris-*-linux*
1392 m32r*-*-linux*
1393 tilegx-*-linux*
1394 arm*-*-mingw32ce*
1395 i[34567]86-*-mingw32ce*
1396
1397 * Debugging MS-Windows processes now sets $_exitsignal when the
1398 inferior is terminated by a signal, instead of setting $_exitcode.
1399
1400 * Multithreaded symbol loading has now been enabled by default on systems
1401 that support it (see entry for GDB 9, below), providing faster
1402 performance for programs with many symbols.
1403
1404 * The $_siginfo convenience variable now also works on Windows targets,
1405 and will display the EXCEPTION_RECORD of the last handled exception.
1406
1407 * TUI windows can now be arranged horizontally.
1408
1409 * The command history filename can now be set to the empty string
1410 either using 'set history filename' or by setting 'GDBHISTFILE=' in
1411 the environment. The effect of setting this filename to the empty
1412 string is that GDB will not try to load any previous command
1413 history.
1414
1415 * On Windows targets, it is now possible to debug 32-bit programs with a
1416 64-bit GDB.
1417
1418 * New commands
1419
1420 set exec-file-mismatch -- Set exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
1421 show exec-file-mismatch -- Show exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
1422 Set or show the option 'exec-file-mismatch'. When GDB attaches to a
1423 running process, this new option indicates whether to detect
1424 a mismatch between the current executable file loaded by GDB and the
1425 executable file used to start the process. If 'ask', the default,
1426 display a warning and ask the user whether to load the process
1427 executable file; if 'warn', just display a warning; if 'off', don't
1428 attempt to detect a mismatch.
1429
1430 tui new-layout NAME WINDOW WEIGHT [WINDOW WEIGHT]...
1431 Define a new TUI layout, specifying its name and the windows that
1432 will be displayed.
1433
1434 maintenance print xml-tdesc [FILE]
1435 Prints the current target description as an XML document. If the
1436 optional FILE is provided (which is an XML target description) then
1437 the target description is read from FILE into GDB, and then
1438 reprinted.
1439
1440 maintenance print core-file-backed-mappings
1441 Prints file-backed mappings loaded from a core file's note section.
1442 Output is expected to be similar to that of "info proc mappings".
1443
1444 set debug fortran-array-slicing on|off
1445 show debug fortran-array-slicing
1446 Print debugging when taking slices of Fortran arrays.
1447
1448 set fortran repack-array-slices on|off
1449 show fortran repack-array-slices
1450 When taking slices from Fortran arrays and strings, if the slice is
1451 non-contiguous within the original value then, when this option is
1452 on, the new value will be repacked into a single contiguous value.
1453 When this option is off, then the value returned will consist of a
1454 descriptor that describes the slice within the memory of the
1455 original parent value.
1456
1457 * Changed commands
1458
1459 alias [-a] [--] ALIAS = COMMAND [DEFAULT-ARGS...]
1460 The alias command can now specify default args for an alias.
1461 GDB automatically prepends the alias default args to the argument list
1462 provided explicitly by the user.
1463 For example, to have a backtrace with full details, you can define
1464 an alias 'bt_ALL' as
1465 'alias bt_ALL = backtrace -entry-values both -frame-arg all
1466 -past-main -past-entry -full'.
1467 Alias default arguments can also use a set of nested 'with' commands,
1468 e.g. 'alias pp10 = with print pretty -- with print elem 10 -- print'
1469 defines the alias pp10 that will pretty print a maximum of 10 elements
1470 of the given expression (if the expression is an array).
1471
1472 * New targets
1473
1474 GNU/Linux/RISC-V (gdbserver) riscv*-*-linux*
1475 BPF bpf-unknown-none
1476 Z80 z80-unknown-*
1477
1478 * Python API
1479
1480 ** gdb.register_window_type can be used to implement new TUI windows
1481 in Python.
1482
1483 ** Dynamic types can now be queried. gdb.Type has a new attribute,
1484 "dynamic", and gdb.Type.sizeof can be None for a dynamic type. A
1485 field of a dynamic type may have None for its "bitpos" attribute
1486 as well.
1487
1488 ** Commands written in Python can be in the "TUI" help class by
1489 registering with the new constant gdb.COMMAND_TUI.
1490
1491 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.architecture () to retrieve the
1492 architecture of the pending frame.
1493
1494 ** New gdb.Architecture.registers method that returns a
1495 gdb.RegisterDescriptorIterator object, an iterator that returns
1496 gdb.RegisterDescriptor objects. The new RegisterDescriptor is a
1497 way to query the registers available for an architecture.
1498
1499 ** New gdb.Architecture.register_groups method that returns a
1500 gdb.RegisterGroupIterator object, an iterator that returns
1501 gdb.RegisterGroup objects. The new RegisterGroup is a way to
1502 discover the available register groups.
1503
1504 * Guile API
1505
1506 ** GDB can now be built with GNU Guile 3.0 and 2.2 in addition to 2.0.
1507
1508 ** Procedures 'memory-port-read-buffer-size',
1509 'set-memory-port-read-buffer-size!', 'memory-port-write-buffer-size',
1510 and 'set-memory-port-write-buffer-size!' are deprecated. When
1511 using Guile 2.2 and later, users who need to control the size of
1512 a memory port's internal buffer can use the 'setvbuf' procedure.
1513
1514 *** Changes in GDB 9
1515
1516 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
1517
1518 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
1519 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
1520 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
1521 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
1522 such as in system-wide init files.
1523
1524 * New built-in convenience functions $_gdb_setting, $_gdb_setting_str,
1525 $_gdb_maint_setting and $_gdb_maint_setting_str provide access to values
1526 of the GDB settings and the GDB maintenance settings. They are handy
1527 for changing the logic of user defined commands depending on the
1528 current GDB settings.
1529
1530 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
1531 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
1532 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
1533 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
1534
1535 * Support for Pointer Authentication (PAC) on AArch64 Linux. Return
1536 addresses that required unmasking are shown in the backtrace with the
1537 postfix [PAC].
1538
1539 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
1540 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
1541
1542 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
1543 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
1544 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
1545
1546 * The command define-prefix can now define user defined prefix commands.
1547 User defined commands can now be defined using these user defined prefix
1548 commands.
1549
1550 * Command names can now use the . character.
1551
1552 * The RX port now supports XML target descriptions.
1553
1554 * GDB now shows the Ada task names at more places, e.g. in task switching
1555 messages.
1556
1557 * GDB can now be compiled with Python 3 on Windows.
1558
1559 * New convenience variable $_ada_exception holds the address of the
1560 Ada exception being thrown. This is set by Ada-related catchpoints.
1561
1562 * GDB can now place breakpoints on nested functions and subroutines in
1563 Fortran code. The '::' operator can be used between parent and
1564 child scopes when placing breakpoints, for example:
1565
1566 (gdb) break outer_function::inner_function
1567
1568 The 'outer_function::' prefix is only needed if 'inner_function' is
1569 not visible in the current scope.
1570
1571 * In addition to the system-wide gdbinit file, if configured with
1572 --with-system-gdbinit-dir, GDB will now also load files in that directory
1573 as system gdbinit files, unless the -nx or -n flag is provided. Files
1574 with extensions .gdb, .py and .scm are supported as long as GDB was
1575 compiled with support for that language.
1576
1577 * GDB now supports multithreaded symbol loading for higher performance.
1578 This feature is still in testing, so it is disabled by default. You
1579 can turn it on using 'maint set worker-threads unlimited'.
1580
1581 * Python API
1582
1583 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
1584 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
1585 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
1586 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
1587 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
1588
1589 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
1590 type was defined in.
1591
1592 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
1593 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
1594 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
1595 is given.
1596
1597 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
1598 symbols with static linkage.
1599
1600 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbols can be used to look up
1601 all static symbols with static linkage.
1602
1603 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
1604 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
1605
1606 ** gdb.Block now supports the dictionary syntax for accessing symbols in
1607 this block (e.g. block['local_variable']).
1608
1609 * New commands
1610
1611 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
1612 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
1613 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
1614 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
1615 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
1616 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
1617 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
1618
1619 define-prefix COMMAND
1620 Define or mark a command as a user-defined prefix command.
1621
1622 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
1623 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
1624 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
1625 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
1626 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
1627 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
1628 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
1629 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
1630 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
1631 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
1632 of array elements to print.
1633
1634 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
1635 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
1636
1637 set may-call-functions [on|off]
1638 show may-call-functions
1639 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
1640 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
1641 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
1642 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
1643 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
1644 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
1645 in the program.
1646
1647 set print finish [on|off]
1648 show print finish
1649 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
1650 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
1651 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
1652 default is `on'.
1653
1654 set print max-depth
1655 show print max-depth
1656 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
1657 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
1658 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
1659 the old behavior back.
1660
1661 set print raw-values [on|off]
1662 show print raw-values
1663 By default, GDB applies the enabled pretty printers when printing a
1664 value. This allows to ignore the enabled pretty printers for a series
1665 of commands. The default is 'off'.
1666
1667 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
1668 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
1669 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
1670
1671 set style title foreground COLOR
1672 set style title background COLOR
1673 set style title intensity VALUE
1674 Control the styling of titles.
1675
1676 set style highlight foreground COLOR
1677 set style highlight background COLOR
1678 set style highlight intensity VALUE
1679 Control the styling of highlightings.
1680
1681 maint set worker-threads
1682 maint show worker-threads
1683 Control the number of worker threads that can be used by GDB. The
1684 default is 0. "unlimited" lets GDB choose a number that is
1685 reasonable. Currently worker threads are only used when demangling
1686 the names of linker symbols.
1687
1688 set style tui-border foreground COLOR
1689 set style tui-border background COLOR
1690 Control the styling of TUI borders.
1691
1692 set style tui-active-border foreground COLOR
1693 set style tui-active-border background COLOR
1694 Control the styling of the active TUI border.
1695
1696 maint set test-settings KIND
1697 maint show test-settings KIND
1698 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
1699 infrastructure.
1700
1701 maint set tui-resize-message [on|off]
1702 maint show tui-resize-message
1703 Control whether GDB prints a message each time the terminal is
1704 resized when in TUI mode. This is primarily useful for testing the
1705 TUI.
1706
1707 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
1708 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
1709 show print frame-info
1710 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
1711 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
1712 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
1713 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
1714
1715 set tui compact-source
1716 show tui compact-source
1717
1718 Enable the "compact" display mode for the TUI source window. The
1719 compact display uses only as much space as is needed for the line
1720 numbers in the current file, and only a single space to separate the
1721 line numbers from the source.
1722
1723 info modules [-q] [REGEXP]
1724 Return a list of Fortran modules matching REGEXP, or all modules if
1725 no REGEXP is given.
1726
1727 info module functions [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
1728 Return a list of functions within all modules, grouped by module.
1729 The list of functions can be restricted with the optional regular
1730 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
1731 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the function type signature, and REGEXP
1732 matches against the function name.
1733
1734 info module variables [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
1735 Return a list of variables within all modules, grouped by module.
1736 The list of variables can be restricted with the optional regular
1737 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
1738 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the variable type, and REGEXP matches
1739 against the variable name.
1740
1741 set debug remote-packet-max-chars
1742 show debug remote-packet-max-chars
1743 Controls the number of characters to output in a remote packet when using
1744 "set debug remote".
1745 The default is 512 bytes.
1746
1747 info connections
1748 Lists the target connections currently in use.
1749
1750 * Changed commands
1751
1752 help
1753 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
1754 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
1755 command names.
1756
1757 apropos [-v] REGEXP
1758 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
1759 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
1760 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
1761 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
1762 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
1763
1764 printf
1765 eval
1766 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
1767 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
1768 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
1769 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
1770
1771 info sources [-dirname | -basename] [--] [REGEXP]
1772 This command has now optional arguments to only print the files
1773 whose names match REGEXP. The arguments -dirname and -basename
1774 allow to restrict matching respectively to the dirname and basename
1775 parts of the files.
1776
1777 show style
1778 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
1779 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
1780 the user visualize the different styles.
1781
1782 set print frame-arguments
1783 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
1784 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
1785
1786 set print raw-frame-arguments
1787 show print raw-frame-arguments
1788
1789 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
1790 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
1791 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
1792 release.
1793
1794 add-inferior [-no-connection]
1795 The add-inferior command now supports a "-no-connection" flag that
1796 makes the new inferior start with no target connection associated.
1797 By default, the new inferior inherits the target connection of the
1798 current inferior. See also "info connections".
1799
1800 info inferior
1801 This command's output now includes a new "Connection" column
1802 indicating which target connection an inferior is bound to. See
1803 "info connections" above.
1804
1805 maint test-options require-delimiter
1806 maint test-options unknown-is-error
1807 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
1808 maint show test-options-completion-result
1809 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
1810 framework.
1811
1812 focus, winheight, +, -, >, <
1813 These commands are now case-sensitive.
1814
1815 * New command options, command completion
1816
1817 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
1818 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
1819 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
1820 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
1821 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
1822 number of commands got support for new command options in this
1823 release:
1824
1825 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
1826 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
1827 set by "set print" subcommands:
1828
1829 -address [on|off]
1830 -array [on|off]
1831 -array-indexes [on|off]
1832 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
1833 -null-stop [on|off]
1834 -object [on|off]
1835 -pretty [on|off]
1836 -raw-values [on|off]
1837 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
1838 -static-members [on|off]
1839 -symbol [on|off]
1840 -union [on|off]
1841 -vtbl [on|off]
1842
1843 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
1844 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
1845 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
1846 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
1847
1848 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
1849 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
1850 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
1851
1852 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
1853 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
1854 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
1855 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
1856 |location-and-address|short-location
1857 -past-main [on|off]
1858 -past-entry [on|off]
1859
1860 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
1861 exposed as command options too:
1862
1863 -full
1864 -no-filters
1865 -hide
1866
1867 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
1868 support the following options:
1869
1870 -past-main [on|off]
1871 -past-entry [on|off]
1872
1873 ** The new "info sources" options -dirname and -basename options
1874 are using the standard '-OPT' infrastructure.
1875
1876 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
1877 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
1878 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
1879 like for example:
1880
1881 (gdb) p -ra -p -o 0 -- *myptr
1882
1883 The above is equivalent to:
1884
1885 (gdb) print -raw-values -pretty -object off -- *myptr
1886
1887 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
1888 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
1889 variables" and "info functions".
1890
1891 ** The "info variables", "info functions", and "whereis" commands
1892 now take a '-n' flag that excludes non-debug symbols (symbols
1893 from the symbol table, not from the debug info such as DWARF)
1894 from the results.
1895
1896 * Completion improvements
1897
1898 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
1899 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
1900 abbreviated.
1901
1902 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
1903 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
1904 commands.
1905
1906 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
1907 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
1908 completes on filenames.
1909
1910 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
1911 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
1912
1913 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
1914
1915 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
1916 elements unlimited".
1917
1918 * New MI commands
1919
1920 -complete
1921 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1922 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
1923 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
1924
1925 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
1926 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
1927 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
1928
1929 -symbol-info-functions, -symbol-info-types, and -symbol-info-variables
1930 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
1931 functions', 'info types', and 'info variables' respectively.
1932
1933 -symbol-info-modules, this is the MI equivalent of the CLI 'info
1934 modules' command.
1935
1936 -symbol-info-module-functions and -symbol-info-module-variables.
1937 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
1938 module functions' and 'info module variables'.
1939
1940 * Other MI changes
1941
1942 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
1943
1944 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
1945 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
1946 the following commands and events:
1947
1948 - -break-insert
1949 - -break-info
1950 - =breakpoint-created
1951 - =breakpoint-modified
1952
1953 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
1954 this behavior with previous MI versions.
1955
1956 ** Backtraces and frames include a new optional field addr_flags which is
1957 given after the addr field. On AArch64 this contains PAC if the address
1958 has been masked in the frame. On all other targets the field is not
1959 present.
1960
1961 * Testsuite
1962
1963 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
1964 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
1965 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
1966 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
1967
1968 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.82.
1969
1970 Using another implementation of the make program or an earlier version of
1971 GNU make to build GDB or GDBserver is not supported.
1972
1973 * Building GDB now requires GNU readline >= 7.0.
1974
1975 GDB now bundles GNU readline 8.0, but if you choose to use
1976 --with-system-readline, only readline >= 7.0 can be used.
1977
1978 * The TUI SingleKey keymap is now named "SingleKey". This can be used
1979 from .inputrc to bind keys in this keymap. This feature is only
1980 available when gdb is built against GNU readline 8.0 or later.
1981
1982 * Removed targets and native configurations
1983
1984 GDB no longer supports debugging the Cell Broadband Engine. This includes
1985 both debugging standalone Cell/B.E. SPU applications and integrated debugging
1986 of Cell/B.E. applications that use both the PPU and SPU architectures.
1987
1988 * New Simulators
1989
1990 TI PRU pru-*-elf
1991
1992 * Removed targets and native configurations
1993
1994 Solaris 10 i?86-*-solaris2.10, x86_64-*-solaris2.10,
1995 sparc*-*-solaris2.10
1996
1997 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
1998
1999 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
2000 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
2001 HTM registers.
2002
2003 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
2004 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
2005 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
2006 and operators.
2007
2008 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
2009 (the C++ plug-in).
2010
2011 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
2012 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
2013 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
2014
2015 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
2016 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
2017
2018 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
2019 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
2020 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
2021 in the GDB user manual.
2022
2023 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
2024 executed failed.
2025
2026 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
2027
2028 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
2029 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
2030 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
2031 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
2032 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
2033 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
2034 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
2035 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
2036 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
2037 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
2038 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
2039 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
2040
2041 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
2042 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
2043 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
2044 information.
2045
2046 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
2047 lucid.
2048
2049 * New commands
2050
2051 set debug compile-cplus-types
2052 show debug compile-cplus-types
2053 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
2054 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiling
2055 for other languages.
2056
2057 set debug skip
2058 show debug skip
2059 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
2060 displayed.
2061
2062 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
2063 Apply a command to some frames.
2064 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
2065 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
2066
2067 taas COMMAND
2068 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
2069 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
2070
2071 faas COMMAND
2072 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
2073 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
2074
2075 tfaas COMMAND
2076 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
2077 output).
2078 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
2079
2080 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
2081 maint show dwarf unwinders
2082 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
2083
2084 info proc files
2085 Display a list of open files for a process.
2086
2087 * Changed commands
2088
2089 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
2090 These commands all now take a frame specification which
2091 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
2092 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
2093 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
2094 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
2095 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
2096
2097 target remote FILENAME
2098 target extended-remote FILENAME
2099 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
2100 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
2101
2102 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
2103 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
2104 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
2105 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
2106 These commands can now print only the searched entities
2107 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
2108 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
2109 printing headers or informations messages.
2110
2111 info functions
2112 info types
2113 info variables
2114 rbreak
2115 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
2116 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
2117 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
2118 the shown entities.
2119
2120 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
2121 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
2122 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
2123 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
2124
2125 set tui tab-width NCHARS
2126 show tui tab-width NCHARS
2127 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
2128
2129 set style enabled [on|off]
2130 show style enabled
2131 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
2132 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
2133
2134 set style sources [on|off]
2135 show style sources
2136 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
2137 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
2138 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
2139
2140 set style filename foreground COLOR
2141 set style filename background COLOR
2142 set style filename intensity VALUE
2143 Control the styling of file names.
2144
2145 set style function foreground COLOR
2146 set style function background COLOR
2147 set style function intensity VALUE
2148 Control the styling of function names.
2149
2150 set style variable foreground COLOR
2151 set style variable background COLOR
2152 set style variable intensity VALUE
2153 Control the styling of variable names.
2154
2155 set style address foreground COLOR
2156 set style address background COLOR
2157 set style address intensity VALUE
2158 Control the styling of addresses.
2159
2160 * MI changes
2161
2162 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
2163 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
2164 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
2165 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
2166 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
2167
2168 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
2169 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
2170
2171 * New native configurations
2172
2173 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
2174 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
2175
2176 * New targets
2177
2178 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
2179 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
2180 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
2181 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
2182 NXP S12Z s12z-*-elf
2183 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
2184
2185 * Removed targets
2186
2187 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
2188 before Windows XP.
2189
2190 * Python API
2191
2192 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
2193
2194 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
2195 space associated to that inferior.
2196
2197 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
2198 of objfiles associated to that program space.
2199
2200 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
2201 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
2202 the gdb core.
2203
2204 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
2205 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
2206 correct and did not work properly.
2207
2208 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
2209 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
2210
2211 * Configure changes
2212
2213 --enable-ubsan
2214
2215 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
2216 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
2217 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
2218 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
2219 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
2220
2221 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
2222
2223 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
2224 for the MIPS target.
2225
2226 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
2227 offset to all sections.
2228
2229 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
2230 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
2231 address of individual sections using '-s'.
2232
2233 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
2234 (address of the text section).
2235
2236 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
2237 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
2238 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
2239 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
2240 default.
2241
2242 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
2243 for the rest of the current command.
2244
2245 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
2246 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
2247
2248 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
2249 files created on FreeBSD systems.
2250
2251 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
2252 alignof.
2253
2254 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
2255 the vector length while the process is running.
2256
2257 * New commands
2258
2259 set debug fbsd-nat
2260 show debug fbsd-nat
2261 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
2262
2263 set|show varsize-limit
2264 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
2265 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
2266 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
2267
2268 set|show record btrace cpu
2269 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
2270 branch trace decode.
2271
2272 maint check libthread-db
2273 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
2274 library
2275
2276 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
2277 maint show check-libthread-db
2278 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
2279 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
2280 perform such checks.
2281
2282 * Python API
2283
2284 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
2285
2286 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
2287 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
2288
2289 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
2290
2291 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
2292 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
2293 of convenience variables.
2294
2295 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
2296 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
2297 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
2298
2299 * New targets
2300
2301 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
2302
2303 * Removed targets and native configurations
2304
2305 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
2306 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
2307 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
2308 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
2309
2310 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
2311
2312 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
2313 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
2314 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
2315 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
2316 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
2317 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
2318 reported.
2319
2320 * Configure changes
2321
2322 --enable-codesign=CERT
2323 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
2324 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
2325 gdb to work properly.
2326
2327 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
2328 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
2329
2330 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
2331
2332 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
2333 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
2334 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
2335
2336 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
2337 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
2338
2339 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
2340 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
2341 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
2342 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
2343 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
2344
2345 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
2346 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
2347 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
2348 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
2349
2350 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
2351 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
2352
2353 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
2354 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
2355 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
2356
2357 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
2358 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
2359 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
2360
2361 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
2362 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
2363 environment" command.
2364
2365 * Completion improvements
2366
2367 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
2368 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
2369 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
2370 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
2371 correctly:
2372
2373 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
2374 (gdb) b function(int)
2375
2376 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
2377 C++ anonymous namespaces:
2378
2379 (gdb) b (anon[TAB]
2380 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
2381 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
2382 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
2383
2384 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
2385 completion support, that better understands what you're
2386 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
2387 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
2388 setting a breakpoint.
2389
2390 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
2391
2392 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
2393
2394 * New command line options (gcore)
2395
2396 -a
2397 Dump all memory mappings.
2398
2399 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
2400
2401 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
2402 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
2403 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
2404
2405 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
2406
2407 A::B::func()
2408 B::func()
2409
2410 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
2411 on both symbols.
2412
2413 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
2414 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
2415 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
2416 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
2417 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
2418 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
2419 a breakpoint from Python.
2420
2421 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
2422
2423 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
2424 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
2425 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
2426
2427 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
2428
2429 function[abi:cxx11](int)
2430 ^^^^^^^^^^^
2431
2432 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
2433 no tag, like:
2434
2435 (gdb) b function(int)
2436
2437 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
2438
2439 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
2440
2441 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
2442
2443 * Python Scripting
2444
2445 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
2446 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
2447 description of these.
2448
2449 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
2450 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
2451 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
2452
2453 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
2454 manual for a further description of this feature.
2455
2456
2457 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2458
2459 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
2460 specified initial working directory.
2461
2462 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
2463 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
2464
2465 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
2466 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
2467
2468 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
2469 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
2470
2471 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
2472 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
2473 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
2474 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
2475 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
2476
2477 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
2478 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
2479 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
2480
2481 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
2482 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
2483 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
2484 in the *stopped notification.
2485
2486 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
2487 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
2488
2489 * New remote packets
2490
2491 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
2492 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
2493 the inferior when starting it.
2494
2495 QEnvironmentUnset
2496 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
2497 before starting the remote inferior.
2498
2499 QEnvironmentReset
2500 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
2501 user-set environment variables should be unset).
2502
2503 QStartupWithShell
2504 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
2505
2506 QSetWorkingDir
2507 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
2508 working directory.
2509
2510 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
2511 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
2512
2513 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
2514 filter the tests to be run.
2515
2516 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
2517 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
2518
2519 * New commands
2520
2521 set|show cwd
2522 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
2523
2524 set|show compile-gcc
2525 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
2526 with the 'compile' commands.
2527
2528 set debug separate-debug-file
2529 show debug separate-debug-file
2530 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
2531
2532 set dump-excluded-mappings
2533 show dump-excluded-mappings
2534 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
2535 dumped when generating a core file.
2536
2537 maint info selftests
2538 List the registered selftests.
2539
2540 starti
2541 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
2542
2543 set|show debug or1k
2544 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
2545
2546 set|show print type nested-type-limit
2547 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
2548 type printer will show.
2549
2550 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
2551 `o' for nexti.
2552
2553 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
2554
2555 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
2556 'int'.
2557
2558 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
2559 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
2560 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
2561 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
2562
2563 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
2564 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
2565 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
2566 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
2567 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
2568 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
2569
2570 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
2571 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
2572 unless you tell it the variable's type:
2573
2574 (gdb) p var
2575 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
2576 (gdb) p (float) var
2577 $3 = 3.14
2578
2579 * New native configurations
2580
2581 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
2582 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
2583
2584 * New targets
2585
2586 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
2587 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
2588 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
2589
2590 * Removed targets and native configurations
2591
2592 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
2593
2594 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
2595
2596 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
2597 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
2598 available in future Intel CPUs.
2599
2600 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
2601
2602 * Python Scripting
2603
2604 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
2605 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
2606
2607 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
2608 instructions.
2609
2610 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
2611
2612 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
2613
2614 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
2615 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
2616 removed.
2617
2618 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
2619
2620 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
2621 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
2622
2623 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
2624
2625 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
2626 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
2627 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
2628 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
2629 features.
2630
2631 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
2632
2633 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
2634 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
2635 debugger.
2636
2637 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
2638
2639 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
2640 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
2641
2642 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
2643
2644 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
2645
2646 define mycommand
2647 set $i = 0
2648 while $i < $argc
2649 eval "print $arg%d", $i
2650 set $i = $i + 1
2651 end
2652 end
2653
2654 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
2655
2656 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
2657 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
2658
2659 * New native configurations
2660
2661 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
2662
2663 * New targets
2664
2665 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
2666 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
2667
2668 * Removed targets and native configurations
2669
2670 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2671 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
2672
2673 * New commands
2674
2675 flash-erase
2676 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
2677
2678 maint print arc arc-instruction address
2679 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
2680
2681 * New options
2682
2683 set disassembler-options
2684 show disassembler-options
2685 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
2686 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
2687 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
2688 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
2689 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
2690
2691 * New MI commands
2692
2693 -target-flash-erase
2694 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
2695 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
2696
2697 -file-list-shared-libraries
2698 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
2699 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
2700
2701 -catch-handlers
2702 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
2703 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
2704
2705 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
2706
2707 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
2708
2709 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
2710 default. One must now explicitly configure with
2711 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
2712 option will be removed in a future release.
2713
2714 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
2715 GDB connection.
2716
2717 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
2718 memory backward from the given address. For example:
2719
2720 (gdb) bt
2721 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
2722 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
2723 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
2724 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
2725 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
2726 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
2727 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
2728 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
2729 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
2730
2731 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
2732 arrays of dynamic types.
2733
2734 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
2735 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
2736 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
2737 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
2738 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
2739 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
2740
2741 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
2742 descriptions.
2743
2744 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
2745 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
2746 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
2747
2748 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
2749
2750 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
2751 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
2752 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
2753 signal received and code location.
2754
2755 For example:
2756
2757 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
2758 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
2759 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
2760 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
2761
2762 * Rust language support.
2763 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
2764 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
2765 Rust.
2766
2767 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
2768
2769 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
2770 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
2771 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
2772 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
2773 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
2774 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
2775 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
2776 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
2777 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
2778 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
2779 line.
2780
2781 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
2782
2783 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
2784 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
2785
2786 * New commands
2787
2788 skip -file file
2789 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
2790 skip -function function
2791 skip -rfunction regular-expression
2792 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
2793 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
2794 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
2795
2796 maint info line-table REGEXP
2797 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data structure.
2798
2799 maint selftest
2800 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
2801
2802 new-ui INTERP TTY
2803 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
2804 using the TTY file for input/output.
2805
2806 * Python Scripting
2807
2808 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
2809 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
2810 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
2811 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
2812 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
2813
2814 signal-event EVENTID
2815 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
2816 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
2817 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
2818 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
2819 signalling an event.
2820
2821 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
2822 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
2823 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
2824
2825 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
2826 been removed:
2827
2828 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
2829 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
2830 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
2831 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
2832 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
2833 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
2834
2835 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
2836 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
2837 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
2838 bytecode into native code.
2839
2840 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
2841 recording. For example:
2842
2843 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
2844
2845 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
2846
2847 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
2848
2849 * New targets
2850
2851 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
2852
2853 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
2854
2855 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
2856
2857 * Per-inferior thread numbers
2858
2859 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
2860 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
2861 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
2862
2863 (gdb) info threads
2864 Id Target Id Frame
2865 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
2866 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
2867 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
2868 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
2869
2870 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
2871 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
2872 are no longer unique between inferiors.
2873
2874 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
2875 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
2876 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
2877
2878 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
2879 IDs.
2880
2881 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
2882 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
2883
2884 (gdb) thread 2.1
2885 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
2886 (gdb)
2887
2888 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
2889 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
2890 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
2891 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
2892 threads 2.*".
2893
2894 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
2895 all threads.
2896
2897 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
2898 the current thread.
2899
2900 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
2901 current inferior.
2902
2903 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
2904 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
2905 example:
2906
2907 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
2908 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
2909
2910 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
2911
2912 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
2913
2914 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
2915 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
2916
2917 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
2918 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
2919 clients.
2920
2921 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2922 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
2923 at the same time.
2924
2925 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
2926 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
2927 into native code.
2928
2929 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2930
2931 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
2932 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
2933 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
2934
2935 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
2936 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
2937
2938 * New commands
2939
2940 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
2941 maint show target-non-stop
2942 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
2943 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
2944 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
2945
2946 maint set bfd-sharing
2947 maint show bfd-sharing
2948 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
2949
2950 set debug bfd-cache
2951 show debug bfd-cache
2952 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
2953
2954 set debug fbsd-lwp
2955 show debug fbsd-lwp
2956 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
2957
2958 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
2959 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
2960 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
2961
2962 set remote thread-events
2963 show remote thread-events
2964 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
2965
2966 set ada print-signatures on|off
2967 show ada print-signatures"
2968 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
2969 selection menus. It is activated (@code{on}) by default.
2970
2971 set max-value-size
2972 show max-value-size
2973 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
2974 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
2975 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
2976
2977 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
2978 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
2979 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
2980 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
2981 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
2982 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
2983
2984 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
2985 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
2986
2987 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
2988 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
2989
2990 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
2991
2992 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
2993 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
2994 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
2995 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
2996 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
2997 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
2998
2999 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
3000 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
3001
3002 catch handlers
3003 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
3004
3005 * New remote packets
3006
3007 exec stop reason
3008 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
3009
3010 exec-events feature in qSupported
3011 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
3012 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
3013 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
3014 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
3015
3016 vCtrlC
3017 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
3018 non-stop mode.
3019
3020 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
3021 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
3022
3023 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
3024 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
3025
3026 QThreadEvents
3027 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
3028 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
3029 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
3030 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
3031 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
3032 stop for that same thread.
3033
3034 N stop reply
3035 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
3036 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
3037 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
3038
3039 QCatchSyscalls
3040 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
3041 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
3042
3043 syscall_entry stop reason
3044 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
3045
3046 syscall_return stop reason
3047 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
3048
3049 * Extended-remote exec events
3050
3051 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
3052 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
3053 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
3054
3055 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
3056 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
3057 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
3058
3059 * Thread names in remote protocol
3060
3061 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
3062 thread.
3063
3064 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
3065
3066 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
3067 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
3068 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
3069 fork and exec catchpoints.
3070
3071 * Remote syscall events
3072
3073 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
3074 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
3075
3076 set remote catch-syscall-packet
3077 show remote catch-syscall-packet
3078 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
3079
3080 * MI changes
3081
3082 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
3083 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
3084 left.
3085
3086 * Python Scripting
3087
3088 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
3089 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
3090 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
3091 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
3092 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
3093 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
3094
3095 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
3096
3097 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
3098 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
3099 including advance SIMD instructions.
3100
3101 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
3102
3103 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
3104 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
3105 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
3106 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
3107 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
3108 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
3109 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
3110
3111 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
3112 cpu information :
3113 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
3114
3115 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
3116 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
3117 remote serial I/O.
3118
3119 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
3120 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
3121 and may include things like its command line arguments.
3122
3123 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
3124 is now available on all platforms.
3125
3126 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
3127 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
3128 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
3129 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
3130 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
3131 backward compatibility.
3132
3133 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
3134 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
3135 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
3136 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
3137
3138 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
3139 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
3140 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
3141 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
3142 packets" below.
3143
3144 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
3145
3146 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
3147
3148 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
3149 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
3150 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
3151 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
3152 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
3153 See "New remote packets" below.
3154
3155 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
3156 available register groups, including target specific groups.
3157
3158 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
3159 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
3160 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
3161 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
3162 are ignored.
3163
3164 * Guile Scripting
3165
3166 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
3167
3168 * Python Scripting
3169
3170 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
3171 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
3172 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
3173 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
3174 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
3175 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
3176 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
3177 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
3178 "const" version of the value respectively.
3179
3180 * New commands
3181
3182 maint print symbol-cache
3183 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
3184
3185 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
3186 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
3187
3188 maint flush-symbol-cache
3189 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
3190
3191 record btrace bts
3192 record bts
3193 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
3194
3195 compile print
3196 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
3197
3198 tui enable
3199 tui disable
3200 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
3201
3202 show mpx bound
3203 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
3204 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
3205
3206 record btrace pt
3207 record pt
3208 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
3209
3210 maint info btrace
3211 Print information about branch tracing internals.
3212
3213 maint btrace packet-history
3214 Print the raw branch tracing data.
3215
3216 maint btrace clear-packet-history
3217 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
3218
3219 maint btrace clear
3220 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
3221 anew by the next "record" command.
3222
3223 * New options
3224
3225 set debug dwarf-die
3226 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
3227 show debug dwarf-die
3228 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
3229
3230 set debug dwarf-read
3231 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
3232 show debug dwarf-read
3233 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
3234
3235 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
3236 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
3237 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
3238 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
3239
3240 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
3241 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
3242 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
3243 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
3244
3245 set debug dwarf-line
3246 show debug dwarf-line
3247 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
3248
3249 set max-completions
3250 show max-completions
3251 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
3252 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
3253 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
3254 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
3255
3256 set history remove-duplicates
3257 show history remove-duplicates
3258 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
3259
3260 maint set symbol-cache-size
3261 maint show symbol-cache-size
3262 Control the size of the symbol cache.
3263
3264 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
3265 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
3266 BTS format.
3267 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
3268 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
3269
3270 set debug linux-namespaces
3271 show debug linux-namespaces
3272 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
3273
3274 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
3275 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
3276 Intel Processor Trace format.
3277 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
3278 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
3279
3280 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
3281 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
3282 packet history.
3283
3284 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
3285 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
3286
3287 * Python/Guile scripting
3288
3289 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
3290 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
3291
3292 * New remote packets
3293
3294 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
3295 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
3296
3297 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
3298 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
3299
3300 Qbtrace:pt
3301 Enable Intel Processor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
3302 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
3303 qSupported query.
3304
3305 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
3306 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
3307 Trace format.
3308
3309 swbreak stop reason
3310 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
3311 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
3312 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
3313 mode operation.
3314
3315 hwbreak stop reason
3316 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
3317 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
3318
3319 vFile:fstat:
3320 Return information about files on the remote system.
3321
3322 qXfer:exec-file:read
3323 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
3324 create a process running on the remote system.
3325
3326 vFile:setfs:
3327 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
3328 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
3329 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
3330 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
3331
3332 fork stop reason
3333 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
3334
3335 vfork stop reason
3336 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
3337
3338 vforkdone stop reason
3339 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
3340 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
3341
3342 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
3343 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
3344 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
3345 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
3346 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
3347 whether these features are enabled.
3348
3349 * Extended-remote fork events
3350
3351 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
3352 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
3353 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
3354 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
3355
3356 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
3357 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
3358 the btrace record target.
3359 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
3360
3361 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
3362 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
3363
3364 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
3365 targets.
3366
3367 * Removed command line options
3368
3369 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
3370
3371 * Removed targets and native configurations
3372
3373 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
3374 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3375
3376 * New configure options
3377
3378 --with-intel-pt
3379 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
3380 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
3381
3382 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
3383 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
3384 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
3385 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
3386
3387 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
3388
3389 * Python Scripting
3390
3391 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
3392
3393 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
3394
3395 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
3396
3397 * Python Scripting
3398
3399 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
3400 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
3401 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
3402 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
3403 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
3404 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
3405 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
3406 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
3407 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
3408 selecting a new file to debug.
3409 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
3410 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
3411
3412 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
3413 inferior.
3414
3415 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
3416 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
3417 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
3418 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
3419
3420 * New Python-based convenience functions:
3421
3422 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
3423 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
3424 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
3425 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
3426
3427 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
3428 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
3429 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
3430 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
3431 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
3432 interface with this new feature are:
3433
3434 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
3435 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
3436
3437 * New commands
3438
3439 demangle [-l language] [--] name
3440 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
3441 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
3442 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
3443 as "maint demangler-warning".
3444
3445 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
3446 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
3447
3448 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
3449 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
3450 scripts.
3451
3452 maint print user-registers
3453 List all currently available "user" registers.
3454
3455 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
3456 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
3457 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
3458
3459 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
3460 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
3461 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
3462 provided.
3463
3464 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
3465 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
3466 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
3467 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
3468 at resume time.
3469
3470 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
3471 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
3472 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
3473 switched threads meanwhile.
3474
3475 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
3476
3477 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
3478 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
3479 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
3480 is now the default mode.
3481
3482 * New options
3483
3484 set debug symbol-lookup
3485 show debug symbol-lookup
3486 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
3487
3488 * MI changes
3489
3490 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
3491 inferiors that have exited.
3492
3493 * New targets
3494
3495 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
3496
3497 * Removed targets
3498
3499 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
3500
3501 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
3502 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
3503 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
3504 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
3505 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
3506
3507 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
3508 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
3509 its alias "share", instead.
3510
3511 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
3512
3513 * New command line options
3514
3515 -D data-directory
3516 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
3517
3518 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
3519 as specified in ISO C99.
3520
3521 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
3522 with or without disassembly.
3523
3524 * Guile scripting
3525
3526 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
3527 available is determined at configure time.
3528 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
3529 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
3530
3531 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3532
3533 guile [code]
3534 gu [code]
3535 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
3536
3537 guile-repl
3538 gr
3539 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
3540
3541 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
3542 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
3543
3544 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
3545 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
3546
3547 * New options
3548
3549 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
3550 show print symbol-loading
3551 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
3552 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
3553 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
3554 becomes less useful.
3555
3556 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
3557 show guile print-stack
3558 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
3559
3560 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
3561 show auto-load guile-scripts
3562 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
3563
3564 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
3565 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
3566 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
3567 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
3568 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
3569 usage of this option.
3570
3571 set auto-connect-native-target
3572
3573 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
3574 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
3575 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
3576
3577 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
3578 show record btrace replay-memory-access
3579 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
3580
3581 maint set target-async (on|off)
3582 maint show target-async
3583 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
3584 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
3585 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
3586 occurring only in synchronous mode.
3587
3588 set mi-async (on|off)
3589 show mi-async
3590 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
3591 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
3592
3593 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
3594 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
3595
3596 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
3597 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
3598 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
3599 "set target-async on" command.
3600
3601 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3602
3603 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
3604 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
3605 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
3606 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
3607 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
3608
3609 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
3610 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
3611 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
3612
3613 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
3614 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
3615 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
3616 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
3617 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
3618 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
3619 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
3620
3621 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
3622 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
3623
3624 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
3625 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
3626 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
3627
3628 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
3629 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
3630 memory or registers.
3631
3632 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
3633
3634 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
3635 remote. It now works with all targets.
3636
3637 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
3638 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
3639 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
3640 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
3641 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
3642 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
3643 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
3644 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
3645 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
3646 target-stack".
3647
3648 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
3649 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
3650 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
3651
3652 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
3653
3654 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
3655 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
3656 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
3657
3658 * New remote packets
3659
3660 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
3661 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
3662 branch trace incrementally.
3663
3664 * Python Scripting
3665
3666 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
3667 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
3668 available.
3669 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
3670 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
3671 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
3672 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
3673 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
3674
3675 * New targets
3676 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
3677
3678 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
3679 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
3680 its alias "share", instead.
3681
3682 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
3683 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
3684 instead.
3685
3686 * MI changes
3687
3688 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
3689 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
3690 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
3691 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
3692 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
3693 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
3694 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
3695 commands and CLI execution commands.
3696
3697 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
3698
3699 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
3700 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
3701 recording has been added.
3702
3703 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
3704
3705 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
3706 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
3707
3708 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
3709 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
3710 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
3711 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
3712 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
3713 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
3714 "void".
3715
3716 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
3717
3718 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
3719
3720 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
3721 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
3722 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
3723 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
3724
3725 (gdb) p $rax
3726 $1 = <not saved>
3727
3728 (gdb) info registers rax
3729 rax <not saved>
3730
3731 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
3732 "*value not available*".
3733
3734 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
3735 to binaries.
3736
3737 * Python scripting
3738
3739 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
3740 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
3741 ** Line tables representation has been added.
3742 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
3743 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
3744 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
3745
3746 * New targets
3747
3748 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
3749 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
3750 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
3751
3752 * Removed native configurations
3753
3754 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
3755 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
3756
3757 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3758 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3759 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
3760 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
3761 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3762 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3763 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3764
3765 * New commands:
3766 catch rethrow
3767 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
3768 maint check-psymtabs
3769 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
3770 maint check-symtabs
3771 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
3772 maint expand-symtabs
3773 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
3774
3775 show configuration
3776 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
3777
3778 maint set|show per-command
3779 maint set|show per-command space
3780 maint set|show per-command time
3781 maint set|show per-command symtab
3782 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
3783
3784 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
3785 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
3786 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
3787 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
3788 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
3789
3790 info exceptions
3791 info exceptions REGEXP
3792 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
3793 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
3794 are listed.
3795
3796 * New options
3797
3798 set debug symfile off|on
3799 show debug symfile
3800 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
3801 symbol tables within those files
3802
3803 set print raw frame-arguments
3804 show print raw frame-arguments
3805 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
3806 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
3807
3808 set remote trace-status-packet
3809 show remote trace-status-packet
3810 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
3811
3812 set debug nios2
3813 show debug nios2
3814 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
3815
3816 set range-stepping
3817 show range-stepping
3818 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
3819
3820 set startup-with-shell
3821 show startup-with-shell
3822 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
3823 directly.
3824
3825 set code-cache
3826 show code-cache
3827 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
3828 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
3829
3830 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
3831 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
3832 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
3833 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
3834 "set height 0".
3835
3836 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
3837 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
3838 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
3839
3840 * New command-line options
3841 --configuration
3842 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
3843
3844 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
3845 buffer in Common Trace Format.
3846
3847 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
3848 GDB command gcore.
3849
3850 * GDB now implements the C++ 'typeid' operator.
3851
3852 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
3853 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
3854
3855 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
3856 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
3857
3858 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
3859 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
3860 due to an uncaught signal.
3861
3862 * MI changes
3863
3864 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
3865 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
3866 command, which should contain "language-option".
3867
3868 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
3869 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
3870
3871 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
3872 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
3873 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
3874 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
3875 "undefined-command-error-code".
3876
3877 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
3878 Trace Format now.
3879
3880 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
3881
3882 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
3883 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
3884 are displayed.
3885
3886 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
3887 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
3888
3889 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
3890 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
3891 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
3892
3893 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
3894 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
3895 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
3896 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
3897 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
3898 "exec-run-start-option".
3899
3900 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
3901 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
3902
3903 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
3904 the new "info exceptions" command.
3905
3906 * New system-wide configuration scripts
3907 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
3908 configuration scripts for the following systems:
3909 ** ElinOS
3910 ** Wind River Linux
3911
3912 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
3913 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
3914 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
3915 below.
3916
3917 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
3918 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
3919
3920 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
3921 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
3922 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
3923
3924 * New remote packets
3925
3926 vCont;r
3927
3928 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
3929 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
3930 involvemement at each single-step.
3931
3932 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
3933 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
3934 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
3935 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
3936 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
3937 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
3938 speedup.
3939
3940 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3941
3942 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
3943 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
3944
3945 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
3946 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
3947 trace state variables.
3948
3949 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
3950 target.
3951
3952 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
3953 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
3954
3955 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
3956
3957 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
3958 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
3959 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
3960 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3961
3962 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
3963
3964 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
3965 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
3966 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
3967 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
3968
3969 set|show record full insn-number-max
3970 set|show record full stop-at-limit
3971 set|show record full memory-query
3972
3973 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
3974 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
3975 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
3976 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
3977 This new recording method can be enabled using:
3978
3979 record btrace
3980
3981 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
3982 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
3983
3984 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
3985 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
3986 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
3987
3988 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
3989 instruction granularity
3990
3991 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
3992 function granularity
3993
3994 * New native configurations
3995
3996 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
3997 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
3998 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
3999 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
4000
4001 * New targets
4002
4003 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
4004 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
4005 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
4006 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
4007 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
4008
4009 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
4010 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
4011 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
4012 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
4013 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
4014 --data-directory command-line option.
4015
4016 * New command line options:
4017
4018 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
4019 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
4020
4021 * Removed command line options
4022
4023 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
4024 Emacs.
4025
4026 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
4027 type formatting.
4028
4029 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
4030
4031 * Python scripting
4032
4033 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
4034
4035 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
4036
4037 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
4038
4039 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
4040
4041 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
4042 of architecture in the Python API.
4043
4044 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
4045 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
4046
4047 * New Python-based convenience functions:
4048
4049 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
4050 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
4051 ** $_strlen(str)
4052 ** $_regex(str, regex)
4053
4054 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
4055 given an argument.
4056
4057 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
4058 default for GCC since November 2000.
4059
4060 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
4061
4062 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
4063 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
4064
4065 * New configure options
4066
4067 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
4068 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
4069 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
4070 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
4071 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
4072 options allow the user to override that default.
4073 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
4074 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
4075 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
4076
4077 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4078
4079 catch signal
4080 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
4081 conditions to be attached.
4082
4083 maint info bfds
4084 List the BFDs known to GDB.
4085
4086 python-interactive [command]
4087 pi [command]
4088 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
4089 and print the result of expressions.
4090
4091 py [command]
4092 "py" is a new alias for "python".
4093
4094 enable type-printer [name]...
4095 disable type-printer [name]...
4096 Enable or disable type printers.
4097
4098 * Removed commands
4099
4100 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
4101 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
4102 instead.
4103
4104 * New options
4105
4106 set print type methods (on|off)
4107 show print type methods
4108 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
4109 The default is to show them.
4110
4111 set print type typedefs (on|off)
4112 show print type typedefs
4113 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
4114 The default is to show them.
4115
4116 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
4117 show filename-display
4118 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
4119 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
4120
4121 set trace-buffer-size
4122 show trace-buffer-size
4123 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
4124
4125 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
4126 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
4127 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
4128
4129 set debug aarch64
4130 show debug aarch64
4131 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
4132 The default is off.
4133
4134 set debug coff-pe-read
4135 show debug coff-pe-read
4136 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
4137 exported symbols.
4138
4139 set debug mach-o
4140 show debug mach-o
4141 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
4142 processing.
4143
4144 set debug notification
4145 show debug notification
4146 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
4147
4148 * MI changes
4149
4150 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
4151 "=cmd-param-changed".
4152 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
4153 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
4154 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
4155 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
4156 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
4157 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
4158 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
4159 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
4160 "=memory-changed".
4161 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
4162 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
4163 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
4164 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
4165 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
4166 library load/unload events.
4167 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
4168 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
4169 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
4170 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
4171 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
4172 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
4173 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
4174 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
4175
4176 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
4177 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
4178 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
4179 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
4180
4181 * New remote packets
4182
4183 QTBuffer:size
4184 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
4185 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
4186
4187 Qbtrace:bts
4188 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
4189 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
4190 qSupported query.
4191
4192 Qbtrace:off
4193 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
4194 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
4195
4196 qXfer:btrace:read
4197 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
4198 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
4199
4200 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
4201
4202 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
4203 for more x32 ABI info.
4204
4205 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
4206
4207 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
4208
4209 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
4210 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
4211 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
4212 "info os files" lists file descriptors
4213 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
4214 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
4215 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
4216 "info os msg" lists message queues
4217 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
4218
4219 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
4220 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
4221 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
4222 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
4223 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
4224 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
4225
4226 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
4227 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
4228 record/replay support.
4229
4230 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
4231
4232 * Python scripting
4233
4234 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
4235 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
4236
4237 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
4238
4239 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
4240 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
4241
4242 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
4243
4244 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
4245 the source at which the symbol was defined.
4246
4247 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
4248 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
4249 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
4250 symbol's value.
4251
4252 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
4253 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
4254
4255 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
4256 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
4257 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
4258
4259 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
4260 object associated with a PC value.
4261
4262 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
4263 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
4264
4265 * Go language support.
4266 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
4267 language.
4268
4269 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
4270 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
4271
4272 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
4273 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
4274
4275 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
4276 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
4277 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
4278 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
4279 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
4280 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
4281
4282 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
4283 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
4284 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
4285 build/libcpp/expr.c.
4286
4287 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
4288 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
4289
4290 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
4291 since December 2007.
4292
4293 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
4294 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
4295 command does. For instance:
4296
4297 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
4298
4299 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
4300 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
4301 created, using the "condition" command.
4302
4303 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
4304 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
4305
4306 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
4307
4308 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
4309 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
4310 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
4311 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
4312 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
4313 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
4314 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
4315 files with older .gdb_index sections.
4316
4317 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
4318 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
4319 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
4320 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
4321 the .gdb_index section.
4322
4323 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
4324
4325 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
4326 target.
4327
4328 * MI changes
4329
4330 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
4331
4332 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
4333
4334 * New commands
4335
4336 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
4337 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
4338 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
4339
4340 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
4341 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
4342
4343 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
4344 several hits.
4345
4346 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
4347 C++ and Java objects.
4348
4349 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
4350 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
4351 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
4352 configured with '--with-python'.
4353
4354 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
4355 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
4356 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
4357 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
4358 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
4359 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
4360 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
4361
4362 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
4363 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
4364 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
4365 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
4366
4367 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
4368 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
4369 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
4370 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
4371
4372 ** "set print symbol"
4373 "show print symbol"
4374 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
4375 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
4376 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
4377
4378 * Deprecated commands
4379
4380 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
4381 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
4382
4383 * New targets
4384
4385 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
4386 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
4387
4388 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
4389 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
4390 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
4391 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
4392 evaluates to true.
4393
4394 * New options
4395
4396 set mips compression
4397 show mips compression
4398 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
4399 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
4400 mips16
4401 micromips
4402 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
4403
4404 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
4405 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
4406 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
4407 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
4408 available mode.
4409 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
4410 target.
4411
4412 set auto-load off
4413 Disable auto-loading globally.
4414
4415 show auto-load
4416 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
4417
4418 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
4419 show auto-load gdb-scripts
4420 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
4421
4422 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
4423 show auto-load python-scripts
4424 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
4425
4426 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
4427 show auto-load local-gdbinit
4428 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
4429
4430 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
4431 show auto-load libthread-db
4432 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
4433
4434 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
4435 show auto-load scripts-directory
4436 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
4437 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
4438 of the directories listed by this option.
4439 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
4440
4441 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
4442 show auto-load safe-path
4443 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
4444 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
4445
4446 set debug auto-load on|off
4447 show debug auto-load
4448 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
4449
4450 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
4451 show dprintf-style
4452 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
4453 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
4454 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
4455 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
4456
4457 set dprintf-function <expr>
4458 show dprintf-function
4459 set dprintf-channel <expr>
4460 show dprintf-channel
4461 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
4462 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
4463
4464 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
4465 show disconnected-dprintf
4466 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
4467 after GDB disconnects.
4468
4469 * New configure options
4470
4471 --with-auto-load-dir
4472 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
4473 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
4474 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
4475 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
4476 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
4477
4478 --with-auto-load-safe-path
4479 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
4480 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
4481
4482 --without-auto-load-safe-path
4483 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
4484 security feature.
4485
4486 * New remote packets
4487
4488 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
4489
4490 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
4491 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
4492 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
4493 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
4494
4495 QProgramSignals:
4496
4497 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
4498 program without GDB involvement.
4499
4500 * New command line options
4501
4502 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
4503 before loading inferior.
4504 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
4505 execute it before loading inferior.
4506
4507 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
4508
4509 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
4510 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
4511 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
4512 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
4513 inferior changes.
4514
4515 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
4516 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
4517
4518 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
4519 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
4520 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
4521 target hardware watchpoint.
4522
4523 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
4524 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
4525 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
4526 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
4527
4528 * Python scripting
4529
4530 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
4531 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
4532 existing one.
4533
4534 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
4535 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
4536 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
4537 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
4538 now "message", which just prints the error message without
4539 the stack trace.
4540
4541 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
4542 Python API.
4543
4544 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
4545 modules library. This module provides functionality for
4546 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
4547 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
4548 corresponding value.
4549
4550 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
4551 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
4552 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
4553 on GDB start-up.
4554
4555 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
4556 static_block will return the global and static blocks
4557 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
4558 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
4559
4560 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
4561
4562 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
4563 "gdb.breakpoints".
4564
4565 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
4566 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
4567 available in the CLI.
4568
4569 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
4570 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
4571 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
4572 "some_type.items()".
4573
4574 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
4575 new object file.
4576
4577 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
4578 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
4579 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
4580 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
4581 any anonymous fields.
4582
4583 * MI changes
4584
4585 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
4586 "solib-event".
4587
4588 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
4589 "=breakpoint-modified".
4590
4591 ** New command -ada-task-info.
4592
4593 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
4594 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
4595 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
4596 lives.
4597
4598 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
4599 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
4600 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
4601 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
4602 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
4603
4604 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
4605 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
4606
4607 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
4608 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
4609 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
4610 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
4611 use this option to specify where to find it.
4612
4613 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
4614 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
4615 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
4616 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
4617 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
4618 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
4619 section in the user manual for more details.
4620
4621 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
4622 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
4623 become available after that.
4624
4625 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
4626
4627 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
4628 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
4629 gcc version 4.7.
4630
4631 * New commands
4632
4633 !SHELL COMMAND
4634 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
4635 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
4636
4637 * Changed commands
4638
4639 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
4640 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
4641 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
4642
4643 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
4644 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
4645 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
4646
4647 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
4648 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
4649 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
4650 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
4651 name starts with a hyphen.
4652
4653 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
4654 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
4655 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
4656 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
4657 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
4658 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
4659 number of bytes that will be collected.
4660
4661 tstart [NOTES]
4662 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
4663 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
4664 setting the variable trace-notes.
4665
4666 tstop [NOTES]
4667 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
4668 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
4669 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
4670 trace-stop-notes.
4671
4672 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
4673 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
4674 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
4675 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
4676 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
4677 is running.
4678
4679 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
4680 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
4681 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
4682
4683 * New options
4684
4685 set debug dwarf2-read
4686 show debug dwarf2-read
4687 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
4688 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
4689
4690 set debug symtab-create
4691 show debug symtab-create
4692 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
4693 creation. The default is off.
4694
4695 set extended-prompt
4696 show extended-prompt
4697 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
4698 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
4699 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
4700 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
4701 prompt is displayed.
4702
4703 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
4704 show print entry-values
4705 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
4706 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
4707 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
4708
4709 set debug entry-values
4710 show debug entry-values
4711 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
4712 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
4713
4714 set basenames-may-differ
4715 show basenames-may-differ
4716 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
4717 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
4718 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
4719 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
4720 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
4721 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
4722 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
4723 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
4724
4725 set trace-user
4726 show trace-user
4727 set trace-notes
4728 show trace-notes
4729 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
4730 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
4731 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
4732 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
4733
4734 set trace-stop-notes
4735 show trace-stop-notes
4736 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
4737 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
4738 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
4739 started by someone else.
4740
4741 * New remote packets
4742
4743 QTEnable
4744
4745 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
4746
4747 QTDisable
4748
4749 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
4750
4751 QTNotes
4752
4753 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
4754
4755 qTP
4756
4757 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
4758
4759 qTMinFTPILen
4760
4761 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
4762 be placed.
4763
4764 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
4765 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
4766
4767 * New targets
4768
4769 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
4770
4771 * New Simulators
4772
4773 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
4774
4775 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
4776
4777 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
4778
4779 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
4780
4781 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
4782 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
4783 matches the given regular expression.
4784
4785 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
4786
4787 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
4788 dumping the instruction opcodes.
4789
4790 * New command line options
4791
4792 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
4793 This is mostly for testing purposes.
4794
4795 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
4796 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
4797
4798 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
4799 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
4800 source path list instead of augmenting it.
4801
4802 * GDB now understands thread names.
4803
4804 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
4805 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
4806
4807 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
4808 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
4809
4810 * OpenCL C
4811 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
4812 has been integrated into GDB.
4813
4814 * Python scripting
4815
4816 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
4817 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
4818 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
4819
4820 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
4821 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
4822 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
4823 and allows for more dynamic content.
4824
4825 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
4826 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
4827 have an is_valid method.
4828
4829 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
4830 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
4831 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
4832
4833 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
4834
4835 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
4836 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
4837 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
4838 that function like so:
4839
4840 result = some_value (10,20)
4841
4842 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
4843 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
4844 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
4845
4846 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
4847 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
4848 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
4849 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
4850 New function: register_pretty_printer.
4851
4852 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
4853 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
4854
4855 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
4856
4857 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
4858 selected thread.
4859
4860 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
4861 holds the thread's name.
4862
4863 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
4864 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
4865 occurring in the process being debugged.
4866 The following events are currently supported:
4867 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
4868 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
4869 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
4870
4871 * C++ Improvements:
4872
4873 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
4874 instantiation. For example, if you have:
4875
4876 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
4877
4878 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
4879 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
4880 was added to GCC 4.5.
4881
4882 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
4883 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
4884 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
4885 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
4886 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
4887 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
4888
4889 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
4890 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
4891 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
4892 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
4893 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
4894
4895 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
4896 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
4897 execution to a label.
4898
4899 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
4900 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
4901 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
4902 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
4903
4904 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
4905 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
4906 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
4907 of scope.
4908
4909 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
4910
4911 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
4912 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
4913 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
4914 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
4915 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
4916 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
4917
4918 (gdb) info threads
4919 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
4920
4921 While now you see this:
4922
4923 (gdb) info threads
4924 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
4925
4926 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
4927 dumps.
4928
4929 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
4930 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
4931 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
4932 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
4933
4934 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
4935 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
4936 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
4937 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
4938 section in the user manual for more details.
4939
4940 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
4941
4942 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
4943 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
4944
4945 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
4946
4947 * New native configurations
4948
4949 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
4950
4951 * New targets:
4952
4953 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
4954
4955 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
4956 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
4957 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
4958 in the GDB user manual.
4959
4960 * Guile support was removed.
4961
4962 * New features in the GNU simulator
4963
4964 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
4965
4966 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
4967
4968 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
4969
4970 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
4971
4972 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
4973 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
4974 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
4975 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
4976 was always disabled for such configurations.
4977
4978 * C++ Improvements:
4979
4980 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
4981
4982 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
4983 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
4984 For example:
4985 namespace A
4986 {
4987 class B { };
4988 void foo (B) { }
4989 }
4990 ...
4991 A::B b
4992 foo(b)
4993 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
4994 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
4995 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
4996
4997 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
4998
4999 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
5000 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
5001 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
5002 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
5003 entry.
5004 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
5005 mentioned flavors of operators.
5006
5007 ** static const class members
5008
5009 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
5010 class definition has been fixed.
5011
5012 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
5013
5014 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
5015 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
5016 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
5017 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
5018 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
5019 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
5020
5021 * Static tracepoints
5022
5023 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
5024 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
5025 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
5026 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
5027 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
5028 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
5029 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
5030 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
5031 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
5032 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
5033 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
5034 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
5035 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
5036 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
5037 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
5038 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
5039 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
5040 the "New remote packets" section below.
5041
5042 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
5043
5044 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
5045 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
5046 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
5047 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
5048
5049 * Observer mode
5050
5051 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
5052 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
5053 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
5054 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
5055 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
5056 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
5057 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
5058
5059 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
5060 current thread.
5061
5062 * New remote packets
5063
5064 qGetTIBAddr
5065
5066 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
5067
5068 qRelocInsn
5069
5070 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
5071 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
5072 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
5073 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
5074 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
5075 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
5076
5077 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
5078
5079 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
5080
5081 qTSTMat
5082
5083 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
5084 program.
5085
5086 qXfer:statictrace:read
5087
5088 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
5089 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
5090 to gdb's qSupported query.
5091
5092 QAllow
5093
5094 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
5095
5096 QTDPsrc
5097
5098 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
5099 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
5100
5101 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
5102 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
5103 a directory.
5104
5105 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
5106
5107 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
5108 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
5109 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
5110 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
5111
5112 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
5113 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
5114 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
5115 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
5116 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
5117 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
5118 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
5119
5120 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
5121 for static tracepoints support.
5122
5123 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
5124
5125 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
5126 it understands register description.
5127
5128 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
5129
5130 * X86 general purpose registers
5131
5132 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
5133 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
5134 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
5135 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
5136 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
5137
5138 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
5139 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
5140 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
5141 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
5142 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
5143 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
5144
5145 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
5146 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
5147 in the specified file.
5148
5149 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
5150 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
5151 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
5152 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
5153 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
5154 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
5155 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
5156 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
5157 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
5158 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
5159
5160 * New commands
5161
5162 eval template, expressions...
5163 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
5164 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
5165
5166 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
5167 show target-file-system-kind
5168 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
5169 names.
5170
5171 save breakpoints <filename>
5172 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
5173 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
5174 definitions, use the `source' command.
5175
5176 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
5177 is now deprecated.
5178
5179 info static-tracepoint-markers
5180 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
5181
5182 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
5183 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
5184 function, line, address, or marker ID.
5185
5186 set observer on|off
5187 show observer
5188 Enable and disable observer mode.
5189
5190 set may-write-registers on|off
5191 set may-write-memory on|off
5192 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
5193 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
5194 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
5195 set may-interrupt on|off
5196 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
5197 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
5198 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
5199 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
5200 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
5201 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
5202 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
5203
5204 set record memory-query on|off
5205 show record memory-query
5206 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
5207 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
5208
5209 * Changed commands
5210
5211 disassemble
5212 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
5213
5214 * Python scripting
5215
5216 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
5217 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
5218 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
5219 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
5220 GDB using Python' in the manual.
5221
5222 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
5223 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
5224 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
5225 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
5226
5227 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
5228 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
5229
5230 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
5231
5232 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
5233
5234 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
5235
5236 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
5237 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
5238 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
5239
5240 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
5241 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
5242 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
5243 regular breakpoints.
5244
5245 * New targets
5246
5247 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
5248
5249 * D language support.
5250 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
5251 language.
5252
5253 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
5254 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
5255 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
5256 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
5257 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
5258
5259 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
5260 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
5261 conditions of the form:
5262
5263 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
5264
5265 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
5266 interface mentioned above.
5267
5268 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
5269
5270 * C++ Improvements
5271
5272 ** Namespace Support
5273
5274 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
5275 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
5276 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
5277 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
5278 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
5279
5280 ** Bug Fixes
5281
5282 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
5283 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
5284 qualified name.
5285
5286 ** Cast Operators
5287
5288 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
5289 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
5290
5291 * New targets
5292
5293 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
5294 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
5295
5296 * New Simulators
5297
5298 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
5299 Renesas RX rx
5300
5301 * Multi-program debugging.
5302
5303 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
5304 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
5305 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
5306 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
5307 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
5308 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
5309 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
5310 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
5311
5312 * New tracing features
5313
5314 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
5315
5316 ** Trace state variables
5317
5318 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
5319 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
5320 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
5321 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
5322 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
5323 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
5324 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
5325 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
5326 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
5327 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
5328
5329 ** Fast tracepoints
5330
5331 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
5332 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
5333 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
5334 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
5335 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
5336 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
5337 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
5338 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
5339 the regular trace command.
5340
5341 ** Disconnected tracing
5342
5343 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
5344 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
5345 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
5346 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
5347 connection is lost unexpectedly.
5348
5349 ** Trace files
5350
5351 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
5352 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
5353 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
5354 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
5355 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
5356 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
5357 <name>".
5358
5359 ** Circular trace buffer
5360
5361 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
5362 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
5363 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
5364 not be available for all target agents.
5365
5366 * Changed commands
5367
5368 disassemble
5369 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
5370 the arguments to be comma-separated.
5371
5372 info variables
5373 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
5374 which only declare a variable are not shown.
5375
5376 source
5377 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
5378 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
5379 support.
5380
5381 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
5382 "set script-extension" (see below).
5383
5384 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
5385
5386 record save [<FILENAME>]
5387 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
5388 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
5389
5390 record restore <FILENAME>
5391 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
5392 earlier time, for replay debugging.
5393
5394 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
5395 Add a new inferior.
5396
5397 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
5398 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
5399 inferior has loaded.
5400
5401 remove-inferior ID
5402 Remove an inferior.
5403
5404 maint info program-spaces
5405 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
5406
5407 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
5408 show remote interrupt-sequence
5409 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
5410 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
5411 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
5412 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
5413 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
5414
5415 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
5416 show remote interrupt-on-connect
5417 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
5418 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
5419 Linux kernel.
5420
5421 set remotebreak [on | off]
5422 show remotebreak
5423 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
5424
5425 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
5426 Create or modify a trace state variable.
5427
5428 info tvariables
5429 List trace state variables and their values.
5430
5431 delete tvariable $NAME ...
5432 Delete one or more trace state variables.
5433
5434 teval EXPR, ...
5435 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
5436 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
5437
5438 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
5439 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
5440
5441 * New expression syntax
5442
5443 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
5444 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
5445
5446 * New options
5447
5448 set follow-exec-mode new|same
5449 show follow-exec-mode
5450 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
5451 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
5452 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
5453
5454 set default-collect EXPR, ...
5455 show default-collect
5456 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
5457 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
5458 such as registers or a critical global variable.
5459
5460 set disconnected-tracing
5461 show disconnected-tracing
5462 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
5463 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
5464 upon disconnection.
5465
5466 set circular-trace-buffer
5467 show circular-trace-buffer
5468 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
5469 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
5470 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
5471 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
5472
5473 set script-extension off|soft|strict
5474 show script-extension
5475 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
5476 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
5477 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
5478 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
5479 evaluation failed.
5480 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
5481
5482 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
5483 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
5484 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
5485 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
5486 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
5487 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
5488 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
5489 is on.
5490
5491 * Python API Improvements
5492
5493 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
5494 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
5495 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
5496
5497 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
5498 `is_base_class' attribute.
5499
5500 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
5501
5502 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
5503 evaluate an expression.
5504
5505 * New remote packets
5506
5507 QTDV
5508 Define a trace state variable.
5509
5510 qTV
5511 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
5512
5513 QTDisconnected
5514 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
5515
5516 QTBuffer:circular
5517 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
5518
5519 qTfP, qTsP
5520 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
5521
5522 * Bug fixes
5523
5524 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
5525
5526 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
5527 much more reliable. In particular:
5528 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
5529 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
5530 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
5531 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
5532 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
5533 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
5534 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
5535 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
5536 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
5537 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
5538 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
5539 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
5540 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
5541 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
5542 non-threaded programs.
5543
5544 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
5545 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
5546 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
5547 executable program.
5548
5549 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
5550
5551 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
5552 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
5553 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
5554 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
5555 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
5556
5557 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
5558 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
5559 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
5560 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
5561 for tracepoint actions.
5562
5563 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
5564 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
5565 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
5566
5567 * Process record and replay
5568
5569 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
5570 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
5571 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
5572 execute commands.
5573
5574 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
5575 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
5576 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
5577 reverse execution.
5578
5579 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
5580 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
5581 2.6.28 or later.
5582
5583 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
5584 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
5585 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
5586 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
5587 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
5588 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
5589 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
5590 the installation instructions for more information.
5591
5592 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
5593 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
5594 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
5595 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
5596
5597 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
5598 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
5599
5600 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
5601 now complete on file names.
5602
5603 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
5604 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
5605 For instance, consider:
5606
5607 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
5608 # struct example variable;
5609 (gdb) p variable.
5610
5611 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
5612 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
5613
5614 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
5615 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
5616
5617 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
5618 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
5619 macros.
5620
5621 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
5622 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
5623 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
5624
5625 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
5626 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
5627 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
5628 and simulator targets may also provide them.
5629
5630 * New remote packets
5631
5632 qSearch:memory:
5633 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
5634
5635 QStartNoAckMode
5636 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
5637 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
5638 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
5639
5640 vKill
5641 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
5642 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
5643
5644 qXfer:osdata:read
5645 Obtains additional operating system information
5646
5647 qXfer:siginfo:read
5648 qXfer:siginfo:write
5649 Read or write additional signal information.
5650
5651 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
5652
5653 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
5654 packet that permitted the stub to pass a process id was removed.
5655 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
5656
5657 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
5658 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
5659
5660 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
5661 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
5662 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
5663
5664 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
5665 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
5666
5667 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
5668
5669 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
5670
5671 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
5672 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
5673
5674 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote protocol packet now allows passing a
5675 list of section offsets.
5676
5677 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
5678 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
5679 have also been fixed.
5680
5681 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
5682 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
5683 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
5684
5685 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
5686 example, given:
5687
5688 template<typename T> class C { };
5689 C<char const *> c;
5690
5691 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
5692
5693 ptype C<char const *>
5694 ptype C<char const*>
5695 ptype C<const char *>
5696 ptype C<const char*>
5697
5698 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
5699
5700 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
5701 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
5702
5703 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
5704 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
5705 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
5706
5707 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
5708 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
5709
5710 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
5711 gdbserver.
5712
5713 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
5714 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
5715
5716 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
5717 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
5718 as appropriate.
5719
5720 * Python scripting
5721
5722 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
5723 available is determined at configure time.
5724
5725 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
5726
5727 * Ada tasking support
5728
5729 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
5730 been introduced:
5731
5732 info tasks
5733 Print the list of Ada tasks.
5734 info task N
5735 Print detailed information about task number N.
5736 task
5737 Print the task number of the current task.
5738 task N
5739 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
5740
5741 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
5742 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
5743
5744 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
5745
5746 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
5747 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
5748 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
5749 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
5750 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
5751 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
5752 below.
5753
5754 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
5755 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
5756 information.
5757
5758 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
5759 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
5760 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
5761 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
5762 more information.
5763
5764 * Multi-architecture debugging.
5765
5766 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
5767 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
5768 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
5769 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
5770 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
5771
5772 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
5773 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
5774 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
5775 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
5776 --enable-targets configure option.
5777
5778 * Non-stop mode debugging.
5779
5780 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
5781 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
5782 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
5783 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
5784 section in the user manual for more information.
5785
5786 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
5787 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
5788 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
5789 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
5790 extensions on linux targets.
5791
5792 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
5793
5794 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
5795 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
5796 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
5797 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
5798 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
5799 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
5800 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
5801 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
5802 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
5803
5804 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
5805 val1 [, val2, ...]
5806 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
5807
5808 maint set python print-stack
5809 maint show python print-stack
5810 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
5811
5812 python [CODE]
5813 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
5814
5815 macro define
5816 macro list
5817 macro undef
5818 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
5819 interactively.
5820
5821 info os processes
5822 Show operating system information about processes.
5823
5824 info inferiors
5825 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
5826
5827 inferior NUM
5828 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
5829
5830 detach inferior NUM
5831 Detach from inferior number NUM.
5832
5833 kill inferior NUM
5834 Kill inferior number NUM.
5835
5836 * New options
5837
5838 set spu stop-on-load
5839 show spu stop-on-load
5840 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
5841
5842 set spu auto-flush-cache
5843 show spu auto-flush-cache
5844 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
5845 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
5846
5847 set sh calling-convention
5848 show sh calling-convention
5849 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
5850
5851 set debug timestamp
5852 show debug timestamp
5853 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
5854
5855 set disassemble-next-line
5856 show disassemble-next-line
5857 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
5858 the debuggee stops.
5859
5860 set remote noack-packet
5861 show remote noack-packet
5862 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
5863 under "New remote packets."
5864
5865 set remote query-attached-packet
5866 show remote query-attached-packet
5867 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
5868
5869 set remote read-siginfo-object
5870 show remote read-siginfo-object
5871 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
5872 packet.
5873
5874 set remote write-siginfo-object
5875 show remote write-siginfo-object
5876 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
5877 packet.
5878
5879 set remote reverse-continue
5880 show remote reverse-continue
5881 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
5882
5883 set remote reverse-step
5884 show remote reverse-step
5885 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
5886
5887 set displaced-stepping
5888 show displaced-stepping
5889 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
5890 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
5891 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
5892
5893 set debug displaced
5894 show debug displaced
5895 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
5896
5897 maint set internal-error
5898 maint show internal-error
5899 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
5900
5901 maint set internal-warning
5902 maint show internal-warning
5903 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
5904
5905 set exec-wrapper
5906 show exec-wrapper
5907 unset exec-wrapper
5908 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
5909
5910 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
5911 show multiple-symbols
5912 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
5913 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
5914 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
5915
5916 set breakpoint always-inserted
5917 show breakpoint always-inserted
5918 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
5919 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
5920 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
5921
5922 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
5923 show arm fallback-mode
5924 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
5925 show arm force-mode
5926 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
5927 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
5928 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
5929 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
5930
5931 set arm unwind-secure-frames
5932 Enable unwinding from Non-secure to Secure mode on Cortex-M with
5933 Security extension.
5934 This can trigger security exceptions when unwinding exception stacks.
5935
5936 set disable-randomization
5937 show disable-randomization
5938 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
5939 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
5940 multiple debugging sessions.
5941
5942 set non-stop
5943 show non-stop
5944 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
5945 a breakpoint.
5946
5947 set target-async
5948 show target-async
5949 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
5950 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
5951 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
5952 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
5953
5954 set target-wide-charset
5955 show target-wide-charset
5956 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
5957 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
5958
5959 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
5960 show tcp auto-retry
5961 set tcp connect-timeout
5962 show tcp connect-timeout
5963 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
5964 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
5965 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
5966
5967 set libthread-db-search-path
5968 show libthread-db-search-path
5969 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
5970 libthread_db.
5971
5972 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
5973 show schedule-multiple
5974 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
5975 the current process.
5976
5977 set stack-cache
5978 show stack-cache
5979 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
5980 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
5981 affecting correctness.
5982
5983 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
5984 show interactive-mode
5985 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
5986 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
5987 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
5988 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
5989 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
5990
5991 * Removed commands
5992
5993 info forks
5994 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
5995 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
5996 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
5997 command.
5998
5999 fork NUM
6000 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
6001 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
6002 alias for the `fork' command.
6003
6004 process PID
6005 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
6006 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
6007 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
6008
6009 delete fork NUM
6010 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
6011 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
6012 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
6013 fork' command.
6014
6015 detach fork NUM
6016 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
6017 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
6018 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
6019 fork' command.
6020
6021 * New native configurations
6022
6023 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
6024
6025 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
6026
6027 * New targets
6028
6029 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
6030 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
6031 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
6032 S+core 3 score-*-*
6033
6034 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
6035 (mingw32ce) debugging.
6036
6037 * Removed commands
6038
6039 catch load
6040 catch unload
6041 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
6042
6043 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
6044
6045 * New native configurations
6046
6047 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
6048 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
6049
6050 * New targets
6051
6052 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
6053 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
6054
6055 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
6056
6057 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
6058 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
6059 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
6060 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
6061
6062 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
6063 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
6064
6065 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
6066 is resolved.
6067
6068 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
6069 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
6070 and in inlined functions.
6071
6072 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
6073 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
6074 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
6075
6076 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
6077
6078 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
6079 registers on PowerPC targets.
6080
6081 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
6082 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
6083
6084 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
6085 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
6086
6087 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
6088 extended-remote mode.
6089
6090 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
6091 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
6092 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
6093 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
6094
6095 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
6096 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
6097 target architectures.
6098
6099 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
6100 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
6101 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
6102 stored in two consecutive float registers.
6103
6104 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
6105 breakpoints now.
6106
6107 * Improved support for debugging Ada
6108 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
6109 include:
6110 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
6111 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
6112 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
6113 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
6114 of an assignment
6115 - Improved command completion in Ada
6116 - Several bug fixes
6117
6118 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
6119 process.
6120
6121 * New commands
6122
6123 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
6124 show print frame-arguments
6125 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
6126 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
6127
6128 remote put
6129 remote get
6130 remote delete
6131 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
6132
6133 * New MI commands
6134
6135 -target-file-put
6136 -target-file-get
6137 -target-file-delete
6138 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
6139
6140 * New remote packets
6141
6142 vFile:open:
6143 vFile:close:
6144 vFile:pread:
6145 vFile:pwrite:
6146 vFile:unlink:
6147 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
6148
6149 vAttach
6150 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
6151 mode.
6152
6153 vRun
6154 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
6155
6156 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
6157
6158 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
6159 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
6160 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
6161
6162 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
6163 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
6164 -Bsymbolic linker option.
6165
6166 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
6167 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
6168 is not supported.
6169
6170 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
6171 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
6172
6173 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
6174 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
6175
6176 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
6177
6178 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
6179 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
6180 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
6181
6182 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
6183 automatically displayed as character or string data.
6184
6185 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
6186 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
6187 as strings.
6188
6189 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
6190 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
6191 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
6192
6193 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
6194 iWMMXt coprocessor.
6195
6196 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
6197 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
6198 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
6199
6200 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
6201
6202 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
6203
6204 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
6205 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
6206 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
6207
6208 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
6209 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
6210
6211 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
6212 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
6213 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
6214 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
6215 Windows and SymbianOS).
6216
6217 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
6218 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
6219
6220 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
6221 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
6222
6223 * New commands
6224
6225 set remoteflow
6226 show remoteflow
6227 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
6228 when debugging using remote targets.
6229
6230 set mem inaccessible-by-default
6231 show mem inaccessible-by-default
6232 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
6233 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
6234 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
6235 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
6236 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
6237
6238 set breakpoint auto-hw
6239 show breakpoint auto-hw
6240 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
6241 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
6242 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
6243 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
6244 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
6245 including "next" and "finish".
6246
6247 catch exception
6248 catch exception unhandled
6249 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
6250
6251 catch assert
6252 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
6253
6254 set sysroot
6255 show sysroot
6256 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
6257 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
6258 an alias to "set sysroot".
6259
6260 info spu
6261 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
6262 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
6263 architecture.
6264
6265 * New native configurations
6266
6267 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
6268
6269 set tdesc filename
6270 unset tdesc filename
6271 show tdesc filename
6272 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
6273 not query the target for its built-in description.
6274
6275 * New targets
6276
6277 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
6278 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
6279 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
6280
6281 * New remote packets
6282
6283 QPassSignals:
6284 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
6285 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
6286
6287 qXfer:features:read:
6288 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
6289 features.
6290
6291 qXfer:spu:read:
6292 qXfer:spu:write:
6293 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
6294 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
6295
6296 qXfer:libraries:read:
6297 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
6298 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
6299 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
6300 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
6301
6302 * Removed targets
6303
6304 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
6305
6306 alpha*-*-osf1*
6307 alpha*-*-osf2*
6308 d10v-*-*
6309 hppa*-*-hiux*
6310 i[34567]86-ncr-*
6311 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
6312 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
6313 i[34567]86-*-netware*
6314 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
6315 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
6316 i[34567]86-*-sco*
6317 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
6318 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
6319 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
6320 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
6321 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
6322 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
6323 i[34567]86-*-isc*
6324 m68*-cisco*-*
6325 m68*-tandem-*
6326 mips*-*-pe
6327 rs6000-*-lynxos*
6328 sh*-*-pe
6329
6330 * Other removed features
6331
6332 target abug
6333 target cpu32bug
6334 target est
6335 target rom68k
6336
6337 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
6338
6339 target hms
6340 target e7000
6341 target sh3
6342 target sh3e
6343
6344 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
6345 H8/300.
6346
6347 target ocd
6348
6349 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
6350 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
6351 interfaces.
6352
6353 DWARF 1 support
6354
6355 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
6356 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
6357
6358 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
6359
6360 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
6361 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
6362 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
6363 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
6364
6365 MIPS ".pdr" sections
6366
6367 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
6368 in debugging information.
6369
6370 Scheme support
6371
6372 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
6373 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
6374
6375 set mips stack-arg-size
6376 set mips saved-gpreg-size
6377
6378 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
6379
6380 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
6381
6382 * New targets
6383
6384 Xtensa xtensa-elf
6385 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
6386
6387 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
6388 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
6389 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
6390
6391 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
6392 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
6393 supported.
6394
6395 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
6396 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
6397
6398 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
6399 stub provides the required support.
6400
6401 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
6402 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
6403
6404 * New commands
6405
6406 set substitute-path
6407 unset substitute-path
6408 show substitute-path
6409 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
6410 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
6411 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
6412 between compilation and debugging.
6413
6414 set trace-commands
6415 show trace-commands
6416 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
6417 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
6418 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
6419
6420 * REMOVED features
6421
6422 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
6423
6424 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
6425 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
6426
6427 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
6428
6429 * New remote packets
6430
6431 qSupported:
6432 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
6433 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
6434 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
6435 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
6436 target.
6437
6438 qXfer:auxv:read:
6439 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
6440 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
6441
6442 qXfer:memory-map:read:
6443 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
6444 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
6445
6446 vFlashErase:
6447 vFlashWrite:
6448 vFlashDone:
6449 Erase and program a flash memory device.
6450
6451 * Removed remote packets
6452
6453 qPart:auxv:read:
6454 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
6455 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
6456
6457 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
6458
6459 * New targets
6460
6461 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
6462
6463 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
6464
6465 * New commands
6466
6467 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
6468 only if it doesn't already have a value.
6469
6470 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
6471
6472 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
6473
6474 restart <n> Return the program state to a
6475 previously saved state.
6476
6477 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
6478
6479 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
6480
6481 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
6482 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
6483
6484 info forks List forks of the user program that
6485 are available to be debugged.
6486
6487 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
6488 forks of the user program that are
6489 available to be debugged.
6490
6491 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
6492 that are available to be debugged (and
6493 kill the forked process).
6494
6495 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
6496 that are available to be debugged (and
6497 allow the process to continue).
6498
6499 * New architecture
6500
6501 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
6502
6503 * Improved Windows host support
6504
6505 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
6506 native console support, and remote communications using either
6507 network sockets or serial ports.
6508
6509 * Improved Modula-2 language support
6510
6511 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
6512 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
6513 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
6514 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
6515 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
6516 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
6517
6518 * REMOVED features
6519
6520 The ARM rdi-share module.
6521
6522 The Netware NLM debug server.
6523
6524 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
6525
6526 * New native configurations
6527
6528 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
6529 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
6530
6531 * New targets
6532
6533 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
6534
6535 * New command line options
6536
6537 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
6538 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
6539 the child (debugged) program exited with.
6540 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
6541 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
6542 specified multiple times and in conjunction
6543 with the --command (-x) option.
6544
6545 * Deprecated commands removed
6546
6547 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
6548 removed:
6549
6550 Command Replacement
6551 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
6552 othernames set arm disassembler
6553 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
6554 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
6555 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
6556 regs info registers
6557
6558 * New BSD user-level threads support
6559
6560 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
6561 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
6562 configurations are:
6563
6564 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
6565 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
6566 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
6567
6568 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
6569 are not yet supported.
6570
6571 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
6572 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
6573
6574 * REMOVED configurations and files
6575
6576 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
6577 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
6578 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
6579
6580 * New "set print array-indexes" command
6581
6582 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
6583 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
6584 behavior.
6585
6586 * VAX floating point support
6587
6588 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
6589
6590 * User-defined command support
6591
6592 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
6593 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
6594 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
6595
6596 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
6597
6598 * New command line option
6599
6600 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
6601 debugging.
6602
6603 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
6604
6605 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
6606 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
6607 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
6608 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
6609 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
6610
6611 * Internationalization
6612
6613 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
6614 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
6615 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
6616
6617 * Ada
6618
6619 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
6620 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
6621 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
6622
6623 * New native configurations
6624
6625 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
6626
6627 * Remote 'p' packet
6628
6629 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
6630 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
6631
6632 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
6633
6634 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
6635 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
6636 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
6637 i386 application).
6638
6639 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the registers[]
6640 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
6641 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
6642 configurations:
6643
6644 hppa-*-hpux
6645 ia64-*-aix
6646 mips-*-irix*
6647 *-*-lynx
6648 mips-*-linux-gnu
6649 sds protocol
6650 xdr protocol
6651 powerpc bdm protocol
6652
6653 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
6654 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
6655
6656 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6657
6658 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6659 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6660 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6661 permanently REMOVED.
6662
6663 h8300-*-*
6664 mcore-*-*
6665 mn10300-*-*
6666 ns32k-*-*
6667 sh64-*-*
6668 v850-*-*
6669
6670 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
6671
6672 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
6673
6674 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
6675 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
6676 been fixed.
6677
6678 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
6679
6680 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
6681 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
6682 IRIX long double values).
6683
6684 * VAX and "next"
6685
6686 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
6687 command. This problem has been fixed.
6688
6689 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
6690
6691 * Fix for ``many threads''
6692
6693 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
6694 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
6695 error message:
6696
6697 ptrace: No such process.
6698 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
6699
6700 This problem has been fixed.
6701
6702 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
6703
6704 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
6705 GDB to dump core).
6706
6707 * New ``start'' command.
6708
6709 This command runs the program until the beginning of the main procedure.
6710
6711 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
6712
6713 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
6714 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
6715 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
6716
6717 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
6718 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
6719 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
6720 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
6721 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
6722 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
6723 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
6724 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
6725 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
6726
6727 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
6728
6729 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
6730 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
6731 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
6732 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
6733 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
6734
6735 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
6736 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
6737 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
6738
6739 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
6740
6741 * New native configurations
6742
6743 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
6744 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
6745 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
6746 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
6747 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6748 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
6749 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6750
6751 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
6752
6753 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
6754 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
6755 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
6756 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
6757 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
6758 work, was also included.
6759
6760 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
6761 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
6762
6763 h8300-*-*
6764 mcore-*-*
6765 mn10300-*-*
6766 ns32k-*-*
6767 sh64-*-*
6768 v850-*-*
6769 xstormy16-*-*
6770
6771 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
6772 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
6773
6774 * REMOVED configurations and files
6775
6776 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
6777 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
6778 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
6779 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
6780 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
6781 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
6782 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
6783 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
6784 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
6785 sonymips mips-sony-*
6786 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
6787
6788 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
6789
6790 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
6791
6792 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
6793 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
6794 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
6795 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
6796 with GDB".
6797
6798 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
6799
6800 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
6801 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
6802 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
6803 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
6804 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
6805 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
6806 are created.
6807
6808 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
6809
6810 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
6811
6812 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
6813 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
6814 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
6815
6816 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
6817
6818 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
6819 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
6820
6821 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
6822
6823 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
6824 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
6825 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
6826
6827 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
6828
6829 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
6830 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
6831
6832 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
6833
6834 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
6835 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
6836 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
6837
6838 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
6839
6840 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
6841 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
6842 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
6843
6844 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
6845
6846 * Removed --with-mmalloc
6847
6848 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
6849 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
6850
6851 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
6852
6853 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
6854 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
6855 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
6856 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
6857
6858 * Revised SPARC target
6859
6860 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
6861 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
6862 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
6863 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
6864 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
6865
6866 * New C++ demangler
6867
6868 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
6869 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
6870 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
6871 programs.
6872
6873 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
6874
6875 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
6876 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
6877 encountered these.
6878
6879 * C++ nested types and namespaces
6880
6881 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
6882 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
6883 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
6884 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
6885 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
6886 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
6887 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
6888 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
6889 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
6890
6891 * New native configurations
6892
6893 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
6894 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
6895 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
6896 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
6897 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
6898
6899 * New debugging protocols
6900
6901 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
6902
6903 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
6904
6905 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
6906 and its very obscure effect on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
6907 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
6908
6909 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6910
6911 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6912 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6913 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6914 permanently REMOVED.
6915
6916 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
6917 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
6918 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
6919 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
6920 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
6921 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
6922 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
6923 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
6924 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
6925 sonymips mips-sony-*
6926 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
6927
6928 * REMOVED configurations and files
6929
6930 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
6931 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
6932 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6933 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6934 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6935 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
6936 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6937 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
6938 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
6939 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
6940 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
6941 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
6942 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
6943 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
6944 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
6945 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6946 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6947
6948 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
6949
6950 * Objective-C
6951
6952 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
6953 integrated into GDB.
6954
6955 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
6956
6957 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
6958 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
6959 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
6960 backtraces.
6961
6962 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
6963 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
6964 DWARF 2 CFI support.
6965
6966 * Hosted file I/O.
6967
6968 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
6969 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
6970 remote protocol documentation for details.
6971
6972 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
6973
6974 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
6975 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
6976 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
6977 ppc32 on ppc64).
6978
6979 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
6980
6981 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
6982 per-thread variables.
6983
6984 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
6985
6986 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
6987 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
6988
6989 * Separate debug info.
6990
6991 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
6992 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
6993 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
6994 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
6995 and optional debug files.
6996
6997 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
6998
6999 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
7000 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
7001 debugger.
7002
7003 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
7004 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
7005
7006 * Java
7007
7008 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
7009 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
7010 considered "useable".
7011
7012 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
7013
7014 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
7015 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
7016 kernel.
7017
7018 * GDB supports logging output to a file
7019
7020 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
7021 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
7022
7023 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
7024
7025 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
7026 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
7027 command.
7028
7029 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
7030
7031 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
7032 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
7033
7034 * Profiling support
7035
7036 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
7037 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
7038 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
7039 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
7040 data, for more informative profiling results.
7041
7042 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
7043
7044 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
7045 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
7046 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
7047
7048 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
7049 removed.
7050
7051 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
7052 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
7053 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
7054 in a subsequent -var-update.
7055
7056 * New native configurations.
7057
7058 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
7059
7060 * Multi-arched targets.
7061
7062 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
7063 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
7064
7065 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7066
7067 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7068 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7069 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7070 permanently REMOVED.
7071
7072 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
7073 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
7074 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
7075 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
7076 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
7077 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
7078 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
7079 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
7080 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
7081 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
7082 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
7083 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
7084
7085 * REMOVED configurations and files
7086
7087 V850EA ISA
7088 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7089 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7090 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
7091 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
7092 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
7093 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
7094 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
7095 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
7096 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
7097 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
7098 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7099 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
7100 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
7101
7102 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
7103
7104 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
7105 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
7106 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
7107 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
7108 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
7109
7110 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
7111
7112 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
7113
7114 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
7115 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
7116 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
7117 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
7118 shared libs like mad''.
7119
7120 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
7121
7122 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
7123 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
7124 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
7125 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
7126
7127 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
7128
7129 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
7130 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
7131 they expand.
7132
7133 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
7134 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
7135
7136 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
7137 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
7138
7139 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
7140 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
7141 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
7142 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
7143
7144 * Multi-arched targets.
7145
7146 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
7147 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
7148 NEC V850 v850-*-*
7149 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
7150 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
7151 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
7152
7153 * New targets.
7154
7155 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
7156
7157
7158 * New native configurations
7159
7160 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
7161 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
7162 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
7163 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
7164
7165 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7166
7167 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7168 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7169 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7170 permanently REMOVED.
7171
7172 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
7173 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
7174 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7175 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7176 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7177 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
7178 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
7179 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
7180 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
7181 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
7182 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
7183 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
7184 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
7185
7186 * OBSOLETE languages
7187
7188 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
7189
7190 * REMOVED configurations and files
7191
7192 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
7193 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
7194 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7195 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7196 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7197
7198 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
7199
7200 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
7201
7202 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
7203 commands. The default is 1024.
7204
7205 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
7206
7207 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
7208
7209 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
7210
7211 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
7212 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
7213 from a file into memory (restore).
7214
7215 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
7216
7217 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
7218 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
7219 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
7220
7221 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
7222
7223 * New targets.
7224
7225 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
7226
7227 * Bug fixes
7228
7229 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
7230 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
7231 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
7232
7233 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
7234 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
7235 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
7236
7237 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
7238 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
7239 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
7240
7241 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
7242 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
7243 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
7244
7245 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
7246
7247 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
7248
7249 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
7250 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
7251 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
7252 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
7253 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
7254 (notably embedded) targets.
7255
7256 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
7257
7258 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
7259 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
7260 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
7261 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
7262
7263 * New command line option
7264
7265 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
7266
7267 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
7268
7269 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
7270 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
7271 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
7272 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
7273 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
7274 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
7275 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
7276 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
7277 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
7278 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
7279
7280 * Changes in ARM configurations.
7281
7282 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
7283 configuration is fully multi-arch.
7284
7285 * New native configurations
7286
7287 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
7288 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
7289 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
7290 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
7291
7292 * New targets
7293
7294 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
7295
7296 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7297
7298 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7299 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7300 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7301 permanently REMOVED.
7302
7303 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
7304 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
7305 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7306 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7307 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7308
7309 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
7310
7311 * REMOVED configurations and files
7312
7313 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7314 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7315 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
7316 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
7317 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
7318 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
7319 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
7320 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7321 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
7322 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
7323 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
7324 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
7325 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
7326
7327 * Changes to command line processing
7328
7329 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
7330 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
7331
7332 * Changes to key bindings
7333
7334 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
7335
7336 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
7337
7338 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
7339
7340 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
7341 corrupted.
7342
7343 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
7344
7345 Numerous documentation fixes.
7346
7347 Numerous testsuite fixes.
7348
7349 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
7350
7351 * New native configurations
7352
7353 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
7354 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
7355 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
7356 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
7357 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
7358 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
7359
7360 * New targets
7361
7362 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
7363 CRIS cris-axis
7364 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
7365
7366 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7367
7368 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
7369 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
7370 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
7371 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7372 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7373 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7374 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
7375 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
7376 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
7377 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
7378 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
7379 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
7380 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
7381 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
7382
7383 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
7384 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
7385
7386 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7387 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7388 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7389 permanently REMOVED.
7390
7391 * REMOVED configurations and files
7392
7393 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
7394 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
7395 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
7396 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
7397 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7398 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
7399
7400 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
7401
7402 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
7403 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
7404 present.
7405
7406 * Other news:
7407
7408 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
7409
7410 * The MI enabled by default.
7411
7412 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
7413 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
7414 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
7415 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
7416 which is now deprecated.
7417
7418 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
7419
7420 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
7421 main features are supported:
7422
7423 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
7424
7425 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
7426 extension;
7427
7428 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
7429
7430 - a Pascal expression parser.
7431
7432 However, some important features are not yet supported.
7433
7434 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
7435
7436 - there are some problems with boolean types;
7437
7438 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
7439 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
7440
7441 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
7442
7443 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
7444
7445 * Changes in completion.
7446
7447 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
7448 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
7449 users expect at the shell prompt.
7450
7451 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
7452 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
7453 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
7454 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
7455 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
7456 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
7457 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
7458
7459 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
7460
7461 * New platform-independent commands:
7462
7463 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
7464 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
7465 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
7466
7467 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
7468
7469 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
7470 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
7471 many threads as your system allows you to have.
7472
7473 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
7474
7475 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
7476 multi-threaded programs though.
7477
7478 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
7479
7480 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
7481
7482 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
7483 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
7484 supported.)
7485
7486 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
7487
7488 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
7489 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
7490 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
7491 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
7492 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
7493 registers.
7494
7495 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
7496 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
7497 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
7498
7499 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
7500
7501 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
7502 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
7503
7504 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
7505 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
7506 IDT.
7507
7508 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
7509 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
7510 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
7511 a given linear address.
7512
7513 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
7514 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
7515 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
7516
7517 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
7518
7519 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
7520
7521 * Changes in documentation.
7522
7523 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
7524 Documentation License.
7525
7526 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
7527 manual.
7528
7529 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
7530
7531 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
7532 manual.
7533
7534 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
7535 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
7536 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
7537
7538 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
7539
7540 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
7541 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
7542 contents of this file.
7543
7544 * gdba.el deleted
7545
7546 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
7547
7548 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7549
7550 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
7551
7552 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
7553 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
7554 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
7555 greater level of detail.
7556
7557 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
7558
7559 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
7560 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
7561 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
7562 written.
7563
7564 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
7565
7566 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
7567 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
7568 machines ``out of the box''.
7569
7570 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
7571 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
7572 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
7573 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
7574 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
7575
7576 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
7577 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
7578 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
7579 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
7580 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
7581
7582 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
7583 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
7584 also works.
7585
7586 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
7587 GDB.
7588
7589 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
7590 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
7591 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
7592 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
7593
7594 * New native configurations
7595
7596 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
7597 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
7598
7599 * New targets
7600
7601 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
7602 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
7603 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7604 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7605
7606 * OBSOLETE configurations
7607
7608 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
7609 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
7610 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
7611 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
7612 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7613
7614 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
7615 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
7616 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
7617 be permanently REMOVED.
7618
7619 * Gould support removed
7620
7621 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
7622
7623 * New features for SVR4
7624
7625 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
7626 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
7627 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
7628
7629 * Many C++ enhancements
7630
7631 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
7632 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
7633
7634 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
7635
7636 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
7637 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
7638 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
7639 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
7640
7641 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
7642 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
7643
7644 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
7645
7646 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
7647 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
7648 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
7649
7650 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
7651 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
7652
7653 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
7654
7655 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
7656 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
7657 include ``set remote P-packet''.
7658
7659 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
7660
7661 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
7662 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
7663 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
7664
7665 * ``apropos'' command added.
7666
7667 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
7668 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
7669 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
7670
7671 * New MI interface
7672
7673 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
7674 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7675 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
7676 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
7677 enabled by configuring with:
7678
7679 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
7680
7681 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
7682
7683 * New native configurations
7684
7685 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
7686 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
7687 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
7688
7689 * New targets
7690
7691 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7692 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
7693 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
7694
7695 * OBSOLETE configurations
7696
7697 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
7698
7699 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
7700 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
7701 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
7702 be permanently REMOVED.
7703
7704 * ANSI/ISO C
7705
7706 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
7707 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
7708 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
7709 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
7710 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
7711 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
7712 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
7713 already.
7714
7715 * Readline 2.2
7716
7717 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
7718
7719 * set extension-language
7720
7721 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
7722 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
7723 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
7724 set extension-language .c c++
7725 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
7726 and their associated languages.
7727
7728 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
7729
7730 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
7731 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
7732 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
7733
7734 set processor NAME
7735
7736 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
7737 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
7738
7739 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
7740 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
7741 403 IBM PowerPC 403
7742 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
7743 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
7744 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
7745 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
7746 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
7747 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
7748 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
7749 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
7750
7751 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
7752 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
7753 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
7754 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
7755
7756 * HP-UX support
7757
7758 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
7759 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
7760 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
7761 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
7762 for xdb and dbx commands.
7763
7764 * Catchpoints
7765
7766 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
7767 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
7768 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
7769
7770 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
7771 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
7772 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
7773
7774 * Debugging across forks
7775
7776 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
7777 in the inferior.
7778
7779 * TUI
7780
7781 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
7782 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
7783 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
7784
7785 * GDB remote protocol additions
7786
7787 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
7788 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
7789 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
7790 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
7791
7792 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
7793 full 64-bit address. The command
7794
7795 set remoteaddresssize 32
7796
7797 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
7798 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
7799 will be discarded.
7800
7801 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
7802 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
7803
7804 maint packet heythere
7805
7806 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
7807 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
7808 time.
7809
7810 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
7811 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
7812 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
7813
7814 * Tracing can collect general expressions
7815
7816 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
7817 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
7818 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
7819
7820 * mask-address variable for Mips
7821
7822 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
7823 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
7824 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
7825
7826 * Higher serial baud rates
7827
7828 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
7829 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
7830 to achieve all of these rates.)
7831
7832 * i960 simulator
7833
7834 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
7835 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
7836
7837
7838 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
7839
7840 * New native configurations
7841
7842 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
7843 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
7844 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
7845 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
7846 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
7847 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
7848 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
7849
7850 * New targets
7851
7852 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
7853 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
7854 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
7855 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
7856 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
7857 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
7858 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
7859 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
7860 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
7861 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
7862 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
7863
7864 * New debugging protocols
7865
7866 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
7867 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
7868 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
7869 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
7870 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
7871 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
7872
7873 * DWARF 2
7874
7875 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
7876 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
7877 information.
7878
7879 * Java frontend
7880
7881 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
7882 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
7883
7884 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
7885
7886 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
7887 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
7888 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
7889
7890 * Live range splitting
7891
7892 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
7893 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
7894 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
7895
7896 * Hurd support
7897
7898 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
7899 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
7900
7901 * ARM Thumb support
7902
7903 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
7904 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
7905 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
7906 accordingly.
7907
7908 * MIPS16 support
7909
7910 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
7911 instruction set.
7912
7913 * Overlay support
7914
7915 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
7916 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
7917 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
7918 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
7919 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
7920 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
7921
7922 * info symbol
7923
7924 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
7925 the symbol at the specified address.
7926
7927 * Trace support
7928
7929 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
7930 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
7931 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
7932 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
7933 file tracepoint.c for more details.
7934
7935 * MIPS simulator
7936
7937 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
7938 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
7939 of most MIPS variants.
7940
7941 * Sparc simulator
7942
7943 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
7944 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
7945 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
7946
7947 * set architecture
7948
7949 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
7950 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
7951 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
7952 the possible architectures.
7953
7954 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
7955
7956 * New native configurations
7957
7958 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
7959 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
7960 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
7961 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
7962 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
7963 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
7964
7965 * New targets
7966
7967 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
7968 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
7969 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
7970 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
7971 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
7972 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
7973 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
7974
7975 * PowerPC simulator
7976
7977 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
7978 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
7979 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
7980 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
7981 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
7982
7983 * Solaris 2.5
7984
7985 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
7986
7987 * Windows 95/NT native
7988
7989 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
7990 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
7991 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
7992 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
7993 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
7994
7995 * dont-repeat command
7996
7997 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
7998 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
7999 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
8000 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
8001
8002 * Send break instead of ^C
8003
8004 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
8005 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
8006 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
8007
8008 * Remote protocol timeout
8009
8010 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
8011 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
8012 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
8013
8014 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
8015
8016 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
8017 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
8018 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
8019 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
8020 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
8021
8022 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
8023 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
8024 automatically on hpux10.
8025
8026 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
8027
8028 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
8029
8030 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
8031
8032 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
8033 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
8034 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
8035 every character. The default value is 1050.
8036
8037 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
8038
8039 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
8040 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
8041 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
8042 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
8043 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
8044 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
8045
8046 * Speedups for remote debugging
8047
8048 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
8049 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
8050 and more efficient S-record downloading.
8051
8052 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
8053
8054 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
8055 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
8056
8057 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
8058
8059 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
8060
8061 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
8062 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
8063
8064 * Remote targets use caching
8065
8066 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
8067 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
8068 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
8069 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
8070 off' turns the data cache off.
8071
8072 * Remote targets may have threads
8073
8074 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
8075 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
8076 gdb/remote.c for details.
8077
8078 * NetROM support
8079
8080 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
8081 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
8082 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
8083 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
8084 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
8085 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
8086 sequence is something like
8087
8088 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
8089 load <prog>
8090 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
8091
8092 * Macintosh host
8093
8094 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
8095 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
8096 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
8097 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
8098 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
8099 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
8100 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
8101 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
8102
8103 * Autoconf
8104
8105 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
8106 but does simplify configuration and building.
8107
8108 * hpux10
8109
8110 GDB now supports hpux10.
8111
8112 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
8113
8114 * New native configurations
8115
8116 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
8117 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
8118 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
8119 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
8120
8121 * New targets
8122
8123 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
8124 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
8125 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
8126 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
8127 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
8128
8129 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
8130
8131 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
8132 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
8133 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
8134 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
8135 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
8136
8137 * Arguments to user-defined commands
8138
8139 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
8140 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
8141 trivial example:
8142 define adder
8143 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
8144
8145 To execute the command use:
8146 adder 1 2 3
8147
8148 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
8149 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
8150 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
8151
8152 * New `if' and `while' commands
8153
8154 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
8155 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
8156 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
8157 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
8158 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
8159 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
8160 if the expression is zero.
8161
8162 * Fortran source language mode
8163
8164 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
8165 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
8166 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
8167 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
8168 Fortran compilers.
8169
8170 * Better HPUX support
8171
8172 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
8173 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
8174 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
8175 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
8176 that behavior do the following before running the program:
8177
8178 adb -w a.out
8179 __dld_flags?W 0x5
8180 control-d
8181
8182 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
8183 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
8184
8185 adb -w a.out
8186 __dld_flags?W 0x4
8187 control-d
8188
8189 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
8190 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
8191 external linkage.
8192
8193 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
8194 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
8195
8196 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
8197
8198 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
8199 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
8200 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
8201 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
8202 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
8203 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
8204
8205 * New DOS host serial code
8206
8207 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
8208 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
8209 a PC's serial port.
8210
8211 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
8212
8213 * New "complete" command
8214
8215 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
8216 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
8217
8218 * Trailing space optional in prompt
8219
8220 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
8221 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
8222
8223 * Breakpoint hit counts
8224
8225 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
8226 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
8227 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
8228 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
8229 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
8230 that breakpoint.
8231
8232 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
8233
8234 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
8235 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
8236 arrays actually contain only short strings.
8237
8238 * Shared library breakpoints
8239
8240 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
8241 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
8242
8243 * Hardware watchpoints
8244
8245 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
8246 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
8247
8248 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
8249
8250 * Annotations
8251
8252 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
8253 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
8254
8255 * Improved Irix 5 support
8256
8257 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
8258
8259 * Improved HPPA support
8260
8261 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
8262
8263 * New native configurations
8264
8265 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
8266 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
8267 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
8268 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
8269
8270 * New targets
8271
8272 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
8273 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
8274 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
8275
8276 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
8277
8278 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
8279 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
8280
8281 * Fixes
8282
8283 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
8284 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
8285
8286 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
8287
8288 * Irix 5 is now supported
8289
8290 * HPPA support
8291
8292 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
8293 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
8294 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
8295 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
8296 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
8297
8298
8299 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
8300
8301 * User visible changes:
8302
8303 * Remote Debugging
8304
8305 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
8306 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
8307 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
8308 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
8309 debugging info for the mips target).
8310
8311 * DEC Alpha native support
8312
8313 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
8314 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
8315 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
8316 Alpha-specific notes.
8317
8318 * Preliminary thread implementation
8319
8320 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
8321
8322 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
8323
8324 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
8325 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
8326 for details).
8327
8328 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
8329
8330 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
8331 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
8332 call methods, ...etc.
8333
8334 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
8335
8336 * User visible changes:
8337
8338 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
8339 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
8340 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
8341 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
8342
8343 Filename completion now works.
8344
8345 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
8346 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
8347 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
8348
8349 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
8350 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
8351 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
8352 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
8353 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
8354
8355 * DEC alpha support
8356
8357 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
8358 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
8359
8360
8361 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
8362
8363 * Testsuite
8364
8365 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
8366 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
8367 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
8368
8369 * C++ demangling
8370
8371 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
8372 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
8373 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
8374 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
8375 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
8376
8377 * Simulators
8378
8379 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
8380 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
8381 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
8382
8383 * New targets supported
8384
8385 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
8386 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
8387 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
8388 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
8389 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
8390
8391 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
8392 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
8393 GO32 memory extender.
8394
8395 * New remote protocols
8396
8397 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
8398
8399 * New source languages supported
8400
8401 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
8402 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
8403 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
8404
8405
8406 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
8407
8408 * HP Precision Architecture supported
8409
8410 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
8411 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
8412 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
8413 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
8414 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
8415 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
8416
8417 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
8418
8419 * Faster and better demangling
8420
8421 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
8422 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
8423 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
8424 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
8425 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
8426 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
8427 symbol lookups.
8428
8429 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
8430 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
8431 compiler does not actually implement.
8432
8433 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
8434
8435 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
8436 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
8437 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
8438 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
8439 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
8440 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
8441 fix.
8442
8443 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
8444 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
8445
8446 * Improved configure script
8447
8448 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
8449 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
8450 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
8451 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
8452
8453 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
8454 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
8455 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
8456 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
8457 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
8458 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
8459
8460 * Documentation improvements
8461
8462 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
8463 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
8464 before submitting changes.
8465
8466 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
8467 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
8468 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
8469 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
8470 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
8471
8472 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
8473 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
8474 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
8475 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
8476 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
8477 around this problem.
8478
8479 * New features
8480
8481 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
8482 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
8483 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
8484 the target program.
8485
8486 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
8487 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
8488
8489 * New native hosts supported
8490
8491 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
8492 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
8493
8494 * New targets supported
8495
8496 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
8497
8498 * New file formats supported
8499
8500 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
8501 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
8502
8503 * Major bug fixes
8504
8505 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
8506
8507 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
8508 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
8509
8510 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
8511 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
8512 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
8513
8514 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
8515 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
8516
8517 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
8518 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
8519 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
8520 libraries.
8521
8522 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
8523 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
8524 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
8525 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
8526 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
8527
8528 * Internal improvements
8529
8530 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
8531 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
8532
8533 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
8534 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
8535 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
8536 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
8537 shared code that handles any of them.
8538
8539 * New command line options
8540
8541 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
8542
8543 * Mmalloc licensing
8544
8545 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
8546 General Public License.
8547
8548 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
8549
8550 * Host/native/target split
8551
8552 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
8553 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
8554 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
8555 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
8556 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
8557
8558 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
8559 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
8560 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
8561 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
8562 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
8563 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
8564 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
8565
8566 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
8567 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
8568 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
8569
8570 * New hosts supported
8571
8572 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
8573 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
8574 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
8575
8576 * New targets supported
8577
8578 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
8579 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
8580
8581 * New native hosts supported
8582
8583 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
8584 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
8585 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
8586
8587 * New file formats supported
8588
8589 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
8590 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
8591 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
8592
8593 * New commands
8594
8595 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
8596 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
8597 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
8598
8599 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
8600
8601 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
8602 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
8603 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
8604 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
8605
8606 * C++ improvements
8607
8608 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
8609 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
8610 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
8611
8612 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
8613
8614 * Major bug fixes
8615
8616 The crash that occurred when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
8617 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
8618 by the compiler.
8619
8620 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
8621 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
8622
8623 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
8624 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
8625 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
8626 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
8627 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
8628 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
8629
8630 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
8631 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
8632 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
8633 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
8634
8635 * AMD 29k support
8636
8637 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
8638 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
8639 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
8640 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
8641 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
8642
8643 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
8644 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
8645 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
8646 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
8647
8648 * Remote interfaces
8649
8650 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
8651 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
8652 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
8653 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
8654 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
8655 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
8656 each instruction being stepped through.
8657
8658 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
8659 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
8660
8661 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
8662 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
8663 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
8664 processor with a serial port.
8665
8666 * Configuration
8667
8668 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
8669 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
8670 supported, and what files each one uses.
8671
8672 * Library changes
8673
8674 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
8675 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
8676 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
8677 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
8678
8679 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
8680 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
8681 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
8682 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
8683
8684 * Documentation
8685
8686 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
8687 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
8688 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
8689 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
8690 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
8691 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
8692
8693 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
8694
8695
8696 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
8697
8698 * Better support for C++ function names
8699
8700 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
8701 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
8702 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
8703 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
8704 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
8705
8706 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
8707 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
8708 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
8709 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
8710 for the list of formats.
8711
8712 * G++ symbol mangling problem
8713
8714 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
8715 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
8716 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
8717 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compiling gdb/symtab.c. The
8718 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
8719 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
8720 this problem.)
8721
8722 * New 'maintenance' command
8723
8724 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
8725 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
8726 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
8727
8728 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
8729 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
8730 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
8731 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
8732 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
8733 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
8734
8735 The following commands are new:
8736
8737 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
8738 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
8739 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
8740
8741 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
8742
8743 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
8744 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
8745 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
8746 read after argv processing.
8747
8748 * New hosts supported
8749
8750 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
8751
8752 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
8753
8754 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
8755 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
8756 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
8757 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
8758 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
8759 It costs extra.
8760
8761 * New targets supported
8762
8763 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
8764
8765 * More smarts about finding #include files
8766
8767 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
8768 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
8769 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
8770 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
8771 the one that contains your sources.
8772
8773 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
8774 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
8775 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
8776
8777 * Interesting infernals change
8778
8779 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
8780 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
8781 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
8782 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
8783
8784 * Bug fixes (of course!)
8785
8786 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
8787 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
8788 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
8789
8790 See the ChangeLog for details.
8791
8792 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
8793
8794 * New machines supported (host and target)
8795
8796 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
8797
8798 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
8799
8800 * New malloc package
8801
8802 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
8803 Mmalloc is capable of handling multiple heaps of memory. It is also
8804 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
8805 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
8806 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
8807 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
8808
8809 * info proc
8810
8811 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
8812 'help info proc' for details.
8813
8814 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
8815
8816 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
8817 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
8818 possible.
8819
8820 * File name changes for MS-DOS
8821
8822 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
8823 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
8824 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
8825 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
8826 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
8827 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
8828
8829 * Cross byte order fixes
8830
8831 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
8832 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
8833
8834 * New -mapped and -readnow options
8835
8836 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
8837 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
8838 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
8839 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
8840 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
8841 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
8842 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
8843 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
8844 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
8845 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
8846
8847 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
8848 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
8849 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
8850 slower, but makes future operations faster.
8851
8852 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
8853 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
8854 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
8855 use is:
8856
8857 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
8858
8859 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
8860 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
8861 shared across multiple host platforms.
8862
8863 * longjmp() handling
8864
8865 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
8866 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
8867 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
8868 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
8869
8870 * Solaris 2.0
8871
8872 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
8873 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
8874 reading symbols.
8875
8876 * Bug fixes
8877
8878 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
8879 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
8880 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
8881
8882 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
8883
8884 * New machines supported (host and target)
8885
8886 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
8887 (except core files)
8888 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
8889 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
8890
8891 * New machines supported (target)
8892
8893 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
8894
8895 * C++ support
8896
8897 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
8898 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
8899 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
8900
8901 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
8902 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
8903 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
8904 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
8905 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
8906 released.
8907
8908 * New features for SVR4
8909
8910 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
8911 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
8912 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
8913
8914 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
8915 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
8916 it prints the address mappings of the process.
8917
8918 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
8919 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
8920
8921 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
8922
8923 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
8924 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
8925 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
8926 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
8927 same code linked statically.
8928
8929 * New Getopt
8930
8931 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
8932 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
8933 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
8934 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
8935 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
8936 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
8937
8938 * Bugs fixed
8939
8940 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
8941 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
8942 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
8943
8944
8945 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
8946
8947 * New machines supported (host and target)
8948
8949 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
8950 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
8951 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
8952
8953 * Almost SCO Unix support
8954
8955 We had hoped to support:
8956 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
8957 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
8958 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
8959 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
8960
8961 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
8962
8963 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
8964 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
8965 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
8966 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
8967 reqired (if any).
8968
8969 * New Readline
8970
8971 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
8972 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
8973 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
8974
8975 * Bugs fixed
8976
8977 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
8978 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
8979 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
8980
8981 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
8982
8983 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
8984 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
8985 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
8986
8987 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
8988 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
8989 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
8990 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
8991 version 2.
8992
8993 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
8994 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
8995 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
8996 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
8997 situation somewhat.
8998
8999 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
9000 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
9001 methods.
9002
9003 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
9004 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
9005 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
9006
9007
9008 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
9009
9010 * Improved configuration
9011
9012 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
9013 Porting BFD is simpler.
9014
9015 * Stepping improved
9016
9017 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
9018 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
9019 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
9020 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
9021
9022 * Bug fixing
9023
9024 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
9025
9026 * New host supported (not target)
9027
9028 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
9029
9030
9031 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
9032
9033 * Multiple source language support
9034
9035 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
9036 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
9037 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
9038 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
9039 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
9040 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
9041
9042 * GDB and Modula-2
9043
9044 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
9045 currently under development at the State University of New York at
9046 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
9047 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
9048
9049 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
9050 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
9051 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
9052
9053 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
9054 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
9055
9056 * set write on/off
9057
9058 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
9059 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
9060 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
9061 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
9062 effect immediately.
9063
9064 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
9065
9066 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
9067 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
9068 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
9069 examining core files.
9070
9071 * set listsize
9072
9073 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
9074 The default is 10.
9075
9076 * New machines supported (host and target)
9077
9078 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
9079 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
9080 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
9081
9082 * New hosts supported (not targets)
9083
9084 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
9085
9086 * New targets supported (not hosts)
9087
9088 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
9089 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
9090 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
9091
9092 * New remote interfaces
9093
9094 AMD 29000 Adapt
9095 AMD 29000 Minimon
9096
9097
9098 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
9099
9100 * New Facilities
9101
9102 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
9103
9104 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
9105 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
9106 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
9107 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
9108 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
9109 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
9110 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
9111 stub on the target system.
9112
9113 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
9114
9115 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
9116 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
9117 object file types such as a.out and coff.
9118
9119 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
9120 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
9121
9122
9123 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
9124
9125 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
9126 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
9127
9128 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
9129 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
9130 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
9131
9132 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
9133 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
9134 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
9135 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
9136
9137 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
9138 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
9139 it is already running. Default is ON.
9140
9141 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
9142 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
9143 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
9144 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
9145 Default is ON.
9146
9147 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
9148 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
9149 or the value of the environment variable
9150 GDBHISTFILE.
9151
9152 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
9153 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
9154 HISTSIZE.
9155
9156 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
9157 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
9158 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
9159
9160 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
9161 history expansion will be performed on
9162 command line input. The default is OFF.
9163
9164 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
9165 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
9166 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
9167
9168 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
9169 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
9170 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
9171 variable TERM.
9172
9173 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
9174 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
9175 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
9176 variable TERM.
9177
9178 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
9179 ``set width'' instead.
9180
9181 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
9182 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
9183 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
9184 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
9185
9186 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
9187 is OFF.
9188
9189 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
9190 "raw" form if off.
9191
9192 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
9193 like instructions.
9194
9195 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
9196
9197
9198 * Support for Epoch Environment.
9199
9200 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
9201 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
9202 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
9203 window.
9204
9205
9206 * Support for Shared Libraries
9207
9208 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
9209 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
9210 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
9211 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
9212 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
9213 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
9214 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
9215 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
9216
9217 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
9218 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
9219 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
9220
9221 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
9222
9223
9224 * Watchpoints
9225
9226 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
9227 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
9228 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
9229 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
9230 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
9231 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
9232
9233 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
9234
9235 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
9236
9237 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
9238 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
9239 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
9240
9241
9242 * C++ multiple inheritance
9243
9244 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
9245 for C++ programs.
9246
9247 * C++ exception handling
9248
9249 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
9250 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
9251 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
9252 handler's context).
9253
9254 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
9255 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
9256 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
9257
9258 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
9259 current stack frame.
9260
9261
9262 * Minor command changes
9263
9264 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
9265 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
9266 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
9267
9268 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
9269 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
9270 frames without printing.
9271
9272 * New directory command
9273
9274 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
9275 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
9276 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
9277 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
9278 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
9279
9280 * Configuring GDB for compilation
9281
9282 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
9283 for more details.
9284
9285 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
9286 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
9287 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
9288 where the program that you are debugging will run.