1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 10
6 * GDB now supports general memory tagging functionality if the underlying
7 architecture supports the proper primitives and hooks. Currently this is
8 enabled only for AArch64 MTE.
12 - Additional information when the inferior crashes with a SIGSEGV caused by
13 a memory tag violation.
15 - A new modifier 'm' for the "x" command, which displays allocation tags for a
16 particular memory range.
18 - Display of memory tag mismatches by "print", for addresses and
19 pointers, if memory tagging is supported by the architecture.
21 * Building GDB now requires GMP (The GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic
26 ** '-break-insert --qualified' and '-dprintf-insert --qualified'
28 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
29 new "--qualified" option that makes GDB interpret a specified
30 function name as a complete fully-qualified name. This is the
31 equivalent of the CLI's "break -qualified" and "dprintf
34 ** '-break-insert --force-condition' and '-dprintf-insert --force-condition'
36 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
37 '--force-condition' flag to forcibly define a condition even when
38 the condition is invalid at all locations of the breakpoint. This
39 is equivalent to the '-force-condition' flag of the CLI's "break"
42 ** '-break-condition --force'
44 The MI -break-condition command now supports a '--force' flag to
45 forcibly define a condition even when the condition is invalid at
46 all locations of the selected breakpoint. This is equivalent to
47 the '-force' flag of the CLI's "cond" command.
49 * GDB now supports core file debugging for x86_64 Cygwin programs.
51 * GDB will now look for the .gdbinit file in a config directory before
52 looking for ~/.gdbinit. The file is searched for in the following
53 locations: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.config/gdb/gdbinit,
54 $HOME/.gdbinit. On Apple hosts the search order is instead:
55 $HOME/Library/Preferences/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.gdbinit.
57 * GDB now supports fixed point types which are described in DWARF
58 as base types with a fixed-point encoding. Additionally, support
59 for the DW_AT_GNU_numerator and DW_AT_GNU_denominator has also
62 For Ada, this allows support for fixed point types without requiring
63 the use of the GNAT encoding (based on information added to the type's
64 name following a GNAT-specific format).
66 * GDB will now load and process commands from ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit
67 or ~/.gdbearlyinit if these files are present. These files are
68 processed earlier than any of the other initialization files and
69 can affect parts of GDB's startup that previously had already been
70 completed before the initialization files were read, for example
71 styling of the initial GDB greeting.
73 * GDB now has two new options "--early-init-command" and
74 "--early-init-eval-command" with corresponding short options "-eix"
75 and "-eiex" that allow options (that would normally appear in a
76 gdbearlyinit file) to be passed on the command line.
82 Control the display of debug output about GDB's event loop.
84 set print memory-tag-violations
85 show print memory-tag-violations
86 Control whether to display additional information about memory tag violations
87 when printing pointers and addresses. Architecture support for memory
88 tagging is required for this option to have an effect.
90 maintenance flush symbol-cache
91 maintenance flush register-cache
92 These new commands are equivalent to the already existing commands
93 'maintenance flush-symbol-cache' and 'flushregs' respectively.
95 maintenance flush dcache
96 A new command to flush the dcache.
98 maintenance info target-sections
99 Print GDB's internal target sections table.
101 memory-tag show-logical-tag POINTER
102 Print the logical tag for POINTER.
103 memory-tag with-logical-tag POINTER TAG
104 Print POINTER with logical tag TAG.
105 memory-tag show-allocation-tag ADDRESS
106 Print the allocation tag for ADDRESS.
107 memory-tag set-allocation-tag ADDRESS LENGTH TAGS
108 Set the allocation tag for [ADDRESS, ADDRESS + LENGTH) to TAGS.
109 memory-tag check POINTER
110 Validate that POINTER's logical tag matches the allocation tag.
112 set startup-quietly on|off
114 When 'on', this causes GDB to act as if "-silent" were passed on the
115 command line. This command needs to be added to an early
116 initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to
119 set print type hex on|off
121 When 'on', the 'ptype' command uses hexadecimal notation to print sizes
122 and offsets of struct members. When 'off', decimal notation is used.
124 set python ignore-environment on|off
125 show python ignore-environment
126 When 'on', this causes GDB's builtin Python to ignore any
127 environment variables that would otherwise affect how Python
128 behaves. This command needs to be added to an early initialization
129 file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to affect GDB.
131 set python dont-write-bytecode auto|on|off
132 show python dont-write-bytecode
133 When 'on', this causes GDB's builtin Python to not write any
134 byte-code (.pyc files) to disk. This command needs to be added to
135 an early initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in
136 order to affect GDB. When 'off' byte-code will always be written.
137 When set to 'auto' (the default) Python will check the
138 PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE environment variable.
142 break [PROBE_MODIFIER] [LOCATION] [thread THREADNUM]
143 [-force-condition] [if CONDITION]
144 This command would previously refuse setting a breakpoint if the
145 CONDITION expression is invalid at a location. It now accepts and
146 defines the breakpoint if there is at least one location at which
147 the CONDITION is valid. The locations for which the CONDITION is
148 invalid, are automatically disabled. If CONDITION is invalid at all
149 of the locations, setting the breakpoint is still rejected. However,
150 the '-force-condition' flag can be used in this case for forcing GDB to
151 define the breakpoint, making all the current locations automatically
152 disabled. This may be useful if the user knows the condition will
153 become meaningful at a future location, e.g. due to a shared library
156 condition [-force] N COND
157 The behavior of this command is changed the same way for the 'break'
158 command as explained above. The '-force' flag can be used to force
159 GDB into defining the condition even when COND is invalid for all the
160 current locations of breakpoint N.
163 maintenance flush-symbol-cache
164 These commands are deprecated in favor of the new commands
165 'maintenance flush register-cache' and 'maintenance flush
166 symbol-cache' respectively.
168 set style version foreground COLOR
169 set style version background COLOR
170 set style version intensity VALUE
171 Control the styling of GDB's version number text.
174 When the ID parameter is omitted, then this command prints information
175 about the current inferior. When the ID parameter is present, the
176 behavior of the command is unchanged and have the inferior ID become
177 the current inferior.
179 maintenance info sections
180 The ALLOBJ keyword has been replaced with an -all-objects command
181 line flag. It is now possible to filter which sections are printed
182 even when -all-objects is passed.
184 ptype[/FLAGS] TYPE | EXPRESSION
185 The 'ptype' command has two new flags. When '/x' is set, hexadecimal
186 notation is used when printing sizes and offsets of struct members.
187 When '/d' is set, decimal notation is used when printing sizes and
188 offsets of struct members. Default behavior is given by 'show print
191 * Removed targets and native configurations
193 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
198 Request the remote to send allocation tags for a particular memory range.
200 Request the remote to store the specified allocation tags to the requested
205 ** Improved support for rvalue reference values:
206 TYPE_CODE_RVALUE_REF is now exported as part of the API and the
207 value-referenced-value procedure now handles rvalue reference
210 ** New procedures for obtaining value variants:
211 value-reference-value, value-rvalue-reference-value and
214 *** Changes in GDB 10
216 * There are new feature names for ARC targets: "org.gnu.gdb.arc.core"
217 and "org.gnu.gdb.arc.aux". The old names are still supported but
218 must be considered obsolete. They will be deprecated after some
221 * Help and apropos commands will now show the documentation of a
222 command only once, even if that command has one or more aliases.
223 These commands now show the command name, then all of its aliases,
224 and finally the description of the command.
226 * 'help aliases' now shows only the user defined aliases. GDB predefined
227 aliases are shown together with their aliased command.
229 * GDB now supports debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF
230 debugging information as well as source code.
232 When built with debuginfod, GDB can automatically query debuginfod
233 servers for the separate debug files and source code of the executable
236 To build GDB with debuginfod, pass --with-debuginfod to configure (this
237 requires libdebuginfod, the debuginfod client library).
239 debuginfod is distributed with elfutils, starting with version 0.178.
241 You can get the latest version from https://sourceware.org/elfutils.
243 * Multi-target debugging support
245 GDB now supports debugging multiple target connections
246 simultaneously. For example, you can now have each inferior
247 connected to different remote servers running in different machines,
248 or have one inferior debugging a local native process, an inferior
249 debugging a core dump, etc.
251 This support is experimental and comes with some limitations -- you
252 can only resume multiple targets simultaneously if all targets
253 support non-stop mode, and all remote stubs or servers must support
254 the same set of remote protocol features exactly. See also "info
255 connections" and "add-inferior -no-connection" below, and "maint set
256 target-non-stop" in the user manual.
258 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
260 ** GDBserver is now supported on ARC GNU/Linux.
262 ** GDBserver is now supported on RISC-V GNU/Linux.
264 ** GDBserver no longer supports these host triplets:
275 i[34567]86-*-mingw32ce*
277 * Debugging MS-Windows processes now sets $_exitsignal when the
278 inferior is terminated by a signal, instead of setting $_exitcode.
280 * Multithreaded symbol loading has now been enabled by default on systems
281 that support it (see entry for GDB 9, below), providing faster
282 performance for programs with many symbols.
284 * The $_siginfo convenience variable now also works on Windows targets,
285 and will display the EXCEPTION_RECORD of the last handled exception.
287 * TUI windows can now be arranged horizontally.
289 * The command history filename can now be set to the empty string
290 either using 'set history filename' or by setting 'GDBHISTFILE=' in
291 the environment. The effect of setting this filename to the empty
292 string is that GDB will not try to load any previous command
295 * On Windows targets, it is now possible to debug 32-bit programs with a
300 set exec-file-mismatch -- Set exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
301 show exec-file-mismatch -- Show exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
302 Set or show the option 'exec-file-mismatch'. When GDB attaches to a
303 running process, this new option indicates whether to detect
304 a mismatch between the current executable file loaded by GDB and the
305 executable file used to start the process. If 'ask', the default,
306 display a warning and ask the user whether to load the process
307 executable file; if 'warn', just display a warning; if 'off', don't
308 attempt to detect a mismatch.
310 tui new-layout NAME WINDOW WEIGHT [WINDOW WEIGHT]...
311 Define a new TUI layout, specifying its name and the windows that
314 maintenance print xml-tdesc [FILE]
315 Prints the current target description as an XML document. If the
316 optional FILE is provided (which is an XML target description) then
317 the target description is read from FILE into GDB, and then
320 maintenance print core-file-backed-mappings
321 Prints file-backed mappings loaded from a core file's note section.
322 Output is expected to be similar to that of "info proc mappings".
324 set debug fortran-array-slicing on|off
325 show debug fortran-array-slicing
326 Print debugging when taking slices of Fortran arrays.
328 set fortran repack-array-slices on|off
329 show fortran repack-array-slices
330 When taking slices from Fortran arrays and strings, if the slice is
331 non-contiguous within the original value then, when this option is
332 on, the new value will be repacked into a single contiguous value.
333 When this option is off, then the value returned will consist of a
334 descriptor that describes the slice within the memory of the
335 original parent value.
339 alias [-a] [--] ALIAS = COMMAND [DEFAULT-ARGS...]
340 The alias command can now specify default args for an alias.
341 GDB automatically prepends the alias default args to the argument list
342 provided explicitly by the user.
343 For example, to have a backtrace with full details, you can define
345 'alias bt_ALL = backtrace -entry-values both -frame-arg all
346 -past-main -past-entry -full'.
347 Alias default arguments can also use a set of nested 'with' commands,
348 e.g. 'alias pp10 = with print pretty -- with print elem 10 -- print'
349 defines the alias pp10 that will pretty print a maximum of 10 elements
350 of the given expression (if the expression is an array).
354 GNU/Linux/RISC-V (gdbserver) riscv*-*-linux*
359 ** gdb.register_window_type can be used to implement new TUI windows
362 ** Dynamic types can now be queried. gdb.Type has a new attribute,
363 "dynamic", and gdb.Type.sizeof can be None for a dynamic type. A
364 field of a dynamic type may have None for its "bitpos" attribute
367 ** Commands written in Python can be in the "TUI" help class by
368 registering with the new constant gdb.COMMAND_TUI.
370 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.architecture () to retrieve the
371 architecture of the pending frame.
373 ** New gdb.Architecture.registers method that returns a
374 gdb.RegisterDescriptorIterator object, an iterator that returns
375 gdb.RegisterDescriptor objects. The new RegisterDescriptor is a
376 way to query the registers available for an architecture.
378 ** New gdb.Architecture.register_groups method that returns a
379 gdb.RegisterGroupIterator object, an iterator that returns
380 gdb.RegisterGroup objects. The new RegisterGroup is a way to
381 discover the available register groups.
385 ** GDB can now be built with GNU Guile 3.0 and 2.2 in addition to 2.0.
387 ** Procedures 'memory-port-read-buffer-size',
388 'set-memory-port-read-buffer-size!', 'memory-port-write-buffer-size',
389 and 'set-memory-port-write-buffer-size!' are deprecated. When
390 using Guile 2.2 and later, users who need to control the size of
391 a memory port's internal buffer can use the 'setvbuf' procedure.
395 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
397 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
398 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
399 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
400 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
401 such as in system-wide init files.
403 * New built-in convenience functions $_gdb_setting, $_gdb_setting_str,
404 $_gdb_maint_setting and $_gdb_maint_setting_str provide access to values
405 of the GDB settings and the GDB maintenance settings. They are handy
406 for changing the logic of user defined commands depending on the
407 current GDB settings.
409 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
410 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
411 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
412 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
414 * Support for Pointer Authentication (PAC) on AArch64 Linux. Return
415 addresses that required unmasking are shown in the backtrace with the
418 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
419 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
421 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
422 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
423 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
425 * The command define-prefix can now define user defined prefix commands.
426 User defined commands can now be defined using these user defined prefix
429 * Command names can now use the . character.
431 * The RX port now supports XML target descriptions.
433 * GDB now shows the Ada task names at more places, e.g. in task switching
436 * GDB can now be compiled with Python 3 on Windows.
438 * New convenience variable $_ada_exception holds the address of the
439 Ada exception being thrown. This is set by Ada-related catchpoints.
441 * GDB can now place breakpoints on nested functions and subroutines in
442 Fortran code. The '::' operator can be used between parent and
443 child scopes when placing breakpoints, for example:
445 (gdb) break outer_function::inner_function
447 The 'outer_function::' prefix is only needed if 'inner_function' is
448 not visible in the current scope.
450 * In addition to the system-wide gdbinit file, if configured with
451 --with-system-gdbinit-dir, GDB will now also load files in that directory
452 as system gdbinit files, unless the -nx or -n flag is provided. Files
453 with extensions .gdb, .py and .scm are supported as long as GDB was
454 compiled with support for that language.
456 * GDB now supports multithreaded symbol loading for higher performance.
457 This feature is still in testing, so it is disabled by default. You
458 can turn it on using 'maint set worker-threads unlimited'.
462 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
463 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
464 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
465 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
466 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
468 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
471 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
472 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
473 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
476 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
477 symbols with static linkage.
479 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbols can be used to look up
480 all static symbols with static linkage.
482 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
483 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
485 ** gdb.Block now supports the dictionary syntax for accessing symbols in
486 this block (e.g. block['local_variable']).
490 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
491 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
492 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
493 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
494 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
495 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
496 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
498 define-prefix COMMAND
499 Define or mark a command as a user-defined prefix command.
501 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
502 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
503 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
504 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
505 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
506 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
507 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
508 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
509 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
510 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
511 of array elements to print.
513 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
514 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
516 set may-call-functions [on|off]
517 show may-call-functions
518 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
519 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
520 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
521 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
522 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
523 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
526 set print finish [on|off]
528 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
529 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
530 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
535 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
536 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
537 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
538 the old behavior back.
540 set print raw-values [on|off]
541 show print raw-values
542 By default, GDB applies the enabled pretty printers when printing a
543 value. This allows to ignore the enabled pretty printers for a series
544 of commands. The default is 'off'.
546 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
547 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
548 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
550 set style title foreground COLOR
551 set style title background COLOR
552 set style title intensity VALUE
553 Control the styling of titles.
555 set style highlight foreground COLOR
556 set style highlight background COLOR
557 set style highlight intensity VALUE
558 Control the styling of highlightings.
560 maint set worker-threads
561 maint show worker-threads
562 Control the number of worker threads that can be used by GDB. The
563 default is 0. "unlimited" lets GDB choose a number that is
564 reasonable. Currently worker threads are only used when demangling
565 the names of linker symbols.
567 set style tui-border foreground COLOR
568 set style tui-border background COLOR
569 Control the styling of TUI borders.
571 set style tui-active-border foreground COLOR
572 set style tui-active-border background COLOR
573 Control the styling of the active TUI border.
575 maint set test-settings KIND
576 maint show test-settings KIND
577 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
580 maint set tui-resize-message [on|off]
581 maint show tui-resize-message
582 Control whether GDB prints a message each time the terminal is
583 resized when in TUI mode. This is primarily useful for testing the
586 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
587 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
588 show print frame-info
589 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
590 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
591 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
592 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
594 set tui compact-source
595 show tui compact-source
597 Enable the "compact" display mode for the TUI source window. The
598 compact display uses only as much space as is needed for the line
599 numbers in the current file, and only a single space to separate the
600 line numbers from the source.
602 info modules [-q] [REGEXP]
603 Return a list of Fortran modules matching REGEXP, or all modules if
606 info module functions [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
607 Return a list of functions within all modules, grouped by module.
608 The list of functions can be restricted with the optional regular
609 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
610 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the function type signature, and REGEXP
611 matches against the function name.
613 info module variables [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
614 Return a list of variables within all modules, grouped by module.
615 The list of variables can be restricted with the optional regular
616 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
617 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the variable type, and REGEXP matches
618 against the variable name.
620 set debug remote-packet-max-chars
621 show debug remote-packet-max-chars
622 Controls the number of characters to output in a remote packet when using
624 The default is 512 bytes.
627 Lists the target connections currently in use.
632 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
633 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
637 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
638 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
639 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
640 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
641 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
645 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
646 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
647 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
648 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
650 info sources [-dirname | -basename] [--] [REGEXP]
651 This command has now optional arguments to only print the files
652 whose names match REGEXP. The arguments -dirname and -basename
653 allow to restrict matching respectively to the dirname and basename
657 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
658 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
659 the user visualize the different styles.
661 set print frame-arguments
662 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
663 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
665 set print raw-frame-arguments
666 show print raw-frame-arguments
668 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
669 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
670 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
673 add-inferior [-no-connection]
674 The add-inferior command now supports a "-no-connection" flag that
675 makes the new inferior start with no target connection associated.
676 By default, the new inferior inherits the target connection of the
677 current inferior. See also "info connections".
680 This command's output now includes a new "Connection" column
681 indicating which target connection an inferior is bound to. See
682 "info connections" above.
684 maint test-options require-delimiter
685 maint test-options unknown-is-error
686 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
687 maint show test-options-completion-result
688 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
691 focus, winheight, +, -, >, <
692 These commands are now case-sensitive.
694 * New command options, command completion
696 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
697 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
698 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
699 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
700 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
701 number of commands got support for new command options in this
704 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
705 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
706 set by "set print" subcommands:
710 -array-indexes [on|off]
711 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
716 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
717 -static-members [on|off]
722 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
723 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
724 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
725 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
727 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
728 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
729 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
731 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
732 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
733 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
734 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
735 |location-and-address|short-location
739 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
740 exposed as command options too:
746 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
747 support the following options:
752 ** The new "info sources" options -dirname and -basename options
753 are using the standard '-OPT' infrastructure.
755 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
756 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
757 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
760 (gdb) p -ra -p -o 0 -- *myptr
762 The above is equivalent to:
764 (gdb) print -raw-values -pretty -object off -- *myptr
766 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
767 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
768 variables" and "info functions".
770 ** The "info variables", "info functions", and "whereis" commands
771 now take a '-n' flag that excludes non-debug symbols (symbols
772 from the symbol table, not from the debug info such as DWARF)
775 * Completion improvements
777 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
778 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
781 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
782 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
785 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
786 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
787 completes on filenames.
789 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
790 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
792 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
794 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
800 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
801 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
802 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
804 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
805 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
806 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
808 -symbol-info-functions, -symbol-info-types, and -symbol-info-variables
809 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
810 functions', 'info types', and 'info variables' respectively.
812 -symbol-info-modules, this is the MI equivalent of the CLI 'info
815 -symbol-info-module-functions and -symbol-info-module-variables.
816 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
817 module functions' and 'info module variables'.
821 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
823 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
824 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
825 the following commands and events:
829 - =breakpoint-created
830 - =breakpoint-modified
832 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
833 this behavior with previous MI versions.
835 ** Backtraces and frames include a new optional field addr_flags which is
836 given after the addr field. On AArch64 this contains PAC if the address
837 has been masked in the frame. On all other targets the field is not
842 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
843 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
844 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
845 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
847 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.82.
849 Using another implementation of the make program or an earlier version of
850 GNU make to build GDB or GDBserver is not supported.
852 * Building GDB now requires GNU readline >= 7.0.
854 GDB now bundles GNU readline 8.0, but if you choose to use
855 --with-system-readline, only readline >= 7.0 can be used.
857 * The TUI SingleKey keymap is now named "SingleKey". This can be used
858 from .inputrc to bind keys in this keymap. This feature is only
859 available when gdb is built against GNU readline 8.0 or later.
861 * Removed targets and native configurations
863 GDB no longer supports debugging the Cell Broadband Engine. This includes
864 both debugging standalone Cell/B.E. SPU applications and integrated debugging
865 of Cell/B.E. applications that use both the PPU and SPU architectures.
871 * Removed targets and native configurations
873 Solaris 10 i?86-*-solaris2.10, x86_64-*-solaris2.10,
876 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
878 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
879 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
882 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
883 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
884 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
887 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
890 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
891 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
892 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
894 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
895 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
897 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
898 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
899 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
900 in the GDB user manual.
902 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
905 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
907 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
908 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
909 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
910 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
911 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
912 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
913 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
914 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
915 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
916 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
917 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
918 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
920 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
921 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
922 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
925 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
930 set debug compile-cplus-types
931 show debug compile-cplus-types
932 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
933 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiling
938 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
941 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
942 Apply a command to some frames.
943 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
944 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
947 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
948 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
951 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
952 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
955 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
957 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
959 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
960 maint show dwarf unwinders
961 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
964 Display a list of open files for a process.
968 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
969 These commands all now take a frame specification which
970 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
971 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
972 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
973 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
974 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
976 target remote FILENAME
977 target extended-remote FILENAME
978 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
979 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
981 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
982 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
983 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
984 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
985 These commands can now print only the searched entities
986 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
987 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
988 printing headers or informations messages.
994 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
995 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
996 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
999 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
1000 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
1001 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
1002 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
1004 set tui tab-width NCHARS
1005 show tui tab-width NCHARS
1006 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
1008 set style enabled [on|off]
1010 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
1011 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
1013 set style sources [on|off]
1015 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
1016 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
1017 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
1019 set style filename foreground COLOR
1020 set style filename background COLOR
1021 set style filename intensity VALUE
1022 Control the styling of file names.
1024 set style function foreground COLOR
1025 set style function background COLOR
1026 set style function intensity VALUE
1027 Control the styling of function names.
1029 set style variable foreground COLOR
1030 set style variable background COLOR
1031 set style variable intensity VALUE
1032 Control the styling of variable names.
1034 set style address foreground COLOR
1035 set style address background COLOR
1036 set style address intensity VALUE
1037 Control the styling of addresses.
1041 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
1042 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
1043 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
1044 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
1045 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
1047 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
1048 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
1050 * New native configurations
1052 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
1053 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
1057 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
1058 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
1059 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
1060 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
1062 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
1066 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
1071 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
1073 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
1074 space associated to that inferior.
1076 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
1077 of objfiles associated to that program space.
1079 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
1080 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
1083 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
1084 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
1085 correct and did not work properly.
1087 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
1088 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
1094 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
1095 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
1096 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
1097 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
1098 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
1100 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
1102 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
1103 for the MIPS target.
1105 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
1106 offset to all sections.
1108 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
1109 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
1110 address of individual sections using '-s'.
1112 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
1113 (address of the text section).
1115 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
1116 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
1117 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
1118 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
1121 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
1122 for the rest of the current command.
1124 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
1125 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
1127 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
1128 files created on FreeBSD systems.
1130 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
1133 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
1134 the vector length while the process is running.
1140 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
1142 set|show varsize-limit
1143 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
1144 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
1145 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
1147 set|show record btrace cpu
1148 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
1149 branch trace decode.
1151 maint check libthread-db
1152 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
1155 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
1156 maint show check-libthread-db
1157 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
1158 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
1159 perform such checks.
1163 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
1165 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
1166 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
1168 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
1170 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
1171 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
1172 of convenience variables.
1174 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
1175 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
1176 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
1180 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
1182 * Removed targets and native configurations
1184 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
1185 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
1186 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
1187 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
1189 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
1191 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
1192 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
1193 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
1194 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
1195 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
1196 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
1201 --enable-codesign=CERT
1202 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
1203 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
1204 gdb to work properly.
1206 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
1207 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
1209 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
1211 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
1212 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
1213 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
1215 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
1216 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
1218 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
1219 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
1220 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
1221 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
1222 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
1224 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
1225 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
1226 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
1227 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
1229 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
1230 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
1232 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
1233 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
1234 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
1236 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
1237 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
1238 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
1240 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
1241 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
1242 environment" command.
1244 * Completion improvements
1246 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
1247 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
1248 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
1249 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
1252 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
1253 (gdb) b function(int)
1255 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
1256 C++ anonymous namespaces:
1259 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
1260 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
1261 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
1263 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
1264 completion support, that better understands what you're
1265 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
1266 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
1267 setting a breakpoint.
1269 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
1271 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
1273 * New command line options (gcore)
1276 Dump all memory mappings.
1278 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
1280 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
1281 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
1282 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
1284 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
1289 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
1292 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
1293 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
1294 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
1295 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
1296 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
1297 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
1298 a breakpoint from Python.
1300 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1302 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1303 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
1304 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
1306 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
1308 function[abi:cxx11](int)
1311 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
1314 (gdb) b function(int)
1316 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
1318 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
1320 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
1324 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
1325 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
1326 description of these.
1328 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
1329 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
1330 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
1332 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
1333 manual for a further description of this feature.
1336 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1338 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
1339 specified initial working directory.
1341 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
1342 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
1344 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
1345 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
1347 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
1348 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
1350 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
1351 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
1352 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
1353 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
1354 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
1356 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
1357 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
1358 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
1360 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
1361 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
1362 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
1363 in the *stopped notification.
1365 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
1366 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
1368 * New remote packets
1370 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
1371 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
1372 the inferior when starting it.
1375 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
1376 before starting the remote inferior.
1379 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
1380 user-set environment variables should be unset).
1383 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
1386 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
1389 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
1390 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
1392 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
1393 filter the tests to be run.
1395 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
1396 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
1401 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
1403 set|show compile-gcc
1404 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
1405 with the 'compile' commands.
1407 set debug separate-debug-file
1408 show debug separate-debug-file
1409 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
1411 set dump-excluded-mappings
1412 show dump-excluded-mappings
1413 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
1414 dumped when generating a core file.
1416 maint info selftests
1417 List the registered selftests.
1420 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
1423 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
1425 set|show print type nested-type-limit
1426 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
1427 type printer will show.
1429 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
1432 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
1434 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
1437 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
1438 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
1439 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
1440 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
1442 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
1443 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
1444 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
1445 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
1446 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
1447 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
1449 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
1450 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
1451 unless you tell it the variable's type:
1454 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
1458 * New native configurations
1460 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
1461 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
1465 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
1466 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
1467 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
1469 * Removed targets and native configurations
1471 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
1473 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
1475 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
1476 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
1477 available in future Intel CPUs.
1479 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
1483 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
1484 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
1486 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
1489 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
1491 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
1493 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
1494 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
1497 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
1499 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
1500 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
1502 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
1504 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
1505 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
1506 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
1507 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
1510 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
1512 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
1513 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
1516 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
1518 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
1519 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
1521 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
1523 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
1528 eval "print $arg%d", $i
1533 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
1535 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
1536 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
1538 * New native configurations
1540 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1544 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
1545 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1547 * Removed targets and native configurations
1549 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1550 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
1555 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
1557 maint print arc arc-instruction address
1558 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
1562 set disassembler-options
1563 show disassembler-options
1564 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
1565 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
1566 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
1567 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
1568 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
1573 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
1574 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
1576 -file-list-shared-libraries
1577 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
1578 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
1581 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
1582 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
1584 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
1586 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
1588 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
1589 default. One must now explicitly configure with
1590 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
1591 option will be removed in a future release.
1593 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
1596 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
1597 memory backward from the given address. For example:
1600 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
1601 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
1602 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
1603 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
1604 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
1605 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
1606 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
1607 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
1608 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
1610 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
1611 arrays of dynamic types.
1613 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
1614 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1615 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1616 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1617 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1618 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
1620 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
1623 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
1624 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
1625 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
1627 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
1629 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
1630 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
1631 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
1632 signal received and code location.
1636 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
1637 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
1638 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
1639 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
1641 * Rust language support.
1642 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
1643 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
1646 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
1648 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
1649 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
1650 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
1651 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
1652 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
1653 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
1654 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
1655 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
1656 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
1657 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
1660 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
1662 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
1663 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
1668 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
1669 skip -function function
1670 skip -rfunction regular-expression
1671 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
1672 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
1673 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
1675 maint info line-table REGEXP
1676 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data structure.
1679 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
1682 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
1683 using the TTY file for input/output.
1687 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
1688 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
1689 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
1690 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
1691 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
1693 signal-event EVENTID
1694 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
1695 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
1696 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
1697 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
1698 signalling an event.
1700 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
1701 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
1702 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
1704 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
1707 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
1708 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
1709 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
1710 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
1711 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
1712 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
1714 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
1715 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
1716 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
1717 bytecode into native code.
1719 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
1720 recording. For example:
1722 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
1724 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
1726 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
1730 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
1732 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
1734 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
1736 * Per-inferior thread numbers
1738 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
1739 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
1740 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
1744 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
1745 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
1746 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
1747 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
1749 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
1750 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
1751 are no longer unique between inferiors.
1753 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
1754 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
1755 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
1757 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
1760 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
1761 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
1764 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
1767 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
1768 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
1769 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
1770 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
1773 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
1776 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
1779 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
1782 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
1783 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
1786 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
1787 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
1789 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
1791 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
1793 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
1794 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
1796 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
1797 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
1800 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1801 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
1804 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
1805 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
1808 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1810 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
1811 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
1812 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
1814 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
1815 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
1819 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
1820 maint show target-non-stop
1821 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
1822 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
1823 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
1825 maint set bfd-sharing
1826 maint show bfd-sharing
1827 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
1830 show debug bfd-cache
1831 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
1835 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
1837 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1838 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1839 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
1841 set remote thread-events
1842 show remote thread-events
1843 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
1845 set ada print-signatures on|off
1846 show ada print-signatures"
1847 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
1848 selection menus. It is activated (@code{on}) by default.
1852 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
1853 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
1854 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
1856 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1857 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
1858 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
1859 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
1860 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
1861 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
1863 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1864 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
1866 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
1867 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
1869 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
1871 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
1872 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
1873 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
1874 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
1875 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
1876 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
1878 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
1879 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1882 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1884 * New remote packets
1887 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1889 exec-events feature in qSupported
1890 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1891 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1892 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1893 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1896 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1899 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1900 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1902 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1903 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1906 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1907 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1908 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1909 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1910 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1911 stop for that same thread.
1914 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1915 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1916 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1919 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1920 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1922 syscall_entry stop reason
1923 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1925 syscall_return stop reason
1926 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1928 * Extended-remote exec events
1930 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1931 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1932 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1934 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1935 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1936 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1938 * Thread names in remote protocol
1940 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1943 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1945 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1946 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1947 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1948 fork and exec catchpoints.
1950 * Remote syscall events
1952 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1953 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1955 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1956 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1957 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1961 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1962 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1967 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1968 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1969 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1970 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1971 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1972 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1974 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1976 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1977 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1978 including advance SIMD instructions.
1980 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1982 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1983 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1984 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1985 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1986 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1987 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1988 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1990 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1992 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1994 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1995 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1998 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1999 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
2000 and may include things like its command line arguments.
2002 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
2003 is now available on all platforms.
2005 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
2006 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
2007 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
2008 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
2009 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
2010 backward compatibility.
2012 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
2013 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
2014 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
2015 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
2017 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
2018 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
2019 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
2020 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
2023 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
2025 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
2027 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
2028 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
2029 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
2030 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
2031 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
2032 See "New remote packets" below.
2034 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
2035 available register groups, including target specific groups.
2037 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
2038 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
2039 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
2040 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
2045 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
2049 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
2050 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
2051 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
2052 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
2053 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
2054 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
2055 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
2056 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
2057 "const" version of the value respectively.
2061 maint print symbol-cache
2062 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
2064 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
2065 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
2067 maint flush-symbol-cache
2068 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
2072 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
2075 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
2079 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
2082 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
2083 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
2087 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
2090 Print information about branch tracing internals.
2092 maint btrace packet-history
2093 Print the raw branch tracing data.
2095 maint btrace clear-packet-history
2096 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
2099 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
2100 anew by the next "record" command.
2105 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
2106 show debug dwarf-die
2107 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
2109 set debug dwarf-read
2110 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
2111 show debug dwarf-read
2112 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
2114 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
2115 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
2116 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
2117 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
2119 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
2120 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
2121 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
2122 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
2124 set debug dwarf-line
2125 show debug dwarf-line
2126 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
2129 show max-completions
2130 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
2131 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
2132 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
2133 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
2135 set history remove-duplicates
2136 show history remove-duplicates
2137 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
2139 maint set symbol-cache-size
2140 maint show symbol-cache-size
2141 Control the size of the symbol cache.
2143 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
2144 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
2146 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
2147 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
2149 set debug linux-namespaces
2150 show debug linux-namespaces
2151 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
2153 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
2154 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
2155 Intel Processor Trace format.
2156 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
2157 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
2159 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
2160 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
2163 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
2164 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
2166 * Python/Guile scripting
2168 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
2169 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
2171 * New remote packets
2173 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
2174 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
2176 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
2177 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
2180 Enable Intel Processor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
2181 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
2184 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
2185 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
2189 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
2190 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
2191 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
2195 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
2196 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
2199 Return information about files on the remote system.
2201 qXfer:exec-file:read
2202 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
2203 create a process running on the remote system.
2206 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
2207 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
2208 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
2209 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
2212 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
2215 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
2217 vforkdone stop reason
2218 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
2219 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
2221 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
2222 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
2223 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
2224 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
2225 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
2226 whether these features are enabled.
2228 * Extended-remote fork events
2230 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
2231 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
2232 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
2233 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
2235 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
2236 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
2237 the btrace record target.
2238 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
2240 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
2241 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
2243 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
2246 * Removed command line options
2248 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
2250 * Removed targets and native configurations
2252 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
2253 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
2255 * New configure options
2258 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
2259 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
2261 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
2262 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
2263 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
2264 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
2266 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
2270 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
2272 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
2274 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
2278 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
2279 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
2280 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
2281 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
2282 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
2283 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
2284 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
2285 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
2286 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
2287 selecting a new file to debug.
2288 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
2289 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
2291 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
2294 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
2295 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
2296 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
2297 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
2299 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2301 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2302 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2303 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2304 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2306 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
2307 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
2308 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
2309 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
2310 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
2311 interface with this new feature are:
2313 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
2314 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
2318 demangle [-l language] [--] name
2319 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
2320 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
2321 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
2322 as "maint demangler-warning".
2324 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
2325 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
2327 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
2328 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
2331 maint print user-registers
2332 List all currently available "user" registers.
2334 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
2335 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
2336 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
2338 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
2339 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
2340 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
2343 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
2344 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
2345 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
2346 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
2349 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
2350 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
2351 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
2352 switched threads meanwhile.
2354 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
2356 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
2357 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
2358 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
2359 is now the default mode.
2363 set debug symbol-lookup
2364 show debug symbol-lookup
2365 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
2369 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
2370 inferiors that have exited.
2374 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
2378 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2380 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
2381 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
2382 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
2383 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
2384 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
2386 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2387 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2388 its alias "share", instead.
2390 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
2392 * New command line options
2395 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
2397 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
2398 as specified in ISO C99.
2400 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
2401 with or without disassembly.
2405 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
2406 available is determined at configure time.
2407 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
2408 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
2410 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2414 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
2418 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
2420 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
2421 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
2423 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
2424 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
2428 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
2429 show print symbol-loading
2430 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
2431 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
2432 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
2433 becomes less useful.
2435 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
2436 show guile print-stack
2437 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
2439 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
2440 show auto-load guile-scripts
2441 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
2443 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
2444 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
2445 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
2446 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
2447 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
2448 usage of this option.
2450 set auto-connect-native-target
2452 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
2453 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
2454 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
2456 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
2457 show record btrace replay-memory-access
2458 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
2460 maint set target-async (on|off)
2461 maint show target-async
2462 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
2463 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
2464 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
2465 occurring only in synchronous mode.
2467 set mi-async (on|off)
2469 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
2470 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
2472 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
2473 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
2475 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
2476 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
2477 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
2478 "set target-async on" command.
2480 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2482 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
2483 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
2484 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
2485 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
2486 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
2488 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
2489 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
2490 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
2492 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
2493 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
2494 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
2495 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
2496 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
2497 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
2498 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
2500 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
2501 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
2503 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
2504 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
2505 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
2507 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
2508 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
2509 memory or registers.
2511 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
2513 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
2514 remote. It now works with all targets.
2516 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
2517 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
2518 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
2519 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
2520 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
2521 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
2522 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
2523 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
2524 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
2527 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
2528 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
2529 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
2531 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
2533 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
2534 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
2535 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
2537 * New remote packets
2539 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
2540 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
2541 branch trace incrementally.
2545 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
2546 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
2548 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
2549 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
2550 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
2551 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
2552 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
2555 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
2557 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2558 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2559 its alias "share", instead.
2561 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
2562 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
2567 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
2568 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
2569 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
2570 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
2571 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
2572 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
2573 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
2574 commands and CLI execution commands.
2576 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
2578 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
2579 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
2580 recording has been added.
2582 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2584 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
2585 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
2587 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
2588 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
2589 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
2590 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
2591 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
2592 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
2595 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
2597 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
2599 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
2600 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
2601 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
2602 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
2607 (gdb) info registers rax
2610 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
2611 "*value not available*".
2613 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
2618 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
2619 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
2620 ** Line tables representation has been added.
2621 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
2622 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
2623 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
2627 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
2628 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
2629 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
2631 * Removed native configurations
2633 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
2634 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
2636 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2637 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2638 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
2639 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
2640 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2641 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2642 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2646 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
2647 maint check-psymtabs
2648 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
2650 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
2651 maint expand-symtabs
2652 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
2655 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2657 maint set|show per-command
2658 maint set|show per-command space
2659 maint set|show per-command time
2660 maint set|show per-command symtab
2661 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
2663 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
2664 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
2665 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
2666 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
2667 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
2670 info exceptions REGEXP
2671 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
2672 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
2677 set debug symfile off|on
2679 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
2680 symbol tables within those files
2682 set print raw frame-arguments
2683 show print raw frame-arguments
2684 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
2685 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
2687 set remote trace-status-packet
2688 show remote trace-status-packet
2689 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
2693 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
2697 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
2699 set startup-with-shell
2700 show startup-with-shell
2701 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
2706 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
2707 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
2709 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
2710 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
2711 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
2712 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
2715 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
2716 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
2717 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
2719 * New command-line options
2721 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2723 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
2724 buffer in Common Trace Format.
2726 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
2729 * GDB now implements the C++ 'typeid' operator.
2731 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
2732 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
2734 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
2735 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
2737 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
2738 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
2739 due to an uncaught signal.
2743 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
2744 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
2745 command, which should contain "language-option".
2747 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
2748 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
2750 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
2751 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
2752 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
2753 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2754 "undefined-command-error-code".
2756 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
2759 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
2761 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
2762 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
2765 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
2766 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
2768 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
2769 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
2770 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
2772 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
2773 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
2774 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
2775 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
2776 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2777 "exec-run-start-option".
2779 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
2780 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
2782 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
2783 the new "info exceptions" command.
2785 * New system-wide configuration scripts
2786 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
2787 configuration scripts for the following systems:
2791 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
2792 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
2793 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
2796 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
2797 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
2799 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
2800 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
2801 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
2803 * New remote packets
2807 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
2808 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
2809 involvemement at each single-step.
2811 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
2812 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
2813 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
2814 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
2815 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
2816 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
2819 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2821 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
2822 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
2824 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
2825 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
2826 trace state variables.
2828 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
2831 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
2832 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
2834 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
2836 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
2837 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
2838 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
2839 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2841 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
2843 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
2844 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
2845 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
2846 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
2848 set|show record full insn-number-max
2849 set|show record full stop-at-limit
2850 set|show record full memory-query
2852 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
2853 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
2854 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
2855 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
2856 This new recording method can be enabled using:
2860 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
2861 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
2863 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
2864 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
2865 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
2867 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
2868 instruction granularity
2870 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
2871 function granularity
2873 * New native configurations
2875 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
2876 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
2877 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2878 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2882 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2883 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2884 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2885 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2886 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2888 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2889 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2890 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2891 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2892 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2893 --data-directory command-line option.
2895 * New command line options:
2897 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2898 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2900 * Removed command line options
2902 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2905 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2908 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2912 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2914 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2916 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2918 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2920 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2921 of architecture in the Python API.
2923 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2924 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2926 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2928 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2929 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2931 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2933 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2936 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2937 default for GCC since November 2000.
2939 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2941 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2942 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2944 * New configure options
2946 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2947 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2948 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2949 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2950 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2951 options allow the user to override that default.
2952 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2953 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2954 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2956 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2959 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2960 conditions to be attached.
2963 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2965 python-interactive [command]
2967 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2968 and print the result of expressions.
2971 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2973 enable type-printer [name]...
2974 disable type-printer [name]...
2975 Enable or disable type printers.
2979 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2980 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2985 set print type methods (on|off)
2986 show print type methods
2987 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2988 The default is to show them.
2990 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2991 show print type typedefs
2992 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2993 The default is to show them.
2995 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2996 show filename-display
2997 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2998 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
3000 set trace-buffer-size
3001 show trace-buffer-size
3002 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
3004 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
3005 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
3006 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
3010 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
3013 set debug coff-pe-read
3014 show debug coff-pe-read
3015 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
3020 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
3023 set debug notification
3024 show debug notification
3025 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
3029 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
3030 "=cmd-param-changed".
3031 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
3032 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
3033 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
3034 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
3035 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
3036 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
3037 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
3038 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
3040 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
3041 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
3042 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
3043 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
3044 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
3045 library load/unload events.
3046 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
3047 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
3048 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
3049 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
3050 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
3051 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
3052 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
3053 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
3055 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
3056 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
3057 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
3058 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
3060 * New remote packets
3063 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
3064 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
3067 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
3068 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
3072 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
3073 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
3076 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
3077 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
3079 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
3081 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
3082 for more x32 ABI info.
3084 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
3086 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
3088 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
3089 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
3090 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
3091 "info os files" lists file descriptors
3092 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
3093 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
3094 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
3095 "info os msg" lists message queues
3096 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
3098 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
3099 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
3100 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
3101 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
3102 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
3103 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
3105 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
3106 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
3107 record/replay support.
3109 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
3113 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
3116 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
3118 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
3119 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
3121 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
3123 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
3124 the source at which the symbol was defined.
3126 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
3127 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
3128 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
3131 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
3132 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
3134 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
3135 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
3136 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
3138 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
3139 object associated with a PC value.
3141 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
3142 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
3144 * Go language support.
3145 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
3148 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
3149 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
3151 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
3152 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
3154 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
3155 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
3156 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
3157 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
3158 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
3161 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
3162 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
3163 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
3164 build/libcpp/expr.c.
3166 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
3167 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
3169 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
3170 since December 2007.
3172 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
3173 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
3174 command does. For instance:
3176 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
3178 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
3179 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
3180 created, using the "condition" command.
3182 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
3183 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
3185 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
3187 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
3188 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
3189 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
3190 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
3191 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
3192 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
3193 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
3194 files with older .gdb_index sections.
3196 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
3197 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
3198 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
3199 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
3200 the .gdb_index section.
3202 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
3204 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
3209 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
3211 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
3215 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
3216 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
3217 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
3219 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
3220 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
3222 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
3225 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
3226 C++ and Java objects.
3228 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
3229 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
3230 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
3231 configured with '--with-python'.
3233 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
3234 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
3235 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
3236 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
3237 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
3238 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
3239 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
3241 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
3242 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
3243 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
3244 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
3246 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
3247 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
3248 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
3249 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
3251 ** "set print symbol"
3253 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
3254 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
3255 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
3257 * Deprecated commands
3259 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
3260 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
3264 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3265 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
3267 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
3268 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
3269 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
3270 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
3275 set mips compression
3276 show mips compression
3277 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
3278 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
3281 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
3283 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
3284 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
3285 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
3286 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
3288 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
3292 Disable auto-loading globally.
3295 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
3297 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
3298 show auto-load gdb-scripts
3299 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
3301 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
3302 show auto-load python-scripts
3303 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
3305 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
3306 show auto-load local-gdbinit
3307 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
3309 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
3310 show auto-load libthread-db
3311 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
3313 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3314 show auto-load scripts-directory
3315 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
3316 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
3317 of the directories listed by this option.
3318 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3320 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3321 show auto-load safe-path
3322 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
3323 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3325 set debug auto-load on|off
3326 show debug auto-load
3327 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
3329 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
3331 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
3332 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
3333 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
3334 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
3336 set dprintf-function <expr>
3337 show dprintf-function
3338 set dprintf-channel <expr>
3339 show dprintf-channel
3340 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
3341 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
3343 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
3344 show disconnected-dprintf
3345 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
3346 after GDB disconnects.
3348 * New configure options
3350 --with-auto-load-dir
3351 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
3352 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
3353 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
3354 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
3355 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
3357 --with-auto-load-safe-path
3358 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
3359 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
3361 --without-auto-load-safe-path
3362 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
3365 * New remote packets
3367 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
3369 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
3370 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
3371 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
3372 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
3376 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
3377 program without GDB involvement.
3379 * New command line options
3381 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
3382 before loading inferior.
3383 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
3384 execute it before loading inferior.
3386 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
3388 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
3389 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
3390 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
3391 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
3394 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
3395 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
3397 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
3398 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
3399 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
3400 target hardware watchpoint.
3402 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
3403 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
3404 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
3405 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
3409 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
3410 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
3413 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
3414 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
3415 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
3416 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
3417 now "message", which just prints the error message without
3420 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3423 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
3424 modules library. This module provides functionality for
3425 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
3426 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
3427 corresponding value.
3429 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
3430 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
3431 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
3434 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
3435 static_block will return the global and static blocks
3436 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
3437 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
3439 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
3441 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
3444 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
3445 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
3446 available in the CLI.
3448 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
3449 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
3450 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
3451 "some_type.items()".
3453 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
3456 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
3457 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
3458 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
3459 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
3460 any anonymous fields.
3464 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
3467 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
3468 "=breakpoint-modified".
3470 ** New command -ada-task-info.
3472 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
3473 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
3474 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
3477 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
3478 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
3479 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
3480 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
3481 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
3483 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
3484 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
3486 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
3487 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
3488 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
3489 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
3490 use this option to specify where to find it.
3492 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3493 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
3494 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
3495 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
3496 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
3497 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3498 section in the user manual for more details.
3500 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
3501 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
3502 become available after that.
3504 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
3506 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
3507 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
3513 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
3514 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
3518 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
3519 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
3520 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
3522 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
3523 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
3524 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
3526 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
3527 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
3528 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
3529 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
3530 name starts with a hyphen.
3532 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
3533 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
3534 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
3535 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
3536 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
3537 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
3538 number of bytes that will be collected.
3541 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
3542 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
3543 setting the variable trace-notes.
3546 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
3547 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
3548 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
3551 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
3552 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
3553 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
3554 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
3555 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
3558 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
3559 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
3560 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
3564 set debug dwarf2-read
3565 show debug dwarf2-read
3566 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
3567 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
3569 set debug symtab-create
3570 show debug symtab-create
3571 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
3572 creation. The default is off.
3575 show extended-prompt
3576 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
3577 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
3578 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
3579 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
3580 prompt is displayed.
3582 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
3583 show print entry-values
3584 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
3585 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
3586 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
3588 set debug entry-values
3589 show debug entry-values
3590 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
3591 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
3593 set basenames-may-differ
3594 show basenames-may-differ
3595 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
3596 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
3597 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
3598 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
3599 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
3600 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
3601 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
3602 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
3608 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
3609 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
3610 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
3611 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
3613 set trace-stop-notes
3614 show trace-stop-notes
3615 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
3616 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
3617 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
3618 started by someone else.
3620 * New remote packets
3624 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3628 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3632 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
3636 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
3640 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
3643 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
3644 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
3648 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
3652 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3654 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
3656 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
3658 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
3660 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
3661 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
3662 matches the given regular expression.
3664 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
3666 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
3667 dumping the instruction opcodes.
3669 * New command line options
3671 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
3672 This is mostly for testing purposes.
3674 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
3675 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
3677 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
3678 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
3679 source path list instead of augmenting it.
3681 * GDB now understands thread names.
3683 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
3684 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
3686 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
3687 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
3690 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
3691 has been integrated into GDB.
3695 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
3696 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
3697 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
3699 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3700 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
3701 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
3702 and allows for more dynamic content.
3704 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
3705 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
3706 have an is_valid method.
3708 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3709 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
3710 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
3712 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
3714 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
3715 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
3716 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
3717 that function like so:
3719 result = some_value (10,20)
3721 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
3722 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
3723 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
3725 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
3726 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
3727 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
3728 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
3729 New function: register_pretty_printer.
3731 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
3732 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
3734 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
3736 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
3739 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
3740 holds the thread's name.
3742 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
3743 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
3744 occurring in the process being debugged.
3745 The following events are currently supported:
3746 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
3747 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
3748 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
3752 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
3753 instantiation. For example, if you have:
3755 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
3757 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
3758 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
3759 was added to GCC 4.5.
3761 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
3762 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
3763 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
3764 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
3765 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
3766 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
3768 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
3769 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
3770 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
3771 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
3772 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
3774 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
3775 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
3776 execution to a label.
3778 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
3779 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
3780 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
3781 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
3783 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
3784 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
3785 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
3788 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
3790 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
3791 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
3792 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
3793 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
3794 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
3795 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
3798 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
3800 While now you see this:
3803 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
3805 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
3808 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
3809 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
3810 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
3811 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
3813 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3814 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
3815 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
3816 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3817 section in the user manual for more details.
3819 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3821 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
3822 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
3824 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
3826 * New native configurations
3828 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3832 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
3834 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
3835 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
3836 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
3837 in the GDB user manual.
3839 * Guile support was removed.
3841 * New features in the GNU simulator
3843 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
3845 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
3847 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
3849 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
3851 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
3852 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
3853 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
3854 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
3855 was always disabled for such configurations.
3859 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
3861 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
3862 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
3872 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
3873 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
3874 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
3876 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
3878 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
3879 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
3880 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
3881 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3883 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3884 mentioned flavors of operators.
3886 ** static const class members
3888 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3889 class definition has been fixed.
3891 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3893 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3894 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3895 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3896 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3897 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3898 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3900 * Static tracepoints
3902 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3903 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3904 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3905 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3906 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3907 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3908 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3909 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3910 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3911 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3912 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3913 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3914 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3915 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3916 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3917 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3918 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3919 the "New remote packets" section below.
3921 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3923 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3924 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3925 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3926 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3930 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3931 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3932 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3933 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3934 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3935 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3936 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3938 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3941 * New remote packets
3945 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3949 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3950 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3951 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3952 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3953 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3954 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3958 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3962 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3965 qXfer:statictrace:read
3967 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3968 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3969 to gdb's qSupported query.
3973 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3977 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3978 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3980 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3981 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3984 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3986 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3987 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3988 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3989 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3991 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3992 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3993 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3994 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3995 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3996 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3997 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3999 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
4000 for static tracepoints support.
4002 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
4004 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
4005 it understands register description.
4007 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
4009 * X86 general purpose registers
4011 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
4012 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
4013 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
4014 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
4015 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
4017 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
4018 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
4019 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
4020 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
4021 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
4022 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
4024 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
4025 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
4026 in the specified file.
4028 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
4029 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
4030 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
4031 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
4032 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
4033 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
4034 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
4035 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
4036 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
4037 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
4041 eval template, expressions...
4042 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
4043 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
4045 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
4046 show target-file-system-kind
4047 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
4050 save breakpoints <filename>
4051 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
4052 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
4053 definitions, use the `source' command.
4055 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
4058 info static-tracepoint-markers
4059 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
4061 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
4062 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
4063 function, line, address, or marker ID.
4067 Enable and disable observer mode.
4069 set may-write-registers on|off
4070 set may-write-memory on|off
4071 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
4072 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
4073 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
4074 set may-interrupt on|off
4075 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
4076 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
4077 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
4078 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
4079 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
4080 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
4081 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
4083 set record memory-query on|off
4084 show record memory-query
4085 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
4086 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
4091 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
4095 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
4096 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
4097 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
4098 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
4099 GDB using Python' in the manual.
4101 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
4102 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
4103 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
4104 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
4106 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
4107 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
4109 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
4111 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
4113 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
4115 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
4116 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
4117 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
4119 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
4120 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
4121 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
4122 regular breakpoints.
4126 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
4128 * D language support.
4129 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
4132 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
4133 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
4134 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
4135 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
4136 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
4138 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
4139 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
4140 conditions of the form:
4142 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
4144 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
4145 interface mentioned above.
4147 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
4151 ** Namespace Support
4153 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
4154 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
4155 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
4156 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
4157 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
4161 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
4162 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
4167 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
4168 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
4172 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
4177 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
4180 * Multi-program debugging.
4182 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
4183 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
4184 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
4185 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
4186 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
4187 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
4188 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
4189 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
4191 * New tracing features
4193 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
4195 ** Trace state variables
4197 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
4198 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
4199 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
4200 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
4201 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
4202 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
4203 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
4204 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
4205 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
4206 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
4210 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
4211 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
4212 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
4213 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
4214 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
4215 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
4216 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
4217 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
4218 the regular trace command.
4220 ** Disconnected tracing
4222 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
4223 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
4224 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
4225 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
4226 connection is lost unexpectedly.
4230 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
4231 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
4232 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
4233 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
4234 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
4235 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
4238 ** Circular trace buffer
4240 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
4241 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
4242 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
4243 not be available for all target agents.
4248 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
4249 the arguments to be comma-separated.
4252 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
4253 which only declare a variable are not shown.
4256 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
4257 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
4260 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
4261 "set script-extension" (see below).
4263 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4265 record save [<FILENAME>]
4266 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
4267 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
4269 record restore <FILENAME>
4270 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
4271 earlier time, for replay debugging.
4273 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
4276 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
4277 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
4278 inferior has loaded.
4283 maint info program-spaces
4284 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
4286 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
4287 show remote interrupt-sequence
4288 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
4289 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
4290 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
4291 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
4292 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
4294 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
4295 show remote interrupt-on-connect
4296 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
4297 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
4300 set remotebreak [on | off]
4302 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
4304 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
4305 Create or modify a trace state variable.
4308 List trace state variables and their values.
4310 delete tvariable $NAME ...
4311 Delete one or more trace state variables.
4314 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
4315 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
4317 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
4318 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
4320 * New expression syntax
4322 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
4323 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
4327 set follow-exec-mode new|same
4328 show follow-exec-mode
4329 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
4330 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
4331 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
4333 set default-collect EXPR, ...
4334 show default-collect
4335 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
4336 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
4337 such as registers or a critical global variable.
4339 set disconnected-tracing
4340 show disconnected-tracing
4341 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
4342 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
4345 set circular-trace-buffer
4346 show circular-trace-buffer
4347 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
4348 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
4349 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
4350 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
4352 set script-extension off|soft|strict
4353 show script-extension
4354 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
4355 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
4356 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
4357 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
4359 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
4361 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
4362 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
4363 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
4364 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
4365 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
4366 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
4367 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
4370 * Python API Improvements
4372 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
4373 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
4374 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
4376 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
4377 `is_base_class' attribute.
4379 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
4381 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
4382 evaluate an expression.
4384 * New remote packets
4387 Define a trace state variable.
4390 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
4393 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
4396 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
4399 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
4403 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
4405 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
4406 much more reliable. In particular:
4407 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
4408 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
4409 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
4410 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
4411 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
4412 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
4413 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
4414 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
4415 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
4416 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
4417 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
4418 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
4419 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
4420 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
4421 non-threaded programs.
4423 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
4424 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
4425 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
4428 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
4430 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
4431 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
4432 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
4433 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
4434 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
4436 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
4437 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
4438 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
4439 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
4440 for tracepoint actions.
4442 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
4443 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
4444 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
4446 * Process record and replay
4448 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
4449 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
4450 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
4453 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
4454 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
4455 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
4458 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
4459 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
4462 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
4463 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
4464 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
4465 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
4466 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
4467 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
4468 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
4469 the installation instructions for more information.
4471 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
4472 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
4473 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
4474 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
4476 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
4477 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
4479 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
4480 now complete on file names.
4482 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
4483 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
4484 For instance, consider:
4486 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
4487 # struct example variable;
4490 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
4491 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
4493 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
4494 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
4496 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
4497 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
4500 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
4501 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
4502 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
4504 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
4505 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
4506 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
4507 and simulator targets may also provide them.
4509 * New remote packets
4512 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4515 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
4516 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
4517 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
4520 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
4521 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
4524 Obtains additional operating system information
4528 Read or write additional signal information.
4530 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
4532 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
4533 packet that permitted the stub to pass a process id was removed.
4534 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
4536 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
4537 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
4539 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
4540 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
4541 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
4543 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
4544 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
4546 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
4548 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
4550 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
4551 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
4553 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote protocol packet now allows passing a
4554 list of section offsets.
4556 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
4557 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
4558 have also been fixed.
4560 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
4561 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
4562 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
4564 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
4567 template<typename T> class C { };
4570 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
4572 ptype C<char const *>
4573 ptype C<char const*>
4574 ptype C<const char *>
4575 ptype C<const char*>
4577 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
4579 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
4580 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4582 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
4583 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4584 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
4586 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
4587 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
4589 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
4592 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
4593 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4595 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
4596 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
4601 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
4602 available is determined at configure time.
4604 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
4606 * Ada tasking support
4608 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
4612 Print the list of Ada tasks.
4614 Print detailed information about task number N.
4616 Print the task number of the current task.
4618 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
4620 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
4621 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
4623 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
4625 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
4626 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
4627 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
4628 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
4629 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
4630 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
4633 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
4634 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
4637 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
4638 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
4639 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
4640 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
4643 * Multi-architecture debugging.
4645 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
4646 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
4647 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
4648 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
4649 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
4651 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
4652 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
4653 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
4654 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
4655 --enable-targets configure option.
4657 * Non-stop mode debugging.
4659 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
4660 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
4661 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
4662 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
4663 section in the user manual for more information.
4665 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
4666 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
4667 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
4668 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
4669 extensions on linux targets.
4671 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4673 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
4674 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
4675 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
4676 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
4677 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
4678 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
4679 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
4680 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
4681 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
4683 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
4685 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4687 maint set python print-stack
4688 maint show python print-stack
4689 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
4692 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
4697 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
4701 Show operating system information about processes.
4704 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
4707 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
4710 Detach from inferior number NUM.
4713 Kill inferior number NUM.
4717 set spu stop-on-load
4718 show spu stop-on-load
4719 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4721 set spu auto-flush-cache
4722 show spu auto-flush-cache
4723 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
4724 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4726 set sh calling-convention
4727 show sh calling-convention
4728 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
4731 show debug timestamp
4732 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
4734 set disassemble-next-line
4735 show disassemble-next-line
4736 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
4739 set remote noack-packet
4740 show remote noack-packet
4741 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
4742 under "New remote packets."
4744 set remote query-attached-packet
4745 show remote query-attached-packet
4746 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
4748 set remote read-siginfo-object
4749 show remote read-siginfo-object
4750 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
4753 set remote write-siginfo-object
4754 show remote write-siginfo-object
4755 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
4758 set remote reverse-continue
4759 show remote reverse-continue
4760 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
4762 set remote reverse-step
4763 show remote reverse-step
4764 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
4766 set displaced-stepping
4767 show displaced-stepping
4768 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
4769 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
4770 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
4773 show debug displaced
4774 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
4776 maint set internal-error
4777 maint show internal-error
4778 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
4780 maint set internal-warning
4781 maint show internal-warning
4782 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
4787 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4789 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
4790 show multiple-symbols
4791 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
4792 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
4793 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
4795 set breakpoint always-inserted
4796 show breakpoint always-inserted
4797 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
4798 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
4799 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
4801 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4802 show arm fallback-mode
4803 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4805 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
4806 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
4807 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
4808 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
4810 set disable-randomization
4811 show disable-randomization
4812 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
4813 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
4814 multiple debugging sessions.
4818 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
4823 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
4824 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
4825 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
4826 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
4828 set target-wide-charset
4829 show target-wide-charset
4830 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
4831 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
4833 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
4835 set tcp connect-timeout
4836 show tcp connect-timeout
4837 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
4838 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
4839 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
4841 set libthread-db-search-path
4842 show libthread-db-search-path
4843 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
4846 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
4847 show schedule-multiple
4848 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
4849 the current process.
4853 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
4854 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
4855 affecting correctness.
4857 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
4858 show interactive-mode
4859 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
4860 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
4861 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
4862 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
4863 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
4868 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
4869 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
4870 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
4874 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
4875 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
4876 alias for the `fork' command.
4879 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
4880 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
4881 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4884 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4885 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4886 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4890 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4891 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4892 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4895 * New native configurations
4897 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4899 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4903 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4904 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4905 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4908 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4909 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4915 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4917 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4919 * New native configurations
4921 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4922 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4926 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4927 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4929 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4931 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4932 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4933 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4934 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4936 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4937 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4939 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4942 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4943 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4944 and in inlined functions.
4946 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4947 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4948 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4950 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4952 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4953 registers on PowerPC targets.
4955 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4956 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4958 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4959 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4961 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4962 extended-remote mode.
4964 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4965 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4966 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4967 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4969 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4970 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4971 target architectures.
4973 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4974 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4975 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4976 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4978 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4981 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4982 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4984 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4985 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4986 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4987 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4989 - Improved command completion in Ada
4992 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4997 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4998 show print frame-arguments
4999 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
5000 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
5005 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
5012 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
5014 * New remote packets
5021 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
5024 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
5028 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
5030 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
5032 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
5033 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
5034 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
5036 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
5037 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
5038 -Bsymbolic linker option.
5040 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
5041 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
5044 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
5045 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
5047 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
5048 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
5050 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
5052 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
5053 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
5054 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
5056 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
5057 automatically displayed as character or string data.
5059 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
5060 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
5063 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
5064 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
5065 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
5067 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
5070 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
5071 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
5072 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
5074 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
5076 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
5078 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
5079 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
5080 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
5082 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
5083 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
5085 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
5086 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
5087 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
5088 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
5089 Windows and SymbianOS).
5091 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
5092 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
5094 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
5095 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
5101 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
5102 when debugging using remote targets.
5104 set mem inaccessible-by-default
5105 show mem inaccessible-by-default
5106 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
5107 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
5108 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
5109 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
5110 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
5112 set breakpoint auto-hw
5113 show breakpoint auto-hw
5114 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
5115 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
5116 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
5117 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
5118 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
5119 including "next" and "finish".
5122 catch exception unhandled
5123 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
5126 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
5130 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
5131 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
5132 an alias to "set sysroot".
5135 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
5136 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
5139 * New native configurations
5141 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
5144 unset tdesc filename
5146 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
5147 not query the target for its built-in description.
5151 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
5152 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
5153 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
5155 * New remote packets
5158 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
5159 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
5161 qXfer:features:read:
5162 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
5167 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
5168 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
5170 qXfer:libraries:read:
5171 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
5172 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
5173 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
5174 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
5178 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
5186 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
5187 i[34567]86-*-netware*
5188 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
5189 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
5191 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
5194 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
5195 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
5204 * Other removed features
5211 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
5218 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
5223 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
5224 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
5229 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
5230 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
5232 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
5234 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
5235 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
5236 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
5237 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
5239 MIPS ".pdr" sections
5241 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
5242 in debugging information.
5246 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
5247 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
5249 set mips stack-arg-size
5250 set mips saved-gpreg-size
5252 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
5254 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
5259 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
5261 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
5262 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
5263 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
5265 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
5266 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
5269 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
5270 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
5272 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
5273 stub provides the required support.
5275 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
5276 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
5281 unset substitute-path
5282 show substitute-path
5283 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
5284 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
5285 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
5286 between compilation and debugging.
5290 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
5291 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
5292 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
5296 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
5298 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
5299 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
5301 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
5303 * New remote packets
5306 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
5307 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
5308 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
5309 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
5313 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
5314 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
5316 qXfer:memory-map:read:
5317 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
5318 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
5323 Erase and program a flash memory device.
5325 * Removed remote packets
5328 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
5329 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
5331 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
5335 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
5337 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5341 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
5342 only if it doesn't already have a value.
5344 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
5346 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
5348 restart <n> Return the program state to a
5349 previously saved state.
5351 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
5353 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
5355 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
5356 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
5358 info forks List forks of the user program that
5359 are available to be debugged.
5361 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
5362 forks of the user program that are
5363 available to be debugged.
5365 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5366 that are available to be debugged (and
5367 kill the forked process).
5369 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5370 that are available to be debugged (and
5371 allow the process to continue).
5375 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
5377 * Improved Windows host support
5379 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
5380 native console support, and remote communications using either
5381 network sockets or serial ports.
5383 * Improved Modula-2 language support
5385 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
5386 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
5387 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
5388 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
5389 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
5390 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
5394 The ARM rdi-share module.
5396 The Netware NLM debug server.
5398 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
5400 * New native configurations
5402 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
5403 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
5407 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5409 * New command line options
5411 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
5412 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
5413 the child (debugged) program exited with.
5414 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
5415 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
5416 specified multiple times and in conjunction
5417 with the --command (-x) option.
5419 * Deprecated commands removed
5421 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
5425 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
5426 othernames set arm disassembler
5427 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
5428 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
5429 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
5432 * New BSD user-level threads support
5434 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
5435 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
5438 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5439 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
5440 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
5442 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
5443 are not yet supported.
5445 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
5446 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
5448 * REMOVED configurations and files
5450 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
5451 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5452 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
5454 * New "set print array-indexes" command
5456 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
5457 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
5460 * VAX floating point support
5462 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
5464 * User-defined command support
5466 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
5467 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
5468 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
5470 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
5472 * New command line option
5474 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
5477 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
5479 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
5480 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
5481 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
5482 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
5483 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
5485 * Internationalization
5487 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
5488 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
5489 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
5493 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
5494 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
5495 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
5497 * New native configurations
5499 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
5503 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
5504 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
5506 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
5508 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5509 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
5510 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
5513 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the registers[]
5514 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
5515 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
5525 powerpc bdm protocol
5527 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5528 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
5530 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5532 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5533 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5534 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5535 permanently REMOVED.
5544 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
5546 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
5548 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
5549 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
5552 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
5554 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
5555 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
5556 IRIX long double values).
5560 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
5561 command. This problem has been fixed.
5563 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
5565 * Fix for ``many threads''
5567 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
5568 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
5571 ptrace: No such process.
5572 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
5574 This problem has been fixed.
5576 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
5578 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
5581 * New ``start'' command.
5583 This command runs the program until the beginning of the main procedure.
5585 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
5587 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
5588 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
5589 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
5591 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5592 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
5593 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
5594 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
5595 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
5596 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5597 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
5598 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
5599 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5601 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
5603 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
5604 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
5605 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
5606 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
5607 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
5609 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
5610 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
5611 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
5613 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
5615 * New native configurations
5617 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
5618 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
5619 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
5620 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
5621 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
5622 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
5623 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
5625 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
5627 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5628 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
5629 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
5630 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
5631 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
5632 work, was also included.
5634 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
5635 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
5645 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5646 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
5648 * REMOVED configurations and files
5650 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5651 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5652 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5653 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5654 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5655 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5656 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5657 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5658 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5659 sonymips mips-sony-*
5660 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5662 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
5664 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
5666 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
5667 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
5668 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
5669 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
5672 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
5674 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
5675 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
5676 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
5677 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
5678 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
5679 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
5682 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
5684 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
5686 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
5687 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
5688 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
5690 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
5692 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
5693 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
5695 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
5697 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
5698 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
5699 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
5701 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
5703 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
5704 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
5706 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
5708 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
5709 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
5710 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
5712 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
5714 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
5715 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
5716 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
5718 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
5720 * Removed --with-mmalloc
5722 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
5723 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
5725 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
5727 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
5728 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
5729 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
5730 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
5732 * Revised SPARC target
5734 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
5735 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
5736 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
5737 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
5738 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
5742 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
5743 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
5744 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
5747 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5749 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
5750 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
5753 * C++ nested types and namespaces
5755 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
5756 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
5757 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
5758 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
5759 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
5760 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
5761 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
5762 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
5763 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
5765 * New native configurations
5767 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
5768 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5769 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
5770 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5771 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
5773 * New debugging protocols
5775 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
5777 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
5779 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
5780 and its very obscure effect on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
5781 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
5783 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5785 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5786 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5787 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5788 permanently REMOVED.
5790 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5791 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5792 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5793 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5794 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5795 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5796 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5797 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5798 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5799 sonymips mips-sony-*
5800 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5802 * REMOVED configurations and files
5804 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5805 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5806 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5807 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5808 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5809 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5810 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5811 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5812 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5813 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
5814 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5815 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5816 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5817 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
5818 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
5819 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5820 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5822 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
5826 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
5827 integrated into GDB.
5829 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
5831 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
5832 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
5833 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
5836 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
5837 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
5838 DWARF 2 CFI support.
5842 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
5843 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
5844 remote protocol documentation for details.
5846 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
5848 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
5849 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
5850 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
5853 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
5855 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
5856 per-thread variables.
5858 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
5860 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
5861 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
5863 * Separate debug info.
5865 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
5866 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
5867 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
5868 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
5869 and optional debug files.
5871 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5873 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
5874 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
5877 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
5878 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5882 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5883 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5884 considered "useable".
5886 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5888 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5889 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5892 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5894 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5895 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5897 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5899 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5900 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5903 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5905 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5906 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5910 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5911 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5912 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5913 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5914 data, for more informative profiling results.
5916 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5918 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5919 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5920 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5922 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5925 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5926 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5927 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5928 in a subsequent -var-update.
5930 * New native configurations.
5932 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5934 * Multi-arched targets.
5936 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5937 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5939 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5941 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5942 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5943 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5944 permanently REMOVED.
5946 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5947 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5948 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5949 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5950 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5951 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5952 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5953 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5954 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5955 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5956 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5957 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5959 * REMOVED configurations and files
5962 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5963 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5964 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5965 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5966 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5967 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5969 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5970 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5971 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5972 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5973 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5974 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5976 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5978 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5979 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5980 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5981 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5982 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5984 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5986 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5988 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5989 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5990 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5991 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5992 shared libs like mad''.
5994 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5996 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5997 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5998 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5999 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6001 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
6003 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
6004 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
6007 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
6008 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
6010 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
6011 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
6013 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
6014 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
6015 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
6016 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
6018 * Multi-arched targets.
6020 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
6021 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
6023 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
6024 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
6025 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
6029 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
6032 * New native configurations
6034 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
6035 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
6036 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
6037 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
6039 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6041 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6042 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6043 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6044 permanently REMOVED.
6046 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6047 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6048 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
6049 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6050 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
6051 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6052 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
6053 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
6054 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
6055 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
6057 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
6058 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6060 * OBSOLETE languages
6062 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
6064 * REMOVED configurations and files
6066 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
6067 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6068 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6069 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6070 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6072 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
6074 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
6076 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
6077 commands. The default is 1024.
6079 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
6081 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
6083 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
6085 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
6086 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
6087 from a file into memory (restore).
6089 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
6091 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
6092 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
6093 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
6095 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
6103 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
6104 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
6105 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
6107 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
6108 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
6109 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
6111 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
6112 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
6113 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
6115 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
6116 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
6117 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
6119 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
6121 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
6123 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
6124 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
6125 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
6126 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
6127 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
6128 (notably embedded) targets.
6130 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
6132 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
6133 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
6134 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
6135 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
6137 * New command line option
6139 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
6141 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
6143 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
6144 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
6145 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
6146 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
6147 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
6148 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
6149 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
6150 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
6151 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
6152 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
6154 * Changes in ARM configurations.
6156 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
6157 configuration is fully multi-arch.
6159 * New native configurations
6161 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
6162 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
6163 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
6164 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
6168 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
6170 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6172 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6173 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6174 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6175 permanently REMOVED.
6177 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
6178 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6179 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6180 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6181 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6183 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
6185 * REMOVED configurations and files
6187 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6189 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6190 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6191 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6192 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6193 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6194 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6195 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6196 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6197 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6198 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6199 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
6201 * Changes to command line processing
6203 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
6204 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
6206 * Changes to key bindings
6208 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
6210 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
6212 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
6214 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
6217 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
6219 Numerous documentation fixes.
6221 Numerous testsuite fixes.
6223 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
6225 * New native configurations
6227 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
6228 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
6229 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
6230 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6231 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
6232 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
6236 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
6238 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
6240 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6242 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
6243 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6244 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6245 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6246 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6248 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6249 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6250 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6251 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6252 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6253 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6254 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6255 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
6257 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
6258 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
6260 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6261 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6262 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6263 permanently REMOVED.
6265 * REMOVED configurations and files
6267 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6268 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6270 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6274 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
6276 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
6277 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
6282 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
6284 * The MI enabled by default.
6286 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
6287 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
6288 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
6289 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
6290 which is now deprecated.
6292 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
6294 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
6295 main features are supported:
6297 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
6299 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
6302 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
6304 - a Pascal expression parser.
6306 However, some important features are not yet supported.
6308 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
6310 - there are some problems with boolean types;
6312 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
6313 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
6315 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
6317 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
6319 * Changes in completion.
6321 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
6322 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
6323 users expect at the shell prompt.
6325 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
6326 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
6327 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
6328 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
6329 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
6330 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
6331 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
6333 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
6335 * New platform-independent commands:
6337 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
6338 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
6339 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
6341 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
6343 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
6344 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
6345 many threads as your system allows you to have.
6347 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
6349 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
6350 multi-threaded programs though.
6352 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
6354 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
6356 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
6357 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
6360 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
6362 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
6363 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
6364 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
6365 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
6366 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
6369 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
6370 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
6371 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
6373 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
6375 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
6376 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
6378 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
6379 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
6382 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
6383 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
6384 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
6385 a given linear address.
6387 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
6388 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
6389 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
6391 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
6393 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
6395 * Changes in documentation.
6397 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
6398 Documentation License.
6400 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6403 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
6405 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6408 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
6409 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
6410 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
6412 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
6414 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
6415 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
6416 contents of this file.
6420 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
6422 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
6424 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
6426 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
6427 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
6428 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
6429 greater level of detail.
6431 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
6433 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
6434 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
6435 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
6438 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
6440 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
6441 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
6442 machines ``out of the box''.
6444 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
6445 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
6446 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
6447 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
6448 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
6450 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
6451 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
6452 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
6453 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
6454 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
6456 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
6457 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
6460 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
6463 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
6464 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
6465 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
6466 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
6468 * New native configurations
6470 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
6471 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6475 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
6476 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
6477 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
6478 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6480 * OBSOLETE configurations
6482 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6483 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6485 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6488 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6489 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6490 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6491 be permanently REMOVED.
6493 * Gould support removed
6495 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
6497 * New features for SVR4
6499 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
6500 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
6501 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
6503 * Many C++ enhancements
6505 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
6506 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
6508 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
6510 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
6511 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
6512 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
6513 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
6515 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
6516 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
6518 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
6520 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
6521 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
6522 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
6524 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
6525 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
6527 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
6529 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
6530 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
6531 include ``set remote P-packet''.
6533 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
6535 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
6536 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
6537 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
6539 * ``apropos'' command added.
6541 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
6542 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
6543 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
6547 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
6548 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
6549 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
6550 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
6551 enabled by configuring with:
6553 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
6555 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
6557 * New native configurations
6559 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
6560 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
6561 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
6565 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6566 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
6567 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6569 * OBSOLETE configurations
6571 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
6573 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6574 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6575 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6576 be permanently REMOVED.
6580 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
6581 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
6582 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
6583 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
6584 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
6586 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
6591 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
6593 * set extension-language
6595 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
6596 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
6597 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
6598 set extension-language .c c++
6599 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
6600 and their associated languages.
6602 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
6604 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
6605 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
6606 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
6610 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
6611 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
6613 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
6614 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
6616 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
6617 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
6618 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
6619 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
6620 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
6621 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
6622 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
6623 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
6625 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
6626 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
6627 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
6628 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
6632 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
6633 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
6634 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
6635 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
6636 for xdb and dbx commands.
6640 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
6641 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
6642 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
6644 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
6645 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
6646 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
6648 * Debugging across forks
6650 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
6655 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
6656 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
6657 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
6659 * GDB remote protocol additions
6661 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
6662 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
6663 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
6664 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
6666 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
6667 full 64-bit address. The command
6669 set remoteaddresssize 32
6671 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
6672 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
6675 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
6676 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
6678 maint packet heythere
6680 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
6681 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
6684 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
6685 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
6686 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
6688 * Tracing can collect general expressions
6690 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
6691 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
6692 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
6694 * mask-address variable for Mips
6696 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
6697 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
6698 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
6700 * Higher serial baud rates
6702 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
6703 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
6704 to achieve all of these rates.)
6708 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
6709 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
6712 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
6714 * New native configurations
6716 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
6717 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
6718 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6719 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6720 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6721 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
6722 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
6726 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6727 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
6728 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6729 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
6730 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
6731 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
6732 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
6733 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
6734 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6735 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6736 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
6738 * New debugging protocols
6740 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
6741 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
6742 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
6743 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6744 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6745 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6749 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
6750 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
6755 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
6756 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
6758 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
6760 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
6761 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
6762 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
6764 * Live range splitting
6766 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
6767 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
6768 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
6772 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
6773 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
6777 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
6778 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
6779 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
6784 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
6789 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
6790 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
6791 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
6792 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
6793 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
6794 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
6798 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
6799 the symbol at the specified address.
6803 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
6804 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
6805 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
6806 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
6807 file tracepoint.c for more details.
6811 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
6812 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
6813 of most MIPS variants.
6817 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
6818 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
6819 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
6823 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
6824 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
6825 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
6826 the possible architectures.
6828 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
6830 * New native configurations
6832 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
6833 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
6834 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
6835 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
6836 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6837 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
6841 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
6842 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6843 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
6844 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
6845 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
6847 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6851 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
6852 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
6853 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
6854 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
6855 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
6859 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
6861 * Windows 95/NT native
6863 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
6864 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
6865 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
6866 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
6867 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
6869 * dont-repeat command
6871 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
6872 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
6873 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
6874 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
6876 * Send break instead of ^C
6878 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
6879 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
6880 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6882 * Remote protocol timeout
6884 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6885 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6886 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6888 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6890 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6891 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6892 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6893 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6894 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6896 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6897 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6898 automatically on hpux10.
6900 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6902 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6904 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6906 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6907 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6908 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6909 every character. The default value is 1050.
6911 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6913 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6914 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6915 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6916 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6917 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6918 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6920 * Speedups for remote debugging
6922 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6923 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6924 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6926 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6928 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6929 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6931 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6933 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6935 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6936 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6938 * Remote targets use caching
6940 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6941 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6942 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6943 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6944 off' turns the data cache off.
6946 * Remote targets may have threads
6948 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6949 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6950 gdb/remote.c for details.
6954 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6955 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6956 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6957 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6958 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6959 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6960 sequence is something like
6962 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6964 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6968 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6969 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6970 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6971 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6972 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6973 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6974 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6975 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6979 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6980 but does simplify configuration and building.
6984 GDB now supports hpux10.
6986 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6988 * New native configurations
6990 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6991 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6992 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6993 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6997 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6998 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6999 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
7000 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
7003 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
7005 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
7006 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
7007 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
7008 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
7009 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
7011 * Arguments to user-defined commands
7013 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
7014 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
7017 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
7019 To execute the command use:
7022 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
7023 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
7024 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
7026 * New `if' and `while' commands
7028 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
7029 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
7030 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
7031 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
7032 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
7033 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
7034 if the expression is zero.
7036 * Fortran source language mode
7038 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
7039 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
7040 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
7041 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
7044 * Better HPUX support
7046 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
7047 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
7048 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
7049 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
7050 that behavior do the following before running the program:
7056 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
7057 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
7063 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
7064 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
7067 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
7068 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
7070 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
7072 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
7073 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
7074 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
7075 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
7076 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
7077 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
7079 * New DOS host serial code
7081 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
7082 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
7085 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
7087 * New "complete" command
7089 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
7090 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
7092 * Trailing space optional in prompt
7094 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
7095 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
7097 * Breakpoint hit counts
7099 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
7100 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
7101 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
7102 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
7103 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
7106 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
7108 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
7109 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
7110 arrays actually contain only short strings.
7112 * Shared library breakpoints
7114 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
7115 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
7117 * Hardware watchpoints
7119 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
7120 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
7122 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
7126 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
7127 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
7129 * Improved Irix 5 support
7131 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
7133 * Improved HPPA support
7135 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
7137 * New native configurations
7139 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
7140 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
7141 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
7142 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
7146 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
7147 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
7150 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
7152 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
7153 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
7157 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
7158 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
7160 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
7162 * Irix 5 is now supported
7166 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
7167 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
7168 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
7169 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
7170 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
7173 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
7175 * User visible changes:
7179 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
7180 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
7181 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
7182 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
7183 debugging info for the mips target).
7185 * DEC Alpha native support
7187 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
7188 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
7189 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
7190 Alpha-specific notes.
7192 * Preliminary thread implementation
7194 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
7196 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
7198 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
7199 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
7202 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
7204 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
7205 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
7206 call methods, ...etc.
7208 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
7210 * User visible changes:
7212 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
7213 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
7214 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
7215 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
7217 Filename completion now works.
7219 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
7220 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
7221 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
7223 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
7224 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
7225 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
7226 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
7227 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
7231 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
7232 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
7235 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
7239 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
7240 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
7241 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
7245 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
7246 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
7247 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
7248 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
7249 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
7253 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
7254 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
7255 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
7257 * New targets supported
7259 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7260 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
7261 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
7262 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
7263 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
7265 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
7266 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
7267 GO32 memory extender.
7269 * New remote protocols
7271 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
7273 * New source languages supported
7275 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
7276 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
7277 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
7280 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
7282 * HP Precision Architecture supported
7284 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
7285 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
7286 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
7287 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
7288 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
7289 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
7291 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
7293 * Faster and better demangling
7295 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
7296 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
7297 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
7298 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
7299 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
7300 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
7303 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
7304 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
7305 compiler does not actually implement.
7307 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
7309 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
7310 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
7311 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
7312 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
7313 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
7314 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
7317 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
7318 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
7320 * Improved configure script
7322 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
7323 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
7324 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
7325 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
7327 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
7328 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
7329 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
7330 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
7331 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
7332 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
7334 * Documentation improvements
7336 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
7337 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
7338 before submitting changes.
7340 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
7341 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
7342 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
7343 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
7344 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
7346 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
7347 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
7348 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
7349 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
7350 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
7351 around this problem.
7355 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
7356 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
7357 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
7360 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
7361 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
7363 * New native hosts supported
7365 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
7366 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
7368 * New targets supported
7370 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
7372 * New file formats supported
7374 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
7375 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
7379 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
7381 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
7382 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
7384 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
7385 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
7386 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
7388 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
7389 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
7391 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
7392 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
7393 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
7396 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
7397 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
7398 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
7399 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
7400 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
7402 * Internal improvements
7404 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
7405 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
7407 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
7408 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
7409 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
7410 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
7411 shared code that handles any of them.
7413 * New command line options
7415 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
7419 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
7420 General Public License.
7422 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
7424 * Host/native/target split
7426 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
7427 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
7428 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
7429 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
7430 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
7432 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
7433 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
7434 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
7435 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
7436 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
7437 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
7438 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
7440 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
7441 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
7442 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
7444 * New hosts supported
7446 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
7447 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
7448 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
7450 * New targets supported
7452 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
7453 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
7455 * New native hosts supported
7457 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
7458 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
7459 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
7461 * New file formats supported
7463 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
7464 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
7465 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
7469 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
7470 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
7471 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
7473 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
7475 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
7476 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
7477 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
7478 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
7482 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
7483 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
7484 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
7486 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
7490 The crash that occurred when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
7491 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
7494 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
7495 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
7497 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
7498 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
7499 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
7500 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
7501 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
7502 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
7504 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
7505 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
7506 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
7507 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
7511 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
7512 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
7513 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
7514 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
7515 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
7517 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
7518 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
7519 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
7520 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
7524 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
7525 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
7526 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
7527 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
7528 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
7529 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
7530 each instruction being stepped through.
7532 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
7533 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
7535 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
7536 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
7537 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
7538 processor with a serial port.
7542 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
7543 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
7544 supported, and what files each one uses.
7548 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
7549 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
7550 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
7551 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
7553 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
7554 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
7555 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
7556 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
7560 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
7561 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
7562 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
7563 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
7564 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
7567 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
7570 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
7572 * Better support for C++ function names
7574 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
7575 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
7576 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
7577 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
7578 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
7580 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
7581 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
7582 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
7583 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
7584 for the list of formats.
7586 * G++ symbol mangling problem
7588 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
7589 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
7590 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
7591 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compiling gdb/symtab.c. The
7592 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
7593 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
7596 * New 'maintenance' command
7598 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
7599 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
7600 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
7602 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
7603 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
7604 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
7605 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
7606 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
7607 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
7609 The following commands are new:
7611 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
7612 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
7613 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
7615 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
7617 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
7618 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
7619 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
7620 read after argv processing.
7622 * New hosts supported
7624 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
7626 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
7628 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
7629 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
7630 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
7631 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
7632 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
7635 * New targets supported
7637 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7639 * More smarts about finding #include files
7641 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
7642 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
7643 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
7644 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
7645 the one that contains your sources.
7647 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
7648 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
7649 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
7651 * Interesting infernals change
7653 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
7654 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
7655 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
7656 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
7658 * Bug fixes (of course!)
7660 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
7661 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
7662 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
7664 See the ChangeLog for details.
7666 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
7668 * New machines supported (host and target)
7670 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
7672 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
7674 * New malloc package
7676 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
7677 Mmalloc is capable of handling multiple heaps of memory. It is also
7678 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
7679 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
7680 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
7681 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
7685 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
7686 'help info proc' for details.
7688 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
7690 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
7691 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
7694 * File name changes for MS-DOS
7696 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
7697 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
7698 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
7699 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
7700 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
7701 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
7703 * Cross byte order fixes
7705 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
7706 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
7708 * New -mapped and -readnow options
7710 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
7711 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
7712 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
7713 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
7714 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
7715 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
7716 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
7717 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
7718 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
7719 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
7721 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
7722 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
7723 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
7724 slower, but makes future operations faster.
7726 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
7727 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
7728 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
7731 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
7733 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
7734 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
7735 shared across multiple host platforms.
7737 * longjmp() handling
7739 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
7740 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
7741 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
7742 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
7746 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
7747 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
7752 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
7753 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
7754 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
7756 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
7758 * New machines supported (host and target)
7760 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7762 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
7763 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
7765 * New machines supported (target)
7767 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7771 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
7772 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
7773 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
7775 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
7776 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
7777 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
7778 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
7779 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
7782 * New features for SVR4
7784 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
7785 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
7786 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
7788 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
7789 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
7790 it prints the address mappings of the process.
7792 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
7795 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
7797 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
7798 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
7799 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
7800 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
7801 same code linked statically.
7805 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
7806 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
7807 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
7808 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
7809 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
7810 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
7814 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7815 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7816 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7819 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
7821 * New machines supported (host and target)
7823 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
7824 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
7825 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7827 * Almost SCO Unix support
7829 We had hoped to support:
7830 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7831 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
7832 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
7833 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
7835 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
7837 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
7838 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
7839 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
7845 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
7846 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
7847 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
7851 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7852 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7853 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7855 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
7857 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
7858 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
7859 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
7861 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
7862 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
7863 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
7864 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
7867 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
7868 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
7869 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
7870 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
7873 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
7874 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
7877 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
7878 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
7879 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7882 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7884 * Improved configuration
7886 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7887 Porting BFD is simpler.
7891 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7892 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7893 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7894 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7898 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7900 * New host supported (not target)
7902 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7905 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7907 * Multiple source language support
7909 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7910 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7911 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7912 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7913 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7914 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7918 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7919 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7920 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7921 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7923 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7924 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7925 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7927 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7928 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7932 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7933 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7934 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7935 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7938 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7940 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7941 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7942 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7943 examining core files.
7947 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7950 * New machines supported (host and target)
7952 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7953 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7954 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7956 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7958 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7960 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7962 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7963 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7964 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7966 * New remote interfaces
7972 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7976 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7978 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7979 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7980 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7981 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7982 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7983 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7984 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7985 stub on the target system.
7987 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7989 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7990 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7991 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7993 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7994 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7997 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7999 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
8000 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
8002 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
8003 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
8004 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
8006 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
8007 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
8008 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
8009 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
8011 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
8012 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
8013 it is already running. Default is ON.
8015 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
8016 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
8017 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
8018 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
8021 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
8022 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
8023 or the value of the environment variable
8026 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
8027 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
8030 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
8031 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
8032 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
8034 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
8035 history expansion will be performed on
8036 command line input. The default is OFF.
8038 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
8039 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
8040 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
8042 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
8043 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
8044 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
8047 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
8048 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
8049 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
8052 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
8053 ``set width'' instead.
8055 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
8056 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
8057 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
8058 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
8060 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
8063 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
8066 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
8069 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
8072 * Support for Epoch Environment.
8074 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
8075 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
8076 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
8080 * Support for Shared Libraries
8082 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
8083 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
8084 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
8085 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
8086 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
8087 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
8088 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
8089 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
8091 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
8092 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
8093 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
8095 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
8100 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
8101 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
8102 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
8103 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
8104 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
8105 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
8107 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
8109 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
8111 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
8112 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
8113 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
8116 * C++ multiple inheritance
8118 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
8121 * C++ exception handling
8123 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
8124 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
8125 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
8128 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
8129 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
8130 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
8132 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
8133 current stack frame.
8136 * Minor command changes
8138 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
8139 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
8140 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
8142 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
8143 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
8144 frames without printing.
8146 * New directory command
8148 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
8149 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
8150 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
8151 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
8152 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
8154 * Configuring GDB for compilation
8156 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
8159 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
8160 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
8161 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
8162 where the program that you are debugging will run.