1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.6
6 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
7 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
8 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
9 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
10 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
11 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
14 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
16 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
20 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
24 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
25 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
26 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
28 * Removed native configurations
30 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
31 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
33 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
34 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
35 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
36 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
37 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
38 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
39 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
43 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
45 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
47 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
49 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
52 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
54 maint set|show per-command
55 maint set|show per-command space
56 maint set|show per-command time
57 maint set|show per-command symtab
58 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
62 set debug symfile off|on
64 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
65 symbol tables within those files
67 set print raw frame-arguments
68 show print raw frame-arguments
69 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
70 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
72 set remote trace-status-packet
73 show remote trace-status-packet
74 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
78 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
82 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
84 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
85 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
86 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
87 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
90 * New command-line options
92 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
94 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
95 buffer in Common Trace Format.
97 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
100 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
102 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
103 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
105 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
106 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
110 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
113 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
115 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
116 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
119 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
120 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
122 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
123 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
124 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
126 * New system-wide configuration scripts
127 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
128 configuration scripts for the following systems:
132 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
133 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
134 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
137 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
138 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
140 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
141 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
142 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
148 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
149 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
150 involvemement at each single-step.
152 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
153 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
154 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
155 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
156 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
157 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
160 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
162 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
163 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
165 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
166 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
167 trace state variables.
169 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
172 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
173 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
175 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
177 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
179 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
180 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
181 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
182 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
184 set|show record full insn-number-max
185 set|show record full stop-at-limit
186 set|show record full memory-query
188 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
189 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
190 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
191 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
192 This new recording method can be enabled using:
196 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
197 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
199 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
200 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
201 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
203 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
204 instruction granularity
206 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
209 * New native configurations
211 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
212 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
213 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
214 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
218 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
219 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
220 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
221 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
222 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
224 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
225 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
226 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
227 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
228 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
229 --data-directory command-line option.
231 * New command line options:
233 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
234 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
236 * Removed command line options
238 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
241 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
244 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
248 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
250 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
252 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
254 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
256 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
257 of architecture in the Python API.
259 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
260 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
262 * New Python-based convenience functions:
264 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
265 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
267 ** $_regex(str, regex)
269 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
272 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
273 default for GCC since November 2000.
275 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
277 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
278 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
280 * New configure options
282 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
283 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
284 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
285 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
286 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
287 options allow the user to override that default.
288 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
289 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
290 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
292 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
295 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
296 conditions to be attached.
299 List the BFDs known to GDB.
301 python-interactive [command]
303 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
304 and print the result of expressions.
307 "py" is a new alias for "python".
309 enable type-printer [name]...
310 disable type-printer [name]...
311 Enable or disable type printers.
315 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
316 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
321 set print type methods (on|off)
322 show print type methods
323 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
324 The default is to show them.
326 set print type typedefs (on|off)
327 show print type typedefs
328 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
329 The default is to show them.
331 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
332 show filename-display
333 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
334 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
336 set trace-buffer-size
337 show trace-buffer-size
338 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
340 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
341 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
342 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
346 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
349 set debug coff-pe-read
350 show debug coff-pe-read
351 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
356 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
359 set debug notification
360 show debug notification
361 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
365 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
366 "=cmd-param-changed".
367 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
368 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
369 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
370 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
371 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
372 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
373 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
374 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
376 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
377 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
378 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
379 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
380 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
381 library load/unload events.
382 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
383 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
384 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
385 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
386 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
387 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
388 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
389 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
391 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
392 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
393 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
394 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
399 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
400 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
403 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
404 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
408 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
409 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
412 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
413 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
415 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
417 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
418 for more x32 ABI info.
420 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
422 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
424 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
425 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
426 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
427 "info os files" lists file descriptors
428 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
429 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
430 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
431 "info os msg" lists message queues
432 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
434 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
435 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
436 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
437 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
438 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
439 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
441 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
442 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
443 record/replay support.
445 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
449 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
452 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
454 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
455 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
457 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
459 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
460 the source at which the symbol was defined.
462 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
463 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
464 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
467 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
468 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
470 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
471 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
472 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
474 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
475 object associated with a PC value.
477 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
478 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
480 * Go language support.
481 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
484 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
485 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
487 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
488 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
490 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
491 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
492 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
493 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
494 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
497 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
498 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
499 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
502 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
503 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
505 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
508 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
509 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
510 command does. For instance:
512 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
514 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
515 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
516 created, using the "condition" command.
518 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
519 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
521 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
523 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
524 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
525 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
526 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
527 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
528 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
529 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
530 files with older .gdb_index sections.
532 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
533 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
534 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
535 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
536 the .gdb_index section.
538 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
540 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
545 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
547 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
551 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
552 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
553 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
555 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
556 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
558 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
561 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
562 C++ and Java objects.
564 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
565 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
566 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
567 configured with '--with-python'.
569 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
570 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
571 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
572 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
573 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
574 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
575 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
577 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
578 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
579 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
580 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
582 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
583 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
584 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
585 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
587 ** "set print symbol"
589 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
590 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
591 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
593 * Deprecated commands
595 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
596 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
600 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
601 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
603 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
604 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
605 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
606 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
612 show mips compression
613 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
614 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
617 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
619 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
620 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
621 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
622 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
624 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
628 Disable auto-loading globally.
631 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
633 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
634 show auto-load gdb-scripts
635 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
637 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
638 show auto-load python-scripts
639 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
641 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
642 show auto-load local-gdbinit
643 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
645 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
646 show auto-load libthread-db
647 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
649 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
650 show auto-load scripts-directory
651 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
652 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
653 of the directories listed by this option.
654 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
656 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
657 show auto-load safe-path
658 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
659 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
661 set debug auto-load on|off
663 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
665 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
667 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
668 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
669 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
670 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
672 set dprintf-function <expr>
673 show dprintf-function
674 set dprintf-channel <expr>
676 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
677 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
679 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
680 show disconnected-dprintf
681 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
682 after GDB disconnects.
684 * New configure options
687 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
688 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
689 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
690 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
691 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
693 --with-auto-load-safe-path
694 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
695 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
697 --without-auto-load-safe-path
698 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
703 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
705 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
706 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
707 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
708 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
712 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
713 program without GDB involvement.
715 * New command line options
717 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
718 before loading inferior.
719 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
720 execute it before loading inferior.
722 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
724 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
725 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
726 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
727 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
730 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
731 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
733 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
734 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
735 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
736 target hardware watchpoint.
738 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
739 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
740 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
741 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
745 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
746 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
749 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
750 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
751 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
752 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
753 now "message", which just prints the error message without
756 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
759 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
760 modules library. This module provides functionality for
761 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
762 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
765 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
766 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
767 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
770 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
771 static_block will return the global and static blocks
772 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
773 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
775 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
777 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
780 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
781 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
782 available in the CLI.
784 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
785 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
786 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
789 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
792 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
793 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
794 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
795 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
796 any anonymous fields.
800 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
803 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
804 "=breakpoint-modified".
806 ** New command -ada-task-info.
808 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
809 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
810 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
813 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
814 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
815 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
816 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
817 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
819 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
820 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
822 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
823 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
824 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
825 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
826 use this option to specify where to find it.
828 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
829 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
830 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
831 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
832 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
833 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
834 section in the user manual for more details.
836 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
837 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
838 become available after that.
840 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
842 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
843 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
849 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
850 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
854 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
855 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
856 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
858 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
859 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
860 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
862 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
863 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
864 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
865 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
866 name starts with a hyphen.
868 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
869 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
870 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
871 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
872 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
873 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
874 number of bytes that will be collected.
877 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
878 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
879 setting the variable trace-notes.
882 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
883 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
884 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
887 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
888 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
889 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
890 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
891 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
894 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
895 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
896 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
900 set debug dwarf2-read
901 show debug dwarf2-read
902 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
903 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
905 set debug symtab-create
906 show debug symtab-create
907 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
908 creation. The default is off.
912 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
913 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
914 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
915 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
918 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
919 show print entry-values
920 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
921 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
922 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
924 set debug entry-values
925 show debug entry-values
926 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
927 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
929 set basenames-may-differ
930 show basenames-may-differ
931 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
932 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
933 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
934 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
935 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
936 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
937 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
938 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
944 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
945 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
946 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
947 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
950 show trace-stop-notes
951 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
952 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
953 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
954 started by someone else.
960 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
964 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
968 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
972 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
976 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
979 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
980 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
984 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
988 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
990 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
992 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
994 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
996 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
997 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
998 matches the given regular expression.
1000 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1002 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1003 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1005 * New command line options
1007 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1008 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1010 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1011 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1013 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1014 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1015 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1017 * GDB now understands thread names.
1019 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1020 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1022 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1023 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1026 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1027 has been integrated into GDB.
1031 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1032 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1033 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1035 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1036 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1037 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1038 and allows for more dynamic content.
1040 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1041 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1042 have an is_valid method.
1044 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1045 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1046 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1048 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1050 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1051 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1052 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1053 that function like so:
1055 result = some_value (10,20)
1057 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1058 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1059 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1061 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1062 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1063 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1064 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1065 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1067 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1068 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1070 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1072 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1075 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1076 holds the thread's name.
1078 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1079 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
1080 occurring in the process being debugged.
1081 The following events are currently supported:
1082 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1083 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1084 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1088 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1089 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1091 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1093 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1094 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1095 was added to GCC 4.5.
1097 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1098 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1099 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1100 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1101 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1102 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1104 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1105 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1106 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1107 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1108 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1110 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1111 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1112 execution to a label.
1114 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1115 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1116 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1117 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1119 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
1120 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
1121 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1124 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1126 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1127 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1128 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1129 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1130 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1131 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1134 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1136 While now you see this:
1139 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1141 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1144 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1145 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1146 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1147 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1149 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1150 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1151 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1152 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1153 section in the user manual for more details.
1155 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1157 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1158 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
1160 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1162 * New native configurations
1164 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1168 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1170 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1171 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1172 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1173 in the GDB user manual.
1175 * Guile support was removed.
1177 * New features in the GNU simulator
1179 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1181 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1183 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
1185 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
1187 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1188 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1189 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1190 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1191 was always disabled for such configurations.
1195 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1197 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1198 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1208 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1209 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1210 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1212 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1214 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1215 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1216 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1217 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1219 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1220 mentioned flavors of operators.
1222 ** static const class members
1224 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1225 class definition has been fixed.
1227 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
1229 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1230 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1231 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1232 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1233 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1234 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1236 * Static tracepoints
1238 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1239 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1240 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1241 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1242 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1243 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1244 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1245 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1246 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1247 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1248 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1249 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1250 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1251 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1252 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1253 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1254 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1255 the "New remote packets" section below.
1257 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1259 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1260 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1261 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1262 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1266 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1267 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1268 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1269 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1270 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1271 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1272 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1274 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1277 * New remote packets
1281 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1285 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1286 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1287 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1288 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1289 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1290 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1294 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1298 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1301 qXfer:statictrace:read
1303 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1304 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1305 to gdb's qSupported query.
1309 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1313 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1314 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1316 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1317 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1320 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1322 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1323 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1324 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1325 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1327 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1328 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1329 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1330 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1331 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1332 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1333 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1335 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1336 for static tracepoints support.
1338 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1340 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1341 it understands register description.
1343 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1345 * X86 general purpose registers
1347 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1348 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1349 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1350 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1351 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1353 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
1354 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1355 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1356 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1357 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1358 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
1360 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1361 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1362 in the specified file.
1364 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1365 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1366 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1367 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1368 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1369 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1370 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1371 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1372 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1373 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1377 eval template, expressions...
1378 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1379 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1381 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1382 show target-file-system-kind
1383 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1386 save breakpoints <filename>
1387 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1388 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1389 definitions, use the `source' command.
1391 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1394 info static-tracepoint-markers
1395 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1397 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1398 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1399 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1403 Enable and disable observer mode.
1405 set may-write-registers on|off
1406 set may-write-memory on|off
1407 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1408 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1409 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1410 set may-interrupt on|off
1411 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1412 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1413 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1414 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1415 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1416 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1417 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1419 set record memory-query on|off
1420 show record memory-query
1421 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1422 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1427 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1431 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1432 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1433 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1434 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1435 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1437 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
1438 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1439 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1440 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
1442 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
1443 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1445 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
1447 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
1449 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1451 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1452 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1453 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1455 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1456 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1457 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1458 regular breakpoints.
1462 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1464 * D language support.
1465 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1468 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1469 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1470 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1471 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1472 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1474 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1475 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1476 conditions of the form:
1478 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1480 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1481 interface mentioned above.
1483 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
1487 ** Namespace Support
1489 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1490 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1491 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1492 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1493 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1497 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1498 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1503 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1504 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1508 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
1513 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
1516 * Multi-program debugging.
1518 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1519 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1520 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1521 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1522 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1523 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1524 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1525 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1527 * New tracing features
1529 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1531 ** Trace state variables
1533 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1534 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1535 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1536 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1537 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1538 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1539 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1540 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1541 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1542 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
1546 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1547 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1548 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1549 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1550 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1551 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1552 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1553 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1554 the regular trace command.
1556 ** Disconnected tracing
1558 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1559 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1560 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1561 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1562 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1566 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1567 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1568 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1569 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1570 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1571 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1574 ** Circular trace buffer
1576 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1577 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1578 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1579 not be available for all target agents.
1584 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1585 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1588 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1589 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1592 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1593 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1596 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1597 "set script-extension" (see below).
1599 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1601 record save [<FILENAME>]
1602 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1603 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1605 record restore <FILENAME>
1606 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1607 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1609 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1612 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1613 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1614 inferior has loaded.
1619 maint info program-spaces
1620 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1622 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1623 show remote interrupt-sequence
1624 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1625 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1626 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1627 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1628 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1630 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1631 show remote interrupt-on-connect
1632 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1633 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1636 set remotebreak [on | off]
1638 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1640 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1641 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1644 List trace state variables and their values.
1646 delete tvariable $NAME ...
1647 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1650 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1651 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1653 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1654 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1656 * New expression syntax
1658 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1659 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1663 set follow-exec-mode new|same
1664 show follow-exec-mode
1665 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1666 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1667 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1669 set default-collect EXPR, ...
1670 show default-collect
1671 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1672 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1673 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1675 set disconnected-tracing
1676 show disconnected-tracing
1677 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1678 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1681 set circular-trace-buffer
1682 show circular-trace-buffer
1683 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1684 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1685 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1686 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1688 set script-extension off|soft|strict
1689 show script-extension
1690 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1691 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1692 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1693 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1695 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1697 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1698 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1699 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1700 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1701 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1702 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1703 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1706 * Python API Improvements
1708 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1709 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1710 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1712 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1713 `is_base_class' attribute.
1715 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1717 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1718 evaluate an expression.
1720 * New remote packets
1723 Define a trace state variable.
1726 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1729 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1732 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1735 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1739 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1741 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1742 much more reliable. In particular:
1743 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1744 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1745 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1746 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1747 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1748 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1749 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1750 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1751 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1752 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1753 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1754 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1755 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1756 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1757 non-threaded programs.
1759 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1760 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1761 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1764 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1766 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1767 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1768 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1769 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1770 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1772 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1773 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1774 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1775 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1776 for tracepoint actions.
1778 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1779 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1780 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1782 * Process record and replay
1784 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1785 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1786 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1789 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1790 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1791 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1794 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1795 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1798 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1799 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1800 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1801 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1802 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1803 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1804 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1805 the installation instructions for more information.
1807 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1808 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1809 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1810 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1812 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1813 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1815 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1816 now complete on file names.
1818 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1819 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1820 For instance, consider:
1822 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1823 # struct example variable;
1826 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1827 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1829 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1830 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1832 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1833 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1836 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1837 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1838 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1840 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1841 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1842 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1843 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1845 * New remote packets
1848 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1851 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1852 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1853 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1856 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1857 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1860 Obtains additional operating system information
1864 Read or write additional signal information.
1866 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1868 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1869 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1870 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1872 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1873 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1875 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1876 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1877 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1879 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1880 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1882 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1884 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1886 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1887 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1889 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1890 list of section offsets.
1892 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1893 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1894 have also been fixed.
1896 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1897 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1898 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1900 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1903 template<typename T> class C { };
1906 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1908 ptype C<char const *>
1909 ptype C<char const*>
1910 ptype C<const char *>
1911 ptype C<const char*>
1913 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1915 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1916 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1918 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1919 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1920 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1922 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1923 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1925 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1928 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1929 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1931 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1932 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1937 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1938 available is determined at configure time.
1940 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1942 * Ada tasking support
1944 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1948 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1950 Print detailed information about task number N.
1952 Print the task number of the current task.
1954 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1956 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1957 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1959 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1961 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1962 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1963 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1964 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1965 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1966 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1969 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1970 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1973 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1974 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1975 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1976 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1979 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1981 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1982 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1983 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1984 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1985 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1987 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1988 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1989 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1990 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1991 --enable-targets configure option.
1993 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1995 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1996 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1997 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1998 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1999 section in the user manual for more information.
2001 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2002 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2003 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2004 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2005 extensions on linux targets.
2007 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2009 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2010 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2011 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2012 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2013 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2014 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2015 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2016 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2017 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2019 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2021 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2023 maint set python print-stack
2024 maint show python print-stack
2025 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2028 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2033 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2037 Show operating system information about processes.
2040 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2043 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2046 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2049 Kill inferior number NUM.
2053 set spu stop-on-load
2054 show spu stop-on-load
2055 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2057 set spu auto-flush-cache
2058 show spu auto-flush-cache
2059 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2060 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2062 set sh calling-convention
2063 show sh calling-convention
2064 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2067 show debug timestamp
2068 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2070 set disassemble-next-line
2071 show disassemble-next-line
2072 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2075 set remote noack-packet
2076 show remote noack-packet
2077 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2078 under "New remote packets."
2080 set remote query-attached-packet
2081 show remote query-attached-packet
2082 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2084 set remote read-siginfo-object
2085 show remote read-siginfo-object
2086 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2089 set remote write-siginfo-object
2090 show remote write-siginfo-object
2091 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2094 set remote reverse-continue
2095 show remote reverse-continue
2096 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2098 set remote reverse-step
2099 show remote reverse-step
2100 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2102 set displaced-stepping
2103 show displaced-stepping
2104 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2105 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2106 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2109 show debug displaced
2110 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2112 maint set internal-error
2113 maint show internal-error
2114 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2116 maint set internal-warning
2117 maint show internal-warning
2118 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
2123 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2125 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2126 show multiple-symbols
2127 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2128 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2129 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2131 set breakpoint always-inserted
2132 show breakpoint always-inserted
2133 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2134 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2135 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2137 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2138 show arm fallback-mode
2139 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2141 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2142 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2143 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2144 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2146 set disable-randomization
2147 show disable-randomization
2148 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2149 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2150 multiple debugging sessions.
2154 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2159 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2160 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2161 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2162 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2164 set target-wide-charset
2165 show target-wide-charset
2166 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2167 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2169 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2171 set tcp connect-timeout
2172 show tcp connect-timeout
2173 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2174 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2175 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2177 set libthread-db-search-path
2178 show libthread-db-search-path
2179 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2182 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2183 show schedule-multiple
2184 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2185 the current process.
2189 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2190 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2191 affecting correctness.
2193 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2194 show interactive-mode
2195 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2196 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2197 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2198 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2199 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2204 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2205 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2206 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2210 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2211 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2212 alias for the `fork' command.
2215 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2216 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2217 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2220 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2221 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2222 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2226 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2227 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2228 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2231 * New native configurations
2233 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2235 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2239 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
2240 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
2241 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
2244 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2245 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2251 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2253 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
2255 * New native configurations
2257 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
2258 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
2262 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
2263 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
2265 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2267 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2268 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2269 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2270 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2272 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2273 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2275 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
2278 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
2279 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2280 and in inlined functions.
2282 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2283 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2284 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2286 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2288 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2289 registers on PowerPC targets.
2291 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2292 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2294 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2295 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2297 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2298 extended-remote mode.
2300 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
2301 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2302 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2303 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
2305 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2306 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2307 target architectures.
2309 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2310 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2311 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2312 stored in two consecutive float registers.
2314 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2317 * Improved support for debugging Ada
2318 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2320 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2321 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2322 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2323 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2325 - Improved command completion in Ada
2328 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2333 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2334 show print frame-arguments
2335 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2336 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2341 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2348 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2350 * New remote packets
2357 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
2360 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2364 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2366 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
2368 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2369 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2370 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2372 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2373 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2374 -Bsymbolic linker option.
2376 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2377 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2380 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2381 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2383 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
2384 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
2386 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2388 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2389 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2390 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2392 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2393 automatically displayed as character or string data.
2395 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2396 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2399 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2400 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
2401 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
2403 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2406 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2407 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2408 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2410 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2412 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2414 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2415 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2416 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2418 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2419 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2421 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2422 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2423 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2424 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2425 Windows and SymbianOS).
2427 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2428 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
2430 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2431 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
2437 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2438 when debugging using remote targets.
2440 set mem inaccessible-by-default
2441 show mem inaccessible-by-default
2442 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2443 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2444 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2445 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2446 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2448 set breakpoint auto-hw
2449 show breakpoint auto-hw
2450 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2451 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2452 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2453 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2454 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2455 including "next" and "finish".
2458 catch exception unhandled
2459 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2462 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2466 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2467 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2468 an alias to "set sysroot".
2471 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2472 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2475 * New native configurations
2477 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2480 unset tdesc filename
2482 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2483 not query the target for its built-in description.
2487 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
2488 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
2489 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
2491 * New remote packets
2494 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2495 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2497 qXfer:features:read:
2498 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2503 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2504 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2506 qXfer:libraries:read:
2507 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2508 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2509 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2510 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2514 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2522 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2523 i[34567]86-*-netware*
2524 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2525 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2527 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2530 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2531 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2540 * Other removed features
2547 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2554 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2559 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2560 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2565 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2566 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2568 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2570 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2571 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2572 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2573 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2575 MIPS ".pdr" sections
2577 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2578 in debugging information.
2582 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2583 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2585 set mips stack-arg-size
2586 set mips saved-gpreg-size
2588 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2590 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
2595 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
2597 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2598 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2599 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2601 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2602 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2605 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2606 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2608 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2609 stub provides the required support.
2611 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2612 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2617 unset substitute-path
2618 show substitute-path
2619 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2620 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2621 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2622 between compilation and debugging.
2626 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2627 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2628 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2632 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2634 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2635 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2637 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2639 * New remote packets
2642 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2643 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2644 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2645 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2649 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2650 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2652 qXfer:memory-map:read:
2653 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2654 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2659 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2661 * Removed remote packets
2664 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2665 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2667 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
2671 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2673 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2677 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2678 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2680 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2682 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2684 restart <n> Return the program state to a
2685 previously saved state.
2687 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2689 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2691 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2692 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2694 info forks List forks of the user program that
2695 are available to be debugged.
2697 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2698 forks of the user program that are
2699 available to be debugged.
2701 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2702 that are available to be debugged (and
2703 kill the forked process).
2705 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2706 that are available to be debugged (and
2707 allow the process to continue).
2711 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2713 * Improved Windows host support
2715 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2716 native console support, and remote communications using either
2717 network sockets or serial ports.
2719 * Improved Modula-2 language support
2721 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2722 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2723 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2724 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2725 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2726 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2730 The ARM rdi-share module.
2732 The Netware NLM debug server.
2734 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2736 * New native configurations
2738 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2739 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2743 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2745 * New command line options
2747 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2748 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2749 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2750 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2751 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2752 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2753 with the --command (-x) option.
2755 * Deprecated commands removed
2757 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2761 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2762 othernames set arm disassembler
2763 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2764 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2765 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2768 * New BSD user-level threads support
2770 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2771 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2774 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2775 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2776 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2778 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2779 are not yet supported.
2781 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2782 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2784 * REMOVED configurations and files
2786 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2787 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2788 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2790 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2792 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2793 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2796 * VAX floating point support
2798 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2800 * User-defined command support
2802 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2803 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2804 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2806 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2808 * New command line option
2810 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2813 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2815 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2816 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2817 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2818 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2819 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
2821 * Internationalization
2823 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2824 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2825 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2829 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2830 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2831 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2833 * New native configurations
2835 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2839 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2840 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2842 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2844 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2845 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2846 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2849 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2850 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2851 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2861 powerpc bdm protocol
2863 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2864 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2866 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2868 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2869 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2870 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2871 permanently REMOVED.
2880 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2882 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2884 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2885 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2888 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2890 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2891 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2892 IRIX long double values).
2896 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2897 command. This problem has been fixed.
2899 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2901 * Fix for ``many threads''
2903 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2904 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2907 ptrace: No such process.
2908 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2910 This problem has been fixed.
2912 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2914 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2917 * New ``start'' command.
2919 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2921 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2923 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2924 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2925 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2927 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2928 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2929 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2930 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2931 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2932 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2933 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2934 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2935 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2937 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2939 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2940 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2941 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2942 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2943 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2945 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2946 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2947 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2949 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2951 * New native configurations
2953 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2954 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2955 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2956 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2957 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2958 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2959 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2961 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2963 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2964 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2965 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2966 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2967 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2968 work, was also included.
2970 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2971 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2981 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2982 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2984 * REMOVED configurations and files
2986 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2987 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2988 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2989 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2990 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2991 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2992 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2993 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2994 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2995 sonymips mips-sony-*
2996 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2998 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3000 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3002 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3003 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3004 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3005 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3008 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3010 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3011 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3012 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3013 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3014 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3015 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3018 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3020 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
3022 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3023 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3024 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3026 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3028 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3029 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3031 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3033 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3034 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3035 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3037 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3039 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3040 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3042 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3044 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3045 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3046 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3048 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3050 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3051 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3052 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3054 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
3056 * Removed --with-mmalloc
3058 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3059 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3061 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
3063 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3064 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3065 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3066 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3068 * Revised SPARC target
3070 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3071 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
3072 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3073 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3074 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
3078 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3079 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3080 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3083 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3085 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3086 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3089 * C++ nested types and namespaces
3091 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3092 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3093 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3094 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3095 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3096 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3097 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3098 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3099 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3101 * New native configurations
3103 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
3104 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3105 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
3106 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3107 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
3109 * New debugging protocols
3111 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3113 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3115 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3116 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3117 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3119 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3121 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3122 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3123 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3124 permanently REMOVED.
3126 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3127 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3128 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3129 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3130 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3131 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3132 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3133 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3134 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3135 sonymips mips-sony-*
3136 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3138 * REMOVED configurations and files
3140 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3141 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3142 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3143 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3144 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3145 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3146 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3147 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3148 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3149 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
3150 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3151 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3152 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3153 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3154 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
3155 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3156 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3158 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3162 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3163 integrated into GDB.
3165 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3167 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3168 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3169 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3172 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3173 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3174 DWARF 2 CFI support.
3178 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3179 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3180 remote protocol documentation for details.
3182 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
3184 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3185 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3186 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3189 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3191 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3192 per-thread variables.
3194 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3196 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3197 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3199 * Separate debug info.
3201 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3202 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3203 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3204 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3205 and optional debug files.
3207 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3209 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3210 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3213 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3214 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3218 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3219 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3220 considered "useable".
3222 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3224 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3225 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3228 * GDB supports logging output to a file
3230 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3231 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
3233 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3235 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3236 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3239 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
3241 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3242 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3246 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3247 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3248 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3249 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3250 data, for more informative profiling results.
3252 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3254 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3255 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
3256 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
3258 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3261 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3262 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3263 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3264 in a subsequent -var-update.
3266 * New native configurations.
3268 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3270 * Multi-arched targets.
3272 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
3273 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3275 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3277 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3278 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3279 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3280 permanently REMOVED.
3282 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3283 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3284 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3285 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3286 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3287 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3288 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3289 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3290 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3291 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3292 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3293 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3295 * REMOVED configurations and files
3298 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3299 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3300 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3301 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3302 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3303 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3305 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3306 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3307 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3308 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3309 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3310 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3312 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
3314 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3315 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3316 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3317 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3318 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3320 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
3322 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3324 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3325 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3326 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3327 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3328 shared libs like mad''.
3330 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
3332 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3333 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3334 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3335 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
3337 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3339 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3340 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3343 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3344 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3346 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3347 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3349 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3350 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3351 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3352 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3354 * Multi-arched targets.
3356 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3357 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
3359 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
3360 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3361 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3365 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3368 * New native configurations
3370 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
3371 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
3372 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
3373 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
3375 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3377 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3378 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3379 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3380 permanently REMOVED.
3382 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3383 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3384 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3385 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3386 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3387 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3388 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3389 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3390 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3391 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3393 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3394 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3396 * OBSOLETE languages
3398 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3400 * REMOVED configurations and files
3402 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3403 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3404 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3405 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3406 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3408 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3410 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3412 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3413 commands. The default is 1024.
3415 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3417 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3419 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3421 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3422 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3423 from a file into memory (restore).
3425 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3427 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3428 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3429 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3431 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3439 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3440 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3441 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3443 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3444 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3445 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3447 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3448 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3449 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3451 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3452 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3453 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3455 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
3457 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3459 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3460 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3461 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3462 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3463 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3464 (notably embedded) targets.
3466 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3468 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3469 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3470 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3471 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
3473 * New command line option
3475 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3477 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3479 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3480 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3481 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3482 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3483 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3484 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3485 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3486 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3487 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3488 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3490 * Changes in ARM configurations.
3492 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3493 configuration is fully multi-arch.
3495 * New native configurations
3497 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
3498 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
3499 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
3500 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
3504 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3506 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3508 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3509 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3510 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3511 permanently REMOVED.
3513 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3514 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3515 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3516 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3517 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3519 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3521 * REMOVED configurations and files
3523 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3525 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3526 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3527 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3528 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3529 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3530 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3531 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3532 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3533 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3534 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3535 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
3537 * Changes to command line processing
3539 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3540 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3542 * Changes to key bindings
3544 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3546 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3548 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3550 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3553 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3555 Numerous documentation fixes.
3557 Numerous testsuite fixes.
3559 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
3561 * New native configurations
3563 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3564 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
3565 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
3566 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3567 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
3568 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
3572 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
3574 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
3576 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3578 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
3579 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3580 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3581 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3582 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3584 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3585 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3586 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3587 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3588 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3589 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3590 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3591 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
3593 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3594 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3596 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3597 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3598 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3599 permanently REMOVED.
3601 * REMOVED configurations and files
3603 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3604 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3606 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3610 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
3612 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
3613 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3618 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3620 * The MI enabled by default.
3622 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3623 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3624 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3625 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3626 which is now deprecated.
3628 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3630 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3631 main features are supported:
3633 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3635 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3638 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3640 - a Pascal expression parser.
3642 However, some important features are not yet supported.
3644 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3646 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3648 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3649 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3651 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3653 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3655 * Changes in completion.
3657 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3658 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3659 users expect at the shell prompt.
3661 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3662 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3663 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3664 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3665 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3666 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3667 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3669 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3671 * New platform-independent commands:
3673 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3674 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3675 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3677 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3679 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3680 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3681 many threads as your system allows you to have.
3683 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3685 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3686 multi-threaded programs though.
3688 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
3690 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3692 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3693 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3696 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3698 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3699 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3700 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3701 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3702 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3705 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3706 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3707 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3709 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3711 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3712 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3714 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3715 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3718 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3719 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3720 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3721 a given linear address.
3723 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3724 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3725 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3727 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3729 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3731 * Changes in documentation.
3733 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3734 Documentation License.
3736 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3739 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3741 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3744 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3745 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3746 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3748 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3750 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3751 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3752 contents of this file.
3756 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3758 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3760 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3762 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3763 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3764 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3765 greater level of detail.
3767 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3769 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3770 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3771 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3774 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3776 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3777 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3778 machines ``out of the box''.
3780 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3781 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3782 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3783 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3784 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3786 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3787 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3788 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3789 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3790 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3792 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3793 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3796 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3799 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3800 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3801 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3802 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3804 * New native configurations
3806 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3807 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3811 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3812 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3813 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
3814 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3816 * OBSOLETE configurations
3818 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3819 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3821 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3824 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3825 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3826 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3827 be permanently REMOVED.
3829 * Gould support removed
3831 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3833 * New features for SVR4
3835 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3836 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3837 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3839 * Many C++ enhancements
3841 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3842 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3844 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3846 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3847 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3848 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3849 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3851 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3852 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3854 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3856 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3857 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3858 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3860 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3861 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3863 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3865 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3866 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3867 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3869 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3871 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3872 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3873 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3875 * ``apropos'' command added.
3877 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3878 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3879 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3883 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3884 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3885 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3886 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3887 enabled by configuring with:
3889 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3891 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3893 * New native configurations
3895 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3896 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3897 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3901 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3902 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3903 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3905 * OBSOLETE configurations
3907 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3909 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3910 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3911 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3912 be permanently REMOVED.
3916 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3917 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3918 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3919 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3920 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3922 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3927 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3929 * set extension-language
3931 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3932 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3933 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3934 set extension-language .c c++
3935 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3936 and their associated languages.
3938 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3940 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3941 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3942 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3946 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3947 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3949 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3950 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3952 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3953 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3954 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3955 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3956 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3957 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3958 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3959 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3961 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3962 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3963 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3964 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3968 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3969 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3970 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3971 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3972 for xdb and dbx commands.
3976 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3977 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3978 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3980 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3981 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3982 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3984 * Debugging across forks
3986 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3991 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3992 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3993 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3995 * GDB remote protocol additions
3997 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3998 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3999 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4000 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4002 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4003 full 64-bit address. The command
4005 set remoteaddresssize 32
4007 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4008 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4011 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4012 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4014 maint packet heythere
4016 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4017 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4020 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4021 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4022 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4024 * Tracing can collect general expressions
4026 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4027 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4028 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4030 * mask-address variable for Mips
4032 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4033 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4034 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4036 * Higher serial baud rates
4038 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4039 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4040 to achieve all of these rates.)
4044 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4045 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4048 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4050 * New native configurations
4052 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4053 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4054 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4055 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4056 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4057 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4058 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4062 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4063 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4064 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4065 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4066 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4067 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4068 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4069 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4070 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4071 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4072 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4074 * New debugging protocols
4076 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4077 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4078 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4079 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4080 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4081 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4085 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4086 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4091 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4092 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4094 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4096 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4097 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4098 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4100 * Live range splitting
4102 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4103 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4104 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4108 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4109 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4113 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4114 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4115 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4120 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4125 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4126 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4127 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4128 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4129 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4130 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4134 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4135 the symbol at the specified address.
4139 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4140 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4141 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4142 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4143 file tracepoint.c for more details.
4147 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4148 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4149 of most MIPS variants.
4153 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4154 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4155 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4159 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4160 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4161 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4162 the possible architectures.
4164 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4166 * New native configurations
4168 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4169 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4170 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4171 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4172 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4173 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4177 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4178 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4179 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4180 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4181 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4183 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4187 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4188 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4189 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4190 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4191 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4195 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4197 * Windows 95/NT native
4199 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4200 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4201 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4202 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4203 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4205 * dont-repeat command
4207 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4208 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4209 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4210 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4212 * Send break instead of ^C
4214 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4215 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4216 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4218 * Remote protocol timeout
4220 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4221 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4222 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4224 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4226 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4227 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4228 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4229 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4230 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4232 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4233 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4234 automatically on hpux10.
4236 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4238 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4240 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4242 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4243 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4244 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4245 every character. The default value is 1050.
4247 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4249 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4250 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4251 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4252 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4253 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4254 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4256 * Speedups for remote debugging
4258 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4259 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4260 and more efficient S-record downloading.
4262 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4264 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4265 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4267 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4269 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
4271 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4272 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4274 * Remote targets use caching
4276 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4277 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4278 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4279 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4280 off' turns the the data cache off.
4282 * Remote targets may have threads
4284 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4285 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4286 gdb/remote.c for details.
4290 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4291 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4292 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4293 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4294 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4295 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4296 sequence is something like
4298 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4300 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4304 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4305 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4306 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4307 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4308 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4309 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4310 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4311 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4315 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4316 but does simplify configuration and building.
4320 GDB now supports hpux10.
4322 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4324 * New native configurations
4326 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4327 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4328 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4329 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4333 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4334 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4335 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4336 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4339 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4341 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4342 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4343 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4344 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4345 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4347 * Arguments to user-defined commands
4349 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4350 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4353 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4355 To execute the command use:
4358 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4359 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4360 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4362 * New `if' and `while' commands
4364 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4365 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4366 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4367 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4368 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4369 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4370 if the expression is zero.
4372 * Fortran source language mode
4374 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4375 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4376 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4377 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4380 * Better HPUX support
4382 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4383 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4384 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4385 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4386 that behavior do the following before running the program:
4392 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4393 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4399 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4400 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4403 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4404 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4406 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4408 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4409 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4410 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4411 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4412 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4413 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4415 * New DOS host serial code
4417 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4418 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4421 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4423 * New "complete" command
4425 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4426 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4428 * Trailing space optional in prompt
4430 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4431 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4433 * Breakpoint hit counts
4435 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4436 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4437 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4438 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4439 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4442 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4444 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4445 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4446 arrays actually contain only short strings.
4448 * Shared library breakpoints
4450 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4451 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4453 * Hardware watchpoints
4455 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4456 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4458 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
4462 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4463 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4465 * Improved Irix 5 support
4467 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4469 * Improved HPPA support
4471 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4473 * New native configurations
4475 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4476 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4477 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4478 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4482 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4483 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4486 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4488 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4489 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4493 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4494 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4496 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4498 * Irix 5 is now supported
4502 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4503 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4504 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4505 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4506 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4509 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4511 * User visible changes:
4515 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4516 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4517 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4518 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4519 debugging info for the mips target).
4521 * DEC Alpha native support
4523 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4524 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4525 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4526 Alpha-specific notes.
4528 * Preliminary thread implementation
4530 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4532 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
4534 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4535 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4538 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4540 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4541 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4542 call methods, ...etc.
4544 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4546 * User visible changes:
4548 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4549 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4550 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4551 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4553 Filename completion now works.
4555 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4556 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4557 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4559 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4560 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4561 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4562 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4563 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4567 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4568 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4571 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4575 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4576 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4577 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4581 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4582 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4583 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4584 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4585 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4589 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4590 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4591 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4593 * New targets supported
4595 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4596 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4597 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4598 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4599 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4601 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4602 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4603 GO32 memory extender.
4605 * New remote protocols
4607 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4609 * New source languages supported
4611 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4612 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4613 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4616 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4618 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4620 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4621 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4622 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4623 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4624 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4625 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4627 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4629 * Faster and better demangling
4631 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4632 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4633 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4634 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4635 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4636 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4639 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4640 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4641 compiler does not actually implement.
4643 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4645 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4646 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4647 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4648 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4649 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4650 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4653 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4654 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4656 * Improved configure script
4658 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4659 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4660 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4661 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4663 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4664 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4665 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4666 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4667 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4668 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4670 * Documentation improvements
4672 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4673 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4674 before submitting changes.
4676 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4677 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4678 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4679 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4680 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4682 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4683 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4684 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4685 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4686 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4687 around this problem.
4691 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4692 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4693 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4696 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4697 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4699 * New native hosts supported
4701 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4702 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4704 * New targets supported
4706 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4708 * New file formats supported
4710 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4711 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4715 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4717 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4718 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4720 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4721 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4722 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4724 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4725 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4727 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4728 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4729 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4732 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4733 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4734 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4735 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4736 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4738 * Internal improvements
4740 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4741 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4743 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4744 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4745 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4746 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4747 shared code that handles any of them.
4749 * New command line options
4751 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4755 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4756 General Public License.
4758 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4760 * Host/native/target split
4762 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4763 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4764 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4765 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4766 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4768 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4769 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4770 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4771 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4772 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4773 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4774 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4776 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4777 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4778 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4780 * New hosts supported
4782 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4783 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4784 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4786 * New targets supported
4788 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4789 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4791 * New native hosts supported
4793 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4794 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4795 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4797 * New file formats supported
4799 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4800 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4801 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4805 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4806 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4807 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4809 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4811 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4812 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4813 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4814 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4818 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4819 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4820 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4822 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4826 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4827 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4830 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4831 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4833 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4834 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4835 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4836 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4837 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4838 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4840 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4841 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4842 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4843 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4847 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4848 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4849 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4850 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4851 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4853 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4854 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4855 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4856 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4860 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4861 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4862 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4863 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4864 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4865 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4866 each instruction being stepped through.
4868 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4869 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4871 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4872 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4873 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4874 processor with a serial port.
4878 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4879 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4880 supported, and what files each one uses.
4884 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4885 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4886 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4887 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4889 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4890 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4891 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4892 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4896 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4897 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4898 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4899 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4900 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4903 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4906 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4908 * Better support for C++ function names
4910 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4911 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4912 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4913 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4914 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4916 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4917 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4918 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4919 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4920 for the list of formats.
4922 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4924 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4925 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4926 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4927 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4928 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4929 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4932 * New 'maintenance' command
4934 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4935 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4936 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4938 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4939 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4940 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4941 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4942 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4943 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4945 The following commands are new:
4947 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4948 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4949 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4951 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4953 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4954 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4955 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4956 read after argv processing.
4958 * New hosts supported
4960 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4962 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4964 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4965 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4966 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4967 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4968 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4971 * New targets supported
4973 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4975 * More smarts about finding #include files
4977 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4978 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4979 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4980 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4981 the one that contains your sources.
4983 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4984 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4985 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4987 * Interesting infernals change
4989 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4990 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4991 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4992 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4994 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4996 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4997 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4998 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5000 See the ChangeLog for details.
5002 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5004 * New machines supported (host and target)
5006 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5008 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5010 * New malloc package
5012 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5013 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5014 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5015 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5016 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5017 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5021 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5022 'help info proc' for details.
5024 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5026 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5027 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5030 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5032 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5033 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5034 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5035 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5036 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5037 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5039 * Cross byte order fixes
5041 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5042 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5044 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5046 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5047 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5048 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5049 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5050 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5051 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5052 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5053 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5054 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5055 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5057 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5058 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5059 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5060 slower, but makes future operations faster.
5062 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5063 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5064 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5067 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5069 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5070 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5071 shared across multiple host platforms.
5073 * longjmp() handling
5075 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5076 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5077 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5078 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5082 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5083 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5088 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5089 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5090 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5092 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5094 * New machines supported (host and target)
5096 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5098 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5099 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5101 * New machines supported (target)
5103 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5107 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5108 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5109 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5111 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5112 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5113 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5114 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5115 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5118 * New features for SVR4
5120 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5121 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5122 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5124 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5125 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5126 it prints the address mappings of the process.
5128 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5131 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5133 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5134 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5135 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5136 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5137 same code linked statically.
5141 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5142 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5143 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5144 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5145 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5146 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5150 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5151 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5152 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5155 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5157 * New machines supported (host and target)
5159 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5160 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5161 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5163 * Almost SCO Unix support
5165 We had hoped to support:
5166 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5167 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5168 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5169 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5171 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5173 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5174 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5175 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5181 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5182 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5183 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5187 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5188 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5189 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5191 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5193 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5194 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5195 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5197 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5198 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5199 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5200 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5203 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5204 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5205 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5206 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5209 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5210 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5213 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5214 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5215 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5218 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5220 * Improved configuration
5222 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5223 Porting BFD is simpler.
5227 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5228 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5229 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5230 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5234 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5236 * New host supported (not target)
5238 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5241 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5243 * Multiple source language support
5245 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5246 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5247 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5248 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5249 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5250 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5254 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5255 currently under development at the State University of New York at
5256 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5257 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5259 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5260 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5261 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5263 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5264 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5268 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5269 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5270 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5271 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5274 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5276 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5277 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5278 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5279 examining core files.
5283 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5286 * New machines supported (host and target)
5288 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5289 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5290 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5292 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5294 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5296 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5298 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5299 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5300 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5302 * New remote interfaces
5308 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5312 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5314 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5315 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5316 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5317 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5318 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5319 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5320 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5321 stub on the target system.
5323 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5325 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5326 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5327 object file types such as a.out and coff.
5329 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5330 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5333 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5335 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5336 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5338 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5339 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5340 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5342 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5343 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5344 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5345 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5347 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5348 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5349 it is already running. Default is ON.
5351 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5352 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5353 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5354 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5357 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5358 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5359 or the value of the environment variable
5362 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5363 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5366 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5367 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5368 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5370 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5371 history expansion will be performed on
5372 command line input. The default is OFF.
5374 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5375 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5376 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5378 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5379 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5380 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5383 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5384 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5385 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5388 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5389 ``set width'' instead.
5391 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5392 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5393 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5394 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5396 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5399 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5402 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5405 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5408 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5410 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5411 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5412 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5416 * Support for Shared Libraries
5418 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5419 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5420 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5421 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5422 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5423 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5424 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5425 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5427 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5428 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5429 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5431 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5436 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5437 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5438 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5439 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5440 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5441 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5443 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5445 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5447 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5448 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5449 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5452 * C++ multiple inheritance
5454 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5457 * C++ exception handling
5459 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5460 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5461 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5464 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5465 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5466 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5468 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5469 current stack frame.
5472 * Minor command changes
5474 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5475 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5476 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5478 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5479 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5480 frames without printing.
5482 * New directory command
5484 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5485 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5486 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5487 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5488 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5490 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5492 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5495 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5496 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5497 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5498 where the program that you are debugging will run.