1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.4
8 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
11 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
13 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
14 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
16 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
18 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
19 the source at which the symbol was defined.
21 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
22 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
23 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
26 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
27 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
29 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
30 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
32 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
33 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
34 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
35 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
36 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
39 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
40 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
41 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
44 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
45 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
47 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
50 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
51 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
52 command does. For instance:
54 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
56 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
57 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
58 created, using the "condition" command.
62 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
63 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
65 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
70 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
72 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
73 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
74 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
75 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
80 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
81 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
82 Controls whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("gdb") or by
84 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
89 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
90 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
91 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
92 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
94 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
96 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
97 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
98 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
99 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
102 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
103 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
105 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
106 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
107 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
108 target hardware watchpoint.
110 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
111 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
112 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
113 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
117 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
118 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
121 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
122 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
123 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
124 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
125 now "message", which just prints the error message without
128 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
131 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
132 modules library. This module provides functionality for
133 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
134 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
137 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
138 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
139 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
142 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
143 static_block will return the global and static blocks
144 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
145 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
147 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
149 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
152 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
153 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
154 available in the CLI.
156 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
157 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
158 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
161 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
164 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
165 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
166 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
167 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
168 any anonymous fields.
172 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
175 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
176 "=breakpoint-modified".
178 ** New command -ada-task-info.
180 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
181 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
182 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
185 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
186 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
187 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
188 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
189 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
191 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
192 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
194 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
195 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
196 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
197 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
198 use this option to specify where to find it.
200 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
201 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
202 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
203 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
204 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
205 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
206 section in the user manual for more details.
208 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
209 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
210 become available after that.
212 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
214 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
215 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
221 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
222 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
226 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
227 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
228 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
230 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
231 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
232 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
234 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
235 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
236 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
237 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
238 name starts with a hyphen.
240 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
241 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
242 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
243 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
244 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
245 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
246 number of bytes that will be collected.
249 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
250 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
251 setting the variable trace-notes.
254 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
255 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
256 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
259 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
260 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
261 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
262 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
263 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
266 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
267 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
268 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
274 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
275 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
276 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
277 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
280 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
281 show print entry-values
282 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
283 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
284 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
286 set debug entry-values
287 show debug entry-values
288 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
289 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
291 set basenames-may-differ
292 show basenames-may-differ
293 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
294 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
295 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
296 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
297 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
298 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
299 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
300 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
306 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
307 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
308 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
309 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
312 show trace-stop-notes
313 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
314 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
315 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
316 started by someone else.
322 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
326 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
330 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
334 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
338 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
341 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
342 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
346 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
350 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
352 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
354 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
356 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
358 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
359 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
360 matches the given regular expression.
362 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
364 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
365 dumping the instruction opcodes.
367 * New command line options
369 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
370 This is mostly for testing purposes.
372 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
373 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
375 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
376 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
377 source path list instead of augmenting it.
379 * GDB now understands thread names.
381 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
382 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
384 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
385 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
388 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
389 has been integrated into GDB.
393 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
394 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
395 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
397 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
398 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
399 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
400 and allows for more dynamic content.
402 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
403 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
404 have an is_valid method.
406 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
407 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
408 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
410 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
412 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
413 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
414 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
415 that function like so:
417 result = some_value (10,20)
419 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
420 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
421 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
423 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
424 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
425 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
426 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
427 New function: register_pretty_printer.
429 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
430 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
432 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
434 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
437 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
438 holds the thread's name.
440 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
441 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
442 occurring in the process being debugged.
443 The following events are currently supported:
444 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
445 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
446 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
450 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
451 instantiation. For example, if you have:
453 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
455 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
456 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
457 was added to GCC 4.5.
459 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
460 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
461 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
462 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
463 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
464 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
466 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
467 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
468 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
469 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
470 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
472 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
473 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
474 execution to a label.
476 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
477 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
478 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
479 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
481 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
482 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
483 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
486 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
488 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
489 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
490 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
491 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
492 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
493 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
496 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
498 While now you see this:
501 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
503 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
506 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
507 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
508 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
509 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
511 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
512 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
513 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
514 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
515 section in the user manual for more details.
517 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
519 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
520 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
522 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
524 * New native configurations
526 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
530 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
532 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
533 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
534 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
535 in the GDB user manual.
537 * Guile support was removed.
539 * New features in the GNU simulator
541 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
543 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
545 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
547 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
549 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
550 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
551 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
552 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
553 was always disabled for such configurations.
557 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
559 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
560 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
570 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
571 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
572 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
574 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
576 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
577 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
578 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
579 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
581 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
582 mentioned flavors of operators.
584 ** static const class members
586 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
587 class definition has been fixed.
589 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
591 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
592 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
593 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
594 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
595 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
596 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
600 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
601 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
602 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
603 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
604 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
605 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
606 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
607 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
608 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
609 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
610 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
611 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
612 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
613 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
614 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
615 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
616 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
617 the "New remote packets" section below.
619 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
621 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
622 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
623 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
624 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
628 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
629 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
630 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
631 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
632 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
633 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
634 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
636 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
643 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
647 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
648 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
649 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
650 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
651 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
652 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
656 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
660 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
663 qXfer:statictrace:read
665 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
666 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
667 to gdb's qSupported query.
671 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
675 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
676 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
678 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
679 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
682 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
684 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
685 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
686 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
687 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
689 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
690 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
691 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
692 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
693 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
694 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
695 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
697 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
698 for static tracepoints support.
700 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
702 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
703 it understands register description.
705 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
707 * X86 general purpose registers
709 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
710 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
711 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
712 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
713 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
715 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
716 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
717 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
718 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
719 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
720 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
722 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
723 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
724 in the specified file.
726 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
727 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
728 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
729 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
730 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
731 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
732 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
733 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
734 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
735 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
739 eval template, expressions...
740 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
741 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
743 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
744 show target-file-system-kind
745 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
748 save breakpoints <filename>
749 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
750 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
751 definitions, use the `source' command.
753 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
756 info static-tracepoint-markers
757 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
759 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
760 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
761 function, line, address, or marker ID.
765 Enable and disable observer mode.
767 set may-write-registers on|off
768 set may-write-memory on|off
769 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
770 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
771 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
772 set may-interrupt on|off
773 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
774 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
775 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
776 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
777 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
778 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
779 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
781 set record memory-query on|off
782 show record memory-query
783 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
784 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
789 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
793 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
794 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
795 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
796 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
797 GDB using Python' in the manual.
799 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
800 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
801 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
802 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
804 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
805 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
807 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
809 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
811 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
813 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
814 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
815 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
817 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
818 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
819 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
824 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
826 * D language support.
827 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
830 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
831 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
832 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
833 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
834 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
836 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
837 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
838 conditions of the form:
840 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
842 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
843 interface mentioned above.
845 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
851 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
852 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
853 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
854 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
855 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
859 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
860 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
865 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
866 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
870 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
875 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
878 * Multi-program debugging.
880 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
881 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
882 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
883 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
884 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
885 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
886 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
887 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
889 * New tracing features
891 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
893 ** Trace state variables
895 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
896 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
897 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
898 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
899 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
900 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
901 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
902 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
903 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
904 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
908 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
909 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
910 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
911 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
912 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
913 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
914 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
915 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
916 the regular trace command.
918 ** Disconnected tracing
920 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
921 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
922 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
923 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
924 connection is lost unexpectedly.
928 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
929 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
930 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
931 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
932 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
933 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
936 ** Circular trace buffer
938 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
939 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
940 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
941 not be available for all target agents.
946 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
947 the arguments to be comma-separated.
950 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
951 which only declare a variable are not shown.
954 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
955 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
958 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
959 "set script-extension" (see below).
961 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
963 record save [<FILENAME>]
964 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
965 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
967 record restore <FILENAME>
968 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
969 earlier time, for replay debugging.
971 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
974 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
975 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
981 maint info program-spaces
982 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
984 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
985 show remote interrupt-sequence
986 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
987 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
988 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
989 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
990 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
992 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
993 show remote interrupt-on-connect
994 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
995 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
998 set remotebreak [on | off]
1000 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1002 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1003 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1006 List trace state variables and their values.
1008 delete tvariable $NAME ...
1009 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1012 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1013 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1015 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1016 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1018 * New expression syntax
1020 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1021 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1025 set follow-exec-mode new|same
1026 show follow-exec-mode
1027 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1028 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1029 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1031 set default-collect EXPR, ...
1032 show default-collect
1033 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1034 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1035 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1037 set disconnected-tracing
1038 show disconnected-tracing
1039 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1040 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1043 set circular-trace-buffer
1044 show circular-trace-buffer
1045 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1046 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1047 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1048 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1050 set script-extension off|soft|strict
1051 show script-extension
1052 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1053 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1054 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1055 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1057 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1059 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1060 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1061 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1062 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1063 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1064 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1065 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1068 * Python API Improvements
1070 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1071 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1072 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1074 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1075 `is_base_class' attribute.
1077 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1079 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1080 evaluate an expression.
1082 * New remote packets
1085 Define a trace state variable.
1088 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1091 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1094 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1097 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1101 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1103 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1104 much more reliable. In particular:
1105 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1106 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1107 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1108 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1109 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1110 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1111 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1112 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1113 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1114 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1115 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1116 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1117 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1118 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1119 non-threaded programs.
1121 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1122 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1123 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1126 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1128 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1129 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1130 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1131 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1132 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1134 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1135 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1136 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1137 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1138 for tracepoint actions.
1140 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1141 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1142 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1144 * Process record and replay
1146 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1147 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1148 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1151 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1152 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1153 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1156 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1157 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1160 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1161 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1162 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1163 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1164 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1165 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1166 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1167 the installation instructions for more information.
1169 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1170 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1171 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1172 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1174 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1175 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1177 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1178 now complete on file names.
1180 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1181 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1182 For instance, consider:
1184 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1185 # struct example variable;
1188 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1189 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1191 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1192 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1194 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1195 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1198 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1199 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1200 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1202 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1203 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1204 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1205 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1207 * New remote packets
1210 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1213 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1214 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1215 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1218 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1219 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1222 Obtains additional operating system information
1226 Read or write additional signal information.
1228 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1230 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1231 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1232 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1234 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1235 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1237 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1238 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1239 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1241 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1242 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1244 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1246 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1248 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1249 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1251 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1252 list of section offsets.
1254 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1255 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1256 have also been fixed.
1258 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1259 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1260 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1262 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1265 template<typename T> class C { };
1268 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1270 ptype C<char const *>
1271 ptype C<char const*>
1272 ptype C<const char *>
1273 ptype C<const char*>
1275 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1277 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1278 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1280 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1281 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1282 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1284 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1285 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1287 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1290 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1291 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1293 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1294 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1299 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1300 available is determined at configure time.
1302 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1304 * Ada tasking support
1306 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1310 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1312 Print detailed information about task number N.
1314 Print the task number of the current task.
1316 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1318 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1319 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1321 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1323 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1324 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1325 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1326 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1327 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1328 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1331 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1332 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1335 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1336 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1337 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1338 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1341 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1343 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1344 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1345 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1346 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1347 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1349 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1350 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1351 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1352 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1353 --enable-targets configure option.
1355 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1357 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1358 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1359 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1360 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1361 section in the user manual for more information.
1363 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1364 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1365 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1366 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1367 extensions on linux targets.
1369 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1371 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1372 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1373 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1374 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1375 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1376 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1377 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1378 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1379 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1381 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1383 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1385 maint set python print-stack
1386 maint show python print-stack
1387 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1390 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1395 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1399 Show operating system information about processes.
1402 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1405 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1408 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1411 Kill inferior number NUM.
1415 set spu stop-on-load
1416 show spu stop-on-load
1417 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1419 set spu auto-flush-cache
1420 show spu auto-flush-cache
1421 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1422 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1424 set sh calling-convention
1425 show sh calling-convention
1426 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1429 show debug timestamp
1430 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1432 set disassemble-next-line
1433 show disassemble-next-line
1434 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1437 set remote noack-packet
1438 show remote noack-packet
1439 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1440 under "New remote packets."
1442 set remote query-attached-packet
1443 show remote query-attached-packet
1444 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1446 set remote read-siginfo-object
1447 show remote read-siginfo-object
1448 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1451 set remote write-siginfo-object
1452 show remote write-siginfo-object
1453 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1456 set remote reverse-continue
1457 show remote reverse-continue
1458 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1460 set remote reverse-step
1461 show remote reverse-step
1462 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1464 set displaced-stepping
1465 show displaced-stepping
1466 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1467 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1468 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1471 show debug displaced
1472 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1474 maint set internal-error
1475 maint show internal-error
1476 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1478 maint set internal-warning
1479 maint show internal-warning
1480 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1485 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1487 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1488 show multiple-symbols
1489 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1490 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1491 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1493 set breakpoint always-inserted
1494 show breakpoint always-inserted
1495 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1496 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1497 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1499 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1500 show arm fallback-mode
1501 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1503 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1504 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1505 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1506 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1508 set disable-randomization
1509 show disable-randomization
1510 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1511 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1512 multiple debugging sessions.
1516 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1521 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1522 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1523 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1524 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1526 set target-wide-charset
1527 show target-wide-charset
1528 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1529 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1531 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1533 set tcp connect-timeout
1534 show tcp connect-timeout
1535 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1536 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1537 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1539 set libthread-db-search-path
1540 show libthread-db-search-path
1541 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1544 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1545 show schedule-multiple
1546 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1547 the current process.
1551 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1552 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1553 affecting correctness.
1555 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1556 show interactive-mode
1557 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1558 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1559 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1560 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1561 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1566 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1567 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1568 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1572 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1573 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1574 alias for the `fork' command.
1577 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1578 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1579 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1582 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1583 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1584 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1588 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1589 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1590 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1593 * New native configurations
1595 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1597 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1601 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
1602 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
1603 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
1606 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1607 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1613 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1615 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
1617 * New native configurations
1619 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
1620 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
1624 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
1625 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
1627 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1629 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1630 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1631 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1632 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1634 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1635 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1637 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
1640 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
1641 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1642 and in inlined functions.
1644 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1645 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1646 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1648 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1650 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1651 registers on PowerPC targets.
1653 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1654 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1656 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1657 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1659 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1660 extended-remote mode.
1662 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
1663 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1664 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1665 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
1667 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1668 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1669 target architectures.
1671 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1672 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1673 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1674 stored in two consecutive float registers.
1676 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1679 * Improved support for debugging Ada
1680 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1682 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1683 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1684 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1685 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1687 - Improved command completion in Ada
1690 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1695 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1696 show print frame-arguments
1697 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1698 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1703 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1710 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1712 * New remote packets
1719 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
1722 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1726 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1728 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
1730 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1731 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1732 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1734 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1735 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1736 -Bsymbolic linker option.
1738 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1739 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1742 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1743 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1745 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1746 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
1748 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1750 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1751 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1752 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1754 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1755 automatically displayed as character or string data.
1757 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1758 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1761 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1762 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
1763 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
1765 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1768 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1769 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1770 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1772 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1774 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1776 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1777 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1778 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1780 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1781 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1783 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1784 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1785 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1786 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1787 Windows and SymbianOS).
1789 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1790 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
1792 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1793 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1799 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1800 when debugging using remote targets.
1802 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1803 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1804 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1805 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1806 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1807 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1808 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1810 set breakpoint auto-hw
1811 show breakpoint auto-hw
1812 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1813 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1814 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1815 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1816 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1817 including "next" and "finish".
1820 catch exception unhandled
1821 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1824 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1828 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1829 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1830 an alias to "set sysroot".
1833 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1834 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1837 * New native configurations
1839 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1842 unset tdesc filename
1844 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1845 not query the target for its built-in description.
1849 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1850 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1851 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1853 * New remote packets
1856 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1857 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1859 qXfer:features:read:
1860 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1865 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1866 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1868 qXfer:libraries:read:
1869 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1870 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1871 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1872 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1876 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1884 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1885 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1886 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1887 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1889 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1892 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1893 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1902 * Other removed features
1909 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1916 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1921 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1922 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1927 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1928 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1930 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1932 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1933 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1934 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1935 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1937 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1939 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1940 in debugging information.
1944 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1945 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1947 set mips stack-arg-size
1948 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1950 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1952 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1957 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1959 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1960 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1961 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1963 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1964 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1967 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1968 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1970 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1971 stub provides the required support.
1973 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1974 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1979 unset substitute-path
1980 show substitute-path
1981 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1982 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1983 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1984 between compilation and debugging.
1988 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1989 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1990 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1994 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1996 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1997 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1999 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2001 * New remote packets
2004 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2005 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2006 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2007 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2011 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2012 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2014 qXfer:memory-map:read:
2015 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2016 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2021 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2023 * Removed remote packets
2026 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2027 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2029 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
2033 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2035 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2039 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2040 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2042 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2044 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2046 restart <n> Return the program state to a
2047 previously saved state.
2049 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2051 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2053 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2054 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2056 info forks List forks of the user program that
2057 are available to be debugged.
2059 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2060 forks of the user program that are
2061 available to be debugged.
2063 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2064 that are available to be debugged (and
2065 kill the forked process).
2067 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2068 that are available to be debugged (and
2069 allow the process to continue).
2073 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2075 * Improved Windows host support
2077 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2078 native console support, and remote communications using either
2079 network sockets or serial ports.
2081 * Improved Modula-2 language support
2083 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2084 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2085 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2086 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2087 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2088 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2092 The ARM rdi-share module.
2094 The Netware NLM debug server.
2096 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2098 * New native configurations
2100 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2101 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2105 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2107 * New command line options
2109 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2110 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2111 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2112 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2113 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2114 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2115 with the --command (-x) option.
2117 * Deprecated commands removed
2119 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2123 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2124 othernames set arm disassembler
2125 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2126 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2127 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2130 * New BSD user-level threads support
2132 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2133 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2136 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2137 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2138 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2140 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2141 are not yet supported.
2143 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2144 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2146 * REMOVED configurations and files
2148 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2149 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2150 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2152 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2154 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2155 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2158 * VAX floating point support
2160 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2162 * User-defined command support
2164 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2165 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2166 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2168 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2170 * New command line option
2172 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2175 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2177 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2178 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2179 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2180 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2181 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
2183 * Internationalization
2185 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2186 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2187 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2191 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2192 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2193 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2195 * New native configurations
2197 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2201 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2202 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2204 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2206 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2207 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2208 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2211 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2212 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2213 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2223 powerpc bdm protocol
2225 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2226 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2228 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2230 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2231 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2232 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2233 permanently REMOVED.
2242 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2244 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2246 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2247 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2250 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2252 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2253 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2254 IRIX long double values).
2258 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2259 command. This problem has been fixed.
2261 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2263 * Fix for ``many threads''
2265 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2266 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2269 ptrace: No such process.
2270 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2272 This problem has been fixed.
2274 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2276 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2279 * New ``start'' command.
2281 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2283 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2285 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2286 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2287 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2289 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2290 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2291 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2292 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2293 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2294 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2295 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2296 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2297 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2299 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2301 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2302 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2303 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2304 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2305 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2307 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2308 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2309 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2311 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2313 * New native configurations
2315 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2316 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2317 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2318 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2319 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2320 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2321 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2323 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2325 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2326 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2327 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2328 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2329 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2330 work, was also included.
2332 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2333 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2343 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2344 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2346 * REMOVED configurations and files
2348 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2349 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2350 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2351 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2352 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2353 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2354 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2355 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2356 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2357 sonymips mips-sony-*
2358 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2360 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2362 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2364 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2365 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2366 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2367 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2370 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2372 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2373 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2374 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2375 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2376 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2377 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2380 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2382 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2384 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2385 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2386 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2388 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2390 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2391 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2393 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2395 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2396 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2397 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2399 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2401 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2402 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2404 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2406 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2407 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2408 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2410 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2412 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2413 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2414 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2416 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2418 * Removed --with-mmalloc
2420 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2421 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2423 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
2425 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2426 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2427 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2428 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2430 * Revised SPARC target
2432 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2433 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2434 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2435 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2436 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2440 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2441 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2442 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2445 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2447 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2448 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2451 * C++ nested types and namespaces
2453 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2454 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2455 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2456 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2457 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2458 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2459 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2460 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2461 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2463 * New native configurations
2465 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2466 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2467 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2468 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2469 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2471 * New debugging protocols
2473 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2475 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2477 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2478 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2479 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2481 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2483 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2484 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2485 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2486 permanently REMOVED.
2488 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2489 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2490 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2491 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2492 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2493 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2494 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2495 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2496 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2497 sonymips mips-sony-*
2498 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2500 * REMOVED configurations and files
2502 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2503 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2504 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2505 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2506 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2507 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2508 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2509 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2510 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2511 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2512 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2513 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2514 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2515 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2516 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2517 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2518 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2520 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2524 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2525 integrated into GDB.
2527 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2529 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2530 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2531 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2534 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2535 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2536 DWARF 2 CFI support.
2540 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2541 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2542 remote protocol documentation for details.
2544 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
2546 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2547 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2548 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2551 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2553 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2554 per-thread variables.
2556 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2558 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2559 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2561 * Separate debug info.
2563 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2564 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2565 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2566 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2567 and optional debug files.
2569 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2571 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2572 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2575 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2576 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2580 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2581 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2582 considered "useable".
2584 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2586 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2587 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2590 * GDB supports logging output to a file
2592 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2593 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
2595 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2597 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2598 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2601 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
2603 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2604 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2608 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2609 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2610 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2611 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2612 data, for more informative profiling results.
2614 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2616 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2617 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
2618 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
2620 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2623 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2624 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2625 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2626 in a subsequent -var-update.
2628 * New native configurations.
2630 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2632 * Multi-arched targets.
2634 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
2635 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2637 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2639 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2640 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2641 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2642 permanently REMOVED.
2644 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2645 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2646 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2647 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2648 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2649 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2650 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2651 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2652 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2653 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2654 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2655 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2657 * REMOVED configurations and files
2660 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2661 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2662 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2663 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2664 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2665 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2667 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2668 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2669 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2670 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2671 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2672 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2674 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
2676 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2677 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2678 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2679 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2680 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2682 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
2684 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2686 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2687 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2688 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2689 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2690 shared libs like mad''.
2692 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
2694 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2695 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2696 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2697 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
2699 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2701 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2702 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2705 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2706 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2708 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2709 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2711 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2712 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2713 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2714 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2716 * Multi-arched targets.
2718 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2719 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2721 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
2722 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2723 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2727 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2730 * New native configurations
2732 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
2733 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
2734 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
2735 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
2737 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2739 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2740 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2741 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2742 permanently REMOVED.
2744 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2745 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2746 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2747 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2748 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2749 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2750 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2751 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2752 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2753 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2755 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2756 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2758 * OBSOLETE languages
2760 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2762 * REMOVED configurations and files
2764 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2765 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2766 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2767 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2768 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2770 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2772 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2774 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2775 commands. The default is 1024.
2777 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2779 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2781 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2783 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2784 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2785 from a file into memory (restore).
2787 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2789 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2790 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2791 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2793 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2801 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2802 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2803 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2805 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2806 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2807 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2809 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2810 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2811 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2813 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2814 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2815 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2817 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2819 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2821 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2822 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2823 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2824 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2825 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2826 (notably embedded) targets.
2828 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2830 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2831 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2832 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2833 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2835 * New command line option
2837 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2839 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2841 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2842 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2843 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2844 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2845 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2846 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2847 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2848 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2849 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2850 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2852 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2854 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2855 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2857 * New native configurations
2859 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2860 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2861 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2862 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2866 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2868 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2870 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2871 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2872 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2873 permanently REMOVED.
2875 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2876 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2877 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2878 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2879 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2881 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2883 * REMOVED configurations and files
2885 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2887 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2888 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2889 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2890 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2891 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2892 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2893 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2894 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2895 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2896 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2897 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2899 * Changes to command line processing
2901 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2902 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2904 * Changes to key bindings
2906 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2908 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2910 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2912 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2915 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2917 Numerous documentation fixes.
2919 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2921 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2923 * New native configurations
2925 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2926 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2927 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2928 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2929 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2930 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2934 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2936 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2938 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2940 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2941 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2942 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2943 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2944 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2946 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2947 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2948 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2949 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2950 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2951 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2952 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2953 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2955 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2956 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2958 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2959 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2960 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2961 permanently REMOVED.
2963 * REMOVED configurations and files
2965 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2966 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2968 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2972 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2974 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2975 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2980 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2982 * The MI enabled by default.
2984 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2985 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2986 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2987 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2988 which is now deprecated.
2990 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2992 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2993 main features are supported:
2995 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2997 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3000 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3002 - a Pascal expression parser.
3004 However, some important features are not yet supported.
3006 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3008 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3010 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3011 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3013 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3015 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3017 * Changes in completion.
3019 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3020 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3021 users expect at the shell prompt.
3023 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3024 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3025 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3026 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3027 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3028 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3029 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3031 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3033 * New platform-independent commands:
3035 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3036 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3037 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3039 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3041 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3042 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3043 many threads as your system allows you to have.
3045 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3047 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3048 multi-threaded programs though.
3050 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
3052 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3054 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3055 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3058 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3060 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3061 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3062 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3063 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3064 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3067 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3068 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3069 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3071 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3073 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3074 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3076 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3077 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3080 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3081 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3082 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3083 a given linear address.
3085 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3086 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3087 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3089 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3091 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3093 * Changes in documentation.
3095 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3096 Documentation License.
3098 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3101 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3103 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3106 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3107 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3108 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3110 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3112 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3113 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3114 contents of this file.
3118 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3120 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3122 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3124 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3125 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3126 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3127 greater level of detail.
3129 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3131 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3132 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3133 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3136 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3138 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3139 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3140 machines ``out of the box''.
3142 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3143 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3144 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3145 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3146 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3148 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3149 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3150 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3151 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3152 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3154 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3155 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3158 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3161 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3162 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3163 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3164 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3166 * New native configurations
3168 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3169 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3173 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3174 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3175 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
3176 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3178 * OBSOLETE configurations
3180 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3181 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3183 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3186 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3187 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3188 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3189 be permanently REMOVED.
3191 * Gould support removed
3193 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3195 * New features for SVR4
3197 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3198 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3199 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3201 * Many C++ enhancements
3203 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3204 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3206 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3208 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3209 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3210 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3211 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3213 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3214 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3216 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3218 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3219 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3220 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3222 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3223 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3225 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3227 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3228 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3229 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3231 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3233 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3234 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3235 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3237 * ``apropos'' command added.
3239 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3240 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3241 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3245 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3246 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3247 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3248 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3249 enabled by configuring with:
3251 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3253 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3255 * New native configurations
3257 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3258 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3259 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3263 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3264 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3265 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3267 * OBSOLETE configurations
3269 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3271 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3272 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3273 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3274 be permanently REMOVED.
3278 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3279 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3280 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3281 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3282 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3283 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3284 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3289 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3291 * set extension-language
3293 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3294 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3295 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3296 set extension-language .c c++
3297 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3298 and their associated languages.
3300 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3302 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3303 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3304 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3308 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3309 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3311 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3312 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3314 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3315 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3316 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3317 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3318 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3319 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3320 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3321 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3323 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3324 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3325 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3326 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3330 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3331 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3332 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3333 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3334 for xdb and dbx commands.
3338 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3339 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3340 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3342 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3343 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3344 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3346 * Debugging across forks
3348 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3353 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3354 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3355 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3357 * GDB remote protocol additions
3359 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3360 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3361 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3362 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3364 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3365 full 64-bit address. The command
3367 set remoteaddresssize 32
3369 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3370 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3373 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3374 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3376 maint packet heythere
3378 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3379 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3382 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3383 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3384 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3386 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3388 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3389 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3390 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3392 * mask-address variable for Mips
3394 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3395 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3396 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3398 * Higher serial baud rates
3400 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3401 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3402 to achieve all of these rates.)
3406 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3407 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3410 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3412 * New native configurations
3414 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3415 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3416 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3417 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3418 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3419 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3420 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3424 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3425 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3426 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3427 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3428 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3429 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3430 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3431 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3432 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3433 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3434 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3436 * New debugging protocols
3438 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3439 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3440 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3441 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3442 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3443 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3447 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3448 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3453 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3454 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3456 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3458 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3459 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3460 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3462 * Live range splitting
3464 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3465 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3466 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3470 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3471 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3475 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3476 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3477 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3482 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3487 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3488 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3489 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3490 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3491 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3492 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3496 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3497 the symbol at the specified address.
3501 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3502 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3503 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3504 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3505 file tracepoint.c for more details.
3509 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3510 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3511 of most MIPS variants.
3515 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3516 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3517 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3521 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3522 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3523 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3524 the possible architectures.
3526 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3528 * New native configurations
3530 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3531 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3532 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3533 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3534 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3535 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3539 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3540 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3541 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3542 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3543 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3545 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3549 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3550 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3551 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3552 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3553 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3557 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3559 * Windows 95/NT native
3561 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3562 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3563 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3564 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3565 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3567 * dont-repeat command
3569 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3570 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3571 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3572 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3574 * Send break instead of ^C
3576 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3577 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3578 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3580 * Remote protocol timeout
3582 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3583 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3584 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3586 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3588 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3589 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3590 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3591 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3592 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3594 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3595 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3596 automatically on hpux10.
3598 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3600 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3602 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3604 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3605 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3606 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3607 every character. The default value is 1050.
3609 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3611 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3612 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3613 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3614 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3615 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3616 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3618 * Speedups for remote debugging
3620 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3621 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3622 and more efficient S-record downloading.
3624 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3626 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3627 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3629 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3631 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
3633 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3634 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3636 * Remote targets use caching
3638 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3639 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3640 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3641 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3642 off' turns the the data cache off.
3644 * Remote targets may have threads
3646 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3647 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3648 gdb/remote.c for details.
3652 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3653 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3654 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3655 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3656 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3657 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3658 sequence is something like
3660 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3662 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3666 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3667 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3668 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3669 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3670 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3671 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3672 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3673 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3677 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3678 but does simplify configuration and building.
3682 GDB now supports hpux10.
3684 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3686 * New native configurations
3688 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3689 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3690 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3691 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3695 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3696 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3697 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3698 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3701 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3703 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3704 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3705 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3706 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3707 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3709 * Arguments to user-defined commands
3711 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3712 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3715 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3717 To execute the command use:
3720 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3721 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3722 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3724 * New `if' and `while' commands
3726 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3727 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3728 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3729 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3730 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3731 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3732 if the expression is zero.
3734 * Fortran source language mode
3736 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3737 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3738 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3739 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3742 * Better HPUX support
3744 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3745 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3746 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3747 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3748 that behavior do the following before running the program:
3754 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3755 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3761 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3762 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3765 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3766 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3768 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3770 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3771 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3772 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3773 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3774 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3775 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3777 * New DOS host serial code
3779 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3780 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3783 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3785 * New "complete" command
3787 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3788 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3790 * Trailing space optional in prompt
3792 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3793 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3795 * Breakpoint hit counts
3797 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3798 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3799 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3800 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3801 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3804 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3806 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3807 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3808 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3810 * Shared library breakpoints
3812 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3813 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3815 * Hardware watchpoints
3817 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3818 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3820 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3824 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3825 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3827 * Improved Irix 5 support
3829 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3831 * Improved HPPA support
3833 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3835 * New native configurations
3837 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3838 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3839 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3840 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3844 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3845 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3848 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3850 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3851 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3855 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3856 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3858 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3860 * Irix 5 is now supported
3864 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3865 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3866 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3867 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3868 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3871 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3873 * User visible changes:
3877 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3878 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3879 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3880 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3881 debugging info for the mips target).
3883 * DEC Alpha native support
3885 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3886 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3887 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3888 Alpha-specific notes.
3890 * Preliminary thread implementation
3892 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3894 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3896 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3897 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3900 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3902 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3903 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3904 call methods, ...etc.
3906 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3908 * User visible changes:
3910 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3911 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3912 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3913 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3915 Filename completion now works.
3917 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3918 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3919 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3921 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3922 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3923 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3924 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3925 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3929 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3930 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3933 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3937 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3938 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3939 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3943 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3944 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3945 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3946 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3947 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3951 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3952 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3953 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3955 * New targets supported
3957 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3958 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3959 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3960 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3961 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3963 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3964 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3965 GO32 memory extender.
3967 * New remote protocols
3969 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3971 * New source languages supported
3973 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3974 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3975 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3978 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3980 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3982 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3983 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3984 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3985 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3986 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3987 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3989 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3991 * Faster and better demangling
3993 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3994 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3995 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3996 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3997 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3998 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4001 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4002 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4003 compiler does not actually implement.
4005 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4007 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4008 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4009 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4010 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4011 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4012 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4015 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4016 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4018 * Improved configure script
4020 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4021 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4022 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4023 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4025 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4026 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4027 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4028 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4029 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4030 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4032 * Documentation improvements
4034 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4035 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4036 before submitting changes.
4038 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4039 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4040 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4041 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4042 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4044 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4045 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4046 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4047 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4048 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4049 around this problem.
4053 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4054 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4055 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4058 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4059 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4061 * New native hosts supported
4063 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4064 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4066 * New targets supported
4068 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4070 * New file formats supported
4072 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4073 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4077 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4079 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4080 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4082 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4083 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4084 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4086 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4087 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4089 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4090 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4091 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4094 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4095 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4096 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4097 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4098 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4100 * Internal improvements
4102 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4103 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4105 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4106 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4107 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4108 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4109 shared code that handles any of them.
4111 * New command line options
4113 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4117 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4118 General Public License.
4120 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4122 * Host/native/target split
4124 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4125 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4126 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4127 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4128 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4130 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4131 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4132 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4133 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4134 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4135 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4136 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4138 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4139 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4140 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4142 * New hosts supported
4144 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4145 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4146 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4148 * New targets supported
4150 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4151 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4153 * New native hosts supported
4155 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4156 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4157 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4159 * New file formats supported
4161 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4162 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4163 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4167 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4168 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4169 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4171 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4173 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4174 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4175 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4176 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4180 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4181 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4182 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4184 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4188 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4189 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4192 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4193 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4195 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4196 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4197 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4198 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4199 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4200 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4202 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4203 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4204 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4205 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4209 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4210 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4211 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4212 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4213 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4215 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4216 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4217 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4218 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4222 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4223 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4224 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4225 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4226 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4227 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4228 each instruction being stepped through.
4230 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4231 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4233 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4234 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4235 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4236 processor with a serial port.
4240 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4241 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4242 supported, and what files each one uses.
4246 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4247 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4248 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4249 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4251 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4252 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4253 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4254 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4258 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4259 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4260 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4261 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4262 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4263 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4265 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4268 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4270 * Better support for C++ function names
4272 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4273 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4274 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4275 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4276 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4278 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4279 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4280 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4281 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4282 for the list of formats.
4284 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4286 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4287 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4288 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4289 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4290 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4291 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4294 * New 'maintenance' command
4296 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4297 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4298 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4300 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4301 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4302 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4303 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4304 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4305 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4307 The following commands are new:
4309 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4310 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4311 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4313 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4315 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4316 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4317 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4318 read after argv processing.
4320 * New hosts supported
4322 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4324 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4326 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4327 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4328 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4329 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4330 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4333 * New targets supported
4335 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4337 * More smarts about finding #include files
4339 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4340 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4341 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4342 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4343 the one that contains your sources.
4345 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4346 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4347 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4349 * Interesting infernals change
4351 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4352 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4353 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4354 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4356 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4358 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4359 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4360 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4362 See the ChangeLog for details.
4364 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4366 * New machines supported (host and target)
4368 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4370 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4372 * New malloc package
4374 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4375 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4376 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4377 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4378 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4379 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4383 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4384 'help info proc' for details.
4386 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4388 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4389 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4392 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4394 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4395 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4396 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4397 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4398 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4399 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4401 * Cross byte order fixes
4403 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4404 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4406 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4408 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4409 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4410 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4411 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4412 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4413 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4414 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4415 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4416 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4417 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4419 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4420 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4421 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4422 slower, but makes future operations faster.
4424 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4425 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4426 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4429 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4431 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4432 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4433 shared across multiple host platforms.
4435 * longjmp() handling
4437 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4438 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4439 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4440 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4444 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4445 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4450 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4451 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4452 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4454 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4456 * New machines supported (host and target)
4458 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4460 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4461 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4463 * New machines supported (target)
4465 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4469 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4470 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4471 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4473 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4474 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4475 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4476 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4477 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4480 * New features for SVR4
4482 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4483 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4484 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4486 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4487 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4488 it prints the address mappings of the process.
4490 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4491 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4493 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4495 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4496 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4497 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4498 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4499 same code linked statically.
4503 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4504 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4505 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4506 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4507 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4508 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4512 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4513 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4514 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4517 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4519 * New machines supported (host and target)
4521 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4522 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4523 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4525 * Almost SCO Unix support
4527 We had hoped to support:
4528 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4529 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4530 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4531 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4533 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4535 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4536 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4537 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4538 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4543 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4544 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4545 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4549 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4550 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4551 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4553 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4555 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4556 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4557 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4559 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4560 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4561 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4562 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4565 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4566 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4567 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4568 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4571 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4572 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4575 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4576 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4577 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4580 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4582 * Improved configuration
4584 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4585 Porting BFD is simpler.
4589 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4590 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4591 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4592 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4596 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4598 * New host supported (not target)
4600 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4603 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4605 * Multiple source language support
4607 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4608 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4609 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4610 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4611 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4612 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4616 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4617 currently under development at the State University of New York at
4618 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4619 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4621 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4622 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4623 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4625 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4626 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4630 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4631 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4632 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4633 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4636 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4638 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4639 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4640 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4641 examining core files.
4645 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4648 * New machines supported (host and target)
4650 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4651 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4652 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4654 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4656 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4658 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4660 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4661 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4662 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4664 * New remote interfaces
4670 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4674 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4676 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4677 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4678 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4679 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4680 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4681 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4682 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4683 stub on the target system.
4685 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4687 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4688 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4689 object file types such as a.out and coff.
4691 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4692 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4695 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4697 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4698 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4700 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4701 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4702 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4704 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4705 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4706 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4707 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4709 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4710 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4711 it is already running. Default is ON.
4713 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4714 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4715 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4716 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4719 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4720 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4721 or the value of the environment variable
4724 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4725 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4728 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4729 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4730 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4732 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4733 history expansion will be performed on
4734 command line input. The default is OFF.
4736 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4737 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4738 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4740 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4741 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4742 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4745 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4746 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4747 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4750 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4751 ``set width'' instead.
4753 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4754 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4755 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4756 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4758 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4761 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4764 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4767 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4770 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4772 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4773 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4774 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4778 * Support for Shared Libraries
4780 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4781 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4782 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4783 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4784 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4785 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4786 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4787 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4789 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4790 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4791 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4793 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4798 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4799 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4800 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4801 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4802 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4803 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4805 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4807 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4809 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4810 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4811 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4814 * C++ multiple inheritance
4816 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4819 * C++ exception handling
4821 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4822 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4823 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4826 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4827 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4828 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4830 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4831 current stack frame.
4834 * Minor command changes
4836 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4837 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4838 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4840 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4841 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4842 frames without printing.
4844 * New directory command
4846 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4847 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4848 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4849 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4850 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4852 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4854 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4857 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4858 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4859 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4860 where the program that you are debugging will run.