1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 8.3
6 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
8 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
9 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
10 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
11 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
12 such as in system-wide init files.
14 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
15 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
16 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
17 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
19 * Support for Pointer Authentication on AArch64 Linux.
21 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
22 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
24 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
25 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
26 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
30 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
31 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
32 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
33 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
34 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
36 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
39 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
40 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
41 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
44 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
45 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
49 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
50 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
51 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
52 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
53 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
54 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
55 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
57 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
58 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
59 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
60 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
61 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
62 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
63 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
64 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
65 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
66 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
67 of array elements to print.
69 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
70 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
72 set may-call-functions [on|off]
73 show may-call-functions
74 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
75 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
76 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
77 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
78 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
79 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
82 set print finish [on|off]
84 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
85 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
86 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
91 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
92 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
93 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
94 the old behavior back.
96 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
97 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
98 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
100 set style title foreground COLOR
101 set style title background COLOR
102 set style title intensity VALUE
103 Control the styling of titles.
105 set style highlight foreground COLOR
106 set style highlight background COLOR
107 set style highlight intensity VALUE
108 Control the styling of highlightings.
110 maint set test-settings KIND
111 maint show test-settings KIND
112 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
115 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
116 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
117 show print frame-info
118 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
119 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
120 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
121 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
126 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
127 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
131 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
132 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
133 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
134 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
135 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
139 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
140 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
141 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
142 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
145 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
146 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
147 the user visualize the different styles.
149 set print frame-arguments
150 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
151 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
153 set print raw-frame-arguments
154 show print raw-frame-arguments
156 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
157 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
158 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
161 maint test-options require-delimiter
162 maint test-options unknown-is-error
163 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
164 maint show test-options-completion-result
165 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
168 * New command options, command completion
170 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
171 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
172 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
173 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
174 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
175 number of commands got support for new command options in this
178 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
179 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
180 set by "set print" subcommands:
184 -array-indexes [on|off]
185 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
189 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
190 -static-members [on|off]
195 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
196 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
197 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
198 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
200 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
201 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
202 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
204 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
205 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
206 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
207 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
208 |location-and-address|short-location
212 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
213 exposed as command options too:
219 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
220 support the following options:
225 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
226 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
227 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
230 (gdb) p -r -p -o 0 -- *myptr
232 The above is equivalent to:
234 (gdb) print -raw -pretty -object off -- *myptr
236 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
237 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
238 variables" and "info functions".
240 * Completion improvements
242 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
243 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
246 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
247 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
250 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
251 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
252 completes on filenames.
254 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
255 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
257 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
259 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
265 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
266 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
267 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
269 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
270 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
271 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
275 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
276 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
277 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
278 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
280 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
282 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
283 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
286 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
287 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
288 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
291 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
294 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
295 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
296 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
298 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
299 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
301 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
302 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
303 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
304 in the GDB user manual.
306 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
309 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
311 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
312 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
313 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
314 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
315 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
316 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
317 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
318 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
319 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
320 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
321 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
322 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
324 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
325 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
326 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
329 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
334 set debug compile-cplus-types
335 show debug compile-cplus-types
336 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
337 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiliong
342 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
345 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
346 Apply a command to some frames.
347 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
348 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
351 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
352 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
355 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
356 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
359 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
361 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
363 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
364 maint show dwarf unwinders
365 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
368 Display a list of open files for a process.
372 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
373 These commands all now take a frame specification which
374 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
375 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
376 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
377 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
378 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
380 target remote FILENAME
381 target extended-remote FILENAME
382 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
383 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
385 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
386 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
387 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
388 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
389 These commands can now print only the searched entities
390 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
391 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
392 printing headers or informations messages.
398 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
399 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
400 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
403 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
404 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
405 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
406 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
408 set tui tab-width NCHARS
409 show tui tab-width NCHARS
410 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
412 set style enabled [on|off]
414 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
415 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
417 set style sources [on|off]
419 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
420 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
421 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
423 set style filename foreground COLOR
424 set style filename background COLOR
425 set style filename intensity VALUE
426 Control the styling of file names.
428 set style function foreground COLOR
429 set style function background COLOR
430 set style function intensity VALUE
431 Control the styling of function names.
433 set style variable foreground COLOR
434 set style variable background COLOR
435 set style variable intensity VALUE
436 Control the styling of variable names.
438 set style address foreground COLOR
439 set style address background COLOR
440 set style address intensity VALUE
441 Control the styling of addresses.
445 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
447 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
448 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
449 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
450 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
451 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
453 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
454 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
456 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
457 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
458 the following commands and events:
462 - =breakpoint-created
463 - =breakpoint-modified
465 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
466 this behavior with previous MI versions.
468 * New native configurations
470 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
471 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
475 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
477 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
478 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
480 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
484 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
489 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
491 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
492 space associated to that inferior.
494 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
495 of objfiles associated to that program space.
497 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
498 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
501 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
502 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
503 correct and did not work properly.
505 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
506 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
512 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
513 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
514 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
515 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
516 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
518 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
520 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
523 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
524 offset to all sections.
526 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
527 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
528 address of individual sections using '-s'.
530 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
531 (address of the text section).
533 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
534 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
535 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
536 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
539 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
540 for the rest of the current command.
542 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
543 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
545 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
546 files created on FreeBSD systems.
548 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
551 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
552 the vector length while the process is running.
558 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
560 set|show varsize-limit
561 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
562 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
563 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
565 set|show record btrace cpu
566 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
569 maint check libthread-db
570 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
573 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
574 maint show check-libthread-db
575 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
576 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
581 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
583 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
584 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
586 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
588 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
589 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
590 of convenience variables.
592 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
593 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
594 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
598 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
600 * Removed targets and native configurations
602 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
603 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
604 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
605 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
607 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
609 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
610 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
611 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
612 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
613 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
614 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
619 --enable-codesign=CERT
620 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
621 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
622 gdb to work properly.
624 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
625 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
627 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
629 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
630 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
631 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
633 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
634 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
636 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
637 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
638 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
639 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
640 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
642 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
643 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
644 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
645 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
647 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
648 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
650 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
651 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
652 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
654 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
655 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
656 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
658 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
659 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
660 environment" command.
662 * Completion improvements
664 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
665 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
666 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
667 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
670 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
671 (gdb) b function(int)
673 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
674 C++ anonymous namespaces:
677 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
678 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
679 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
681 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
682 completion support, that better understands what you're
683 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
684 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
685 setting a breakpoint.
687 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
689 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
691 * New command line options (gcore)
694 Dump all memory mappings.
696 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
698 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
699 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
700 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
702 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
707 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
710 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
711 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
712 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
713 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
714 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
715 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
716 a breakpoint from Python.
718 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
720 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
721 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
722 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
724 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
726 function[abi:cxx11](int)
729 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
732 (gdb) b function(int)
734 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
736 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
738 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
742 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
743 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
744 description of these.
746 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
747 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
748 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
750 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
751 manual for a further description of this feature.
754 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
756 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
757 specified initial working directory.
759 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
760 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
762 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
763 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
765 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
766 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
768 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
769 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
770 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
771 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
772 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
774 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
775 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
776 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
778 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
779 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
780 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
781 in the *stopped notification.
783 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
784 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
788 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
789 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
790 the inferior when starting it.
793 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
794 before starting the remote inferior.
797 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
798 user-set environment variables should be unset).
801 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
804 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
807 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
808 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
810 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
811 filter the tests to be run.
813 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
814 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
819 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
822 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
823 with the 'compile' commands.
825 set debug separate-debug-file
826 show debug separate-debug-file
827 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
829 set dump-excluded-mappings
830 show dump-excluded-mappings
831 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
832 dumped when generating a core file.
835 List the registered selftests.
838 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
841 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
843 set|show print type nested-type-limit
844 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
845 type printer will show.
847 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
850 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
852 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
855 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
856 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
857 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
858 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
860 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
861 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
862 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
863 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
864 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
865 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
867 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
868 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
869 unless you tell it the variable's type:
872 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
876 * New native configurations
878 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
879 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
883 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
884 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
885 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
887 * Removed targets and native configurations
889 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
891 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
893 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
894 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
895 available in future Intel CPUs.
897 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
901 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
902 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
904 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
907 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
909 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
911 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
912 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
915 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
917 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
918 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
920 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
922 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
923 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
924 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
925 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
928 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
930 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
931 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
934 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
936 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
937 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
939 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
941 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
946 eval "print $arg%d", $i
951 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
953 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
954 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
956 * New native configurations
958 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
962 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
963 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
965 * Removed targets and native configurations
967 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
968 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
973 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
975 maint print arc arc-instruction address
976 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
980 set disassembler-options
981 show disassembler-options
982 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
983 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
984 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
985 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
986 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
991 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
992 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
994 -file-list-shared-libraries
995 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
996 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
999 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
1000 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
1002 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
1004 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
1006 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
1007 default. One must now explicitly configure with
1008 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
1009 option will be removed in a future release.
1011 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
1014 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
1015 memory backward from the given address. For example:
1018 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
1019 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
1020 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
1021 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
1022 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
1023 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
1024 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
1025 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
1026 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
1028 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
1029 arrays of dynamic types.
1031 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
1032 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1033 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1034 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1035 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1036 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
1038 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
1041 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
1042 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
1043 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
1045 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
1047 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
1048 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
1049 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
1050 signal received and code location.
1054 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
1055 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
1056 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
1057 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
1059 * Rust language support.
1060 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
1061 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
1064 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
1066 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
1067 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
1068 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
1069 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
1070 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
1071 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
1072 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
1073 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
1074 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
1075 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
1078 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
1080 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
1081 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
1086 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
1087 skip -function function
1088 skip -rfunction regular-expression
1089 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
1090 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
1091 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
1093 maint info line-table REGEXP
1094 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data struture.
1097 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
1100 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
1101 using the TTY file for input/output.
1105 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
1106 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
1107 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
1108 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
1109 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
1111 signal-event EVENTID
1112 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
1113 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
1114 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
1115 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
1116 signalling an event.
1118 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
1119 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
1120 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
1122 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
1125 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
1126 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
1127 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
1128 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
1129 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
1130 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
1132 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
1133 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
1134 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
1135 bytecode into native code.
1137 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
1138 recording. For example:
1140 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
1142 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
1144 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
1148 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
1150 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
1152 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
1154 * Per-inferior thread numbers
1156 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
1157 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
1158 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
1162 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
1163 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
1164 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
1165 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
1167 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
1168 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
1169 are no longer unique between inferiors.
1171 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
1172 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
1173 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
1175 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
1178 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
1179 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
1182 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
1185 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
1186 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
1187 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
1188 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
1191 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
1194 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
1197 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
1200 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
1201 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
1204 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
1205 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
1207 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
1209 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
1211 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
1212 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
1214 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
1215 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
1218 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1219 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
1222 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
1223 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
1226 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1228 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
1229 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
1230 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
1232 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
1233 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
1237 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
1238 maint show target-non-stop
1239 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
1240 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
1241 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
1243 maint set bfd-sharing
1244 maint show bfd-sharing
1245 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
1248 show debug bfd-cache
1249 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
1253 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
1255 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1256 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1257 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
1259 set remote thread-events
1260 show remote thread-events
1261 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
1263 set ada print-signatures on|off
1264 show ada print-signatures"
1265 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
1266 selection menus. It is activaled (@code{on}) by default.
1270 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
1271 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
1272 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
1274 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1275 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
1276 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
1277 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
1278 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
1279 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
1281 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1282 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
1284 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
1285 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
1287 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
1289 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
1290 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
1291 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
1292 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
1293 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
1294 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
1296 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
1297 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1300 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1302 * New remote packets
1305 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1307 exec-events feature in qSupported
1308 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1309 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1310 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1311 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1314 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1317 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1318 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1320 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1321 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1324 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1325 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1326 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1327 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1328 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1329 stop for that same thread.
1332 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1333 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1334 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1337 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1338 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1340 syscall_entry stop reason
1341 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1343 syscall_return stop reason
1344 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1346 * Extended-remote exec events
1348 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1349 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1350 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1352 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1353 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1354 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1356 * Thread names in remote protocol
1358 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1361 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1363 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1364 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1365 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1366 fork and exec catchpoints.
1368 * Remote syscall events
1370 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1371 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1373 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1374 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1375 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1379 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1380 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1385 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1386 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1387 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1388 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1389 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1390 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1392 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1394 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1395 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1396 including advance SIMD instructions.
1398 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1400 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1401 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1402 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1403 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1404 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1405 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1406 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1408 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1410 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1412 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1413 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1416 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1417 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
1418 and may include things like its command line arguments.
1420 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
1421 is now available on all platforms.
1423 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
1424 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
1425 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
1426 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
1427 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
1428 backward compatibility.
1430 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
1431 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
1432 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
1433 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
1435 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
1436 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
1437 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
1438 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
1441 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
1443 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
1445 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
1446 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
1447 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
1448 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
1449 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
1450 See "New remote packets" below.
1452 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
1453 available register groups, including target specific groups.
1455 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
1456 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
1457 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
1458 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
1463 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
1467 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
1468 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
1469 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
1470 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
1471 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
1472 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
1473 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
1474 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
1475 "const" version of the value respectively.
1479 maint print symbol-cache
1480 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
1482 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
1483 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
1485 maint flush-symbol-cache
1486 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
1490 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
1493 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
1497 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
1500 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
1501 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
1505 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
1508 Print information about branch tracing internals.
1510 maint btrace packet-history
1511 Print the raw branch tracing data.
1513 maint btrace clear-packet-history
1514 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
1517 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
1518 anew by the next "record" command.
1523 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
1524 show debug dwarf-die
1525 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
1527 set debug dwarf-read
1528 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
1529 show debug dwarf-read
1530 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
1532 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
1533 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1534 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
1535 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1537 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
1538 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1539 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
1540 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1542 set debug dwarf-line
1543 show debug dwarf-line
1544 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
1547 show max-completions
1548 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
1549 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
1550 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
1551 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
1553 set history remove-duplicates
1554 show history remove-duplicates
1555 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1557 maint set symbol-cache-size
1558 maint show symbol-cache-size
1559 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1561 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1562 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1564 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1565 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1567 set debug linux-namespaces
1568 show debug linux-namespaces
1569 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1571 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1572 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1573 Intel Processor Trace format.
1574 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1575 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1577 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1578 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1581 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
1582 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
1584 * Python/Guile scripting
1586 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
1587 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
1589 * New remote packets
1591 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
1592 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
1594 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
1595 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
1598 Enable Intel Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
1599 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
1602 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
1603 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
1607 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
1608 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
1609 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
1613 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
1614 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
1617 Return information about files on the remote system.
1619 qXfer:exec-file:read
1620 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
1621 create a process running on the remote system.
1624 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
1625 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
1626 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
1627 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
1630 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
1633 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
1635 vforkdone stop reason
1636 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
1637 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
1639 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
1640 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
1641 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
1642 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
1643 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
1644 whether these features are enabled.
1646 * Extended-remote fork events
1648 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
1649 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
1650 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
1651 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
1653 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
1654 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
1655 the btrace record target.
1656 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
1658 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
1659 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
1661 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
1664 * Removed command line options
1666 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
1668 * Removed targets and native configurations
1670 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
1671 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1673 * New configure options
1676 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
1677 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
1679 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
1680 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
1681 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
1682 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
1684 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
1688 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
1690 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
1692 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
1696 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
1697 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
1698 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
1699 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
1700 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
1701 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
1702 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
1703 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
1704 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
1705 selecting a new file to debug.
1706 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
1707 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
1709 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
1712 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
1713 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
1714 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
1715 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
1717 * New Python-based convenience functions:
1719 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1720 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1721 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1722 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1724 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
1725 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
1726 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
1727 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
1728 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
1729 interface with this new feature are:
1731 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
1732 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
1736 demangle [-l language] [--] name
1737 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
1738 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
1739 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
1740 as "maint demangler-warning".
1742 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
1743 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
1745 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
1746 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
1749 maint print user-registers
1750 List all currently available "user" registers.
1752 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
1753 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
1754 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
1756 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
1757 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
1758 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
1761 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
1762 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
1763 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
1764 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
1767 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
1768 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
1769 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
1770 switched threads meanwhile.
1772 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
1774 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
1775 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
1776 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
1777 is now the default mode.
1781 set debug symbol-lookup
1782 show debug symbol-lookup
1783 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
1787 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
1788 inferiors that have exited.
1792 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
1796 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1798 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
1799 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
1800 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
1801 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
1802 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
1804 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1805 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1806 its alias "share", instead.
1808 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
1810 * New command line options
1813 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
1815 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
1816 as specified in ISO C99.
1818 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
1819 with or without disassembly.
1823 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
1824 available is determined at configure time.
1825 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
1826 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
1828 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1832 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
1836 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
1838 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
1839 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
1841 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
1842 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
1846 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
1847 show print symbol-loading
1848 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
1849 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
1850 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
1851 becomes less useful.
1853 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
1854 show guile print-stack
1855 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
1857 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
1858 show auto-load guile-scripts
1859 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
1861 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
1862 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
1863 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
1864 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
1865 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
1866 usage of this option.
1868 set auto-connect-native-target
1870 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
1871 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
1872 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
1874 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
1875 show record btrace replay-memory-access
1876 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
1878 maint set target-async (on|off)
1879 maint show target-async
1880 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
1881 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
1882 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
1883 occurring only in synchronous mode.
1885 set mi-async (on|off)
1887 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
1888 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
1890 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
1891 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
1893 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
1894 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
1895 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
1896 "set target-async on" command.
1898 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1900 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
1901 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
1902 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
1903 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
1904 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
1906 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
1907 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
1908 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
1910 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
1911 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
1912 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
1913 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
1914 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
1915 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
1916 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
1918 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
1919 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
1921 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
1922 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
1923 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
1925 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
1926 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
1927 memory or registers.
1929 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
1931 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
1932 remote. It now works with all targets.
1934 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
1935 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
1936 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
1937 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
1938 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
1939 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
1940 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
1941 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
1942 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
1945 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
1946 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
1947 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
1949 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
1951 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
1952 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
1953 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
1955 * New remote packets
1957 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
1958 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
1959 branch trace incrementally.
1963 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
1964 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
1966 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
1967 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
1968 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
1969 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
1970 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
1973 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
1975 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1976 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1977 its alias "share", instead.
1979 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
1980 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
1985 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
1986 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
1987 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
1988 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
1989 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
1990 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
1991 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
1992 commands and CLI execution commands.
1994 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
1996 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
1997 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
1998 recording has been added.
2000 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2002 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
2003 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
2005 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
2006 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
2007 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
2008 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
2009 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
2010 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
2013 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
2015 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
2017 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
2018 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
2019 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
2020 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
2025 (gdb) info registers rax
2028 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
2029 "*value not available*".
2031 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
2036 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
2037 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
2038 ** Line tables representation has been added.
2039 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
2040 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
2041 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
2045 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
2046 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
2047 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
2049 * Removed native configurations
2051 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
2052 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
2054 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2055 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2056 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
2057 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
2058 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2059 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2060 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2064 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
2065 maint check-psymtabs
2066 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
2068 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
2069 maint expand-symtabs
2070 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
2073 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2075 maint set|show per-command
2076 maint set|show per-command space
2077 maint set|show per-command time
2078 maint set|show per-command symtab
2079 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
2081 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
2082 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
2083 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
2084 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
2085 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
2088 info exceptions REGEXP
2089 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
2090 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
2095 set debug symfile off|on
2097 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
2098 symbol tables within those files
2100 set print raw frame-arguments
2101 show print raw frame-arguments
2102 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
2103 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
2105 set remote trace-status-packet
2106 show remote trace-status-packet
2107 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
2111 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
2115 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
2117 set startup-with-shell
2118 show startup-with-shell
2119 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
2124 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
2125 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
2127 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
2128 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
2129 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
2130 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
2133 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
2134 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
2135 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
2137 * New command-line options
2139 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2141 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
2142 buffer in Common Trace Format.
2144 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
2147 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
2149 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
2150 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
2152 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
2153 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
2155 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
2156 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
2157 due to an uncaught signal.
2161 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
2162 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
2163 command, which should contain "language-option".
2165 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
2166 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
2168 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
2169 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
2170 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
2171 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2172 "undefined-command-error-code".
2174 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
2177 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
2179 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
2180 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
2183 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
2184 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
2186 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
2187 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
2188 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
2190 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
2191 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
2192 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
2193 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
2194 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2195 "exec-run-start-option".
2197 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
2198 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
2200 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
2201 the new "info exceptions" command.
2203 * New system-wide configuration scripts
2204 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
2205 configuration scripts for the following systems:
2209 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
2210 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
2211 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
2214 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
2215 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
2217 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
2218 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
2219 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
2221 * New remote packets
2225 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
2226 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
2227 involvemement at each single-step.
2229 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
2230 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
2231 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
2232 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
2233 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
2234 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
2237 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2239 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
2240 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
2242 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
2243 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
2244 trace state variables.
2246 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
2249 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
2250 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
2252 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
2254 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
2255 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
2256 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
2257 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2259 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
2261 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
2262 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
2263 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
2264 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
2266 set|show record full insn-number-max
2267 set|show record full stop-at-limit
2268 set|show record full memory-query
2270 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
2271 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
2272 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
2273 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
2274 This new recording method can be enabled using:
2278 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
2279 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
2281 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
2282 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
2283 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
2285 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
2286 instruction granularity
2288 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
2289 function granularity
2291 * New native configurations
2293 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
2294 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
2295 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2296 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2300 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2301 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2302 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2303 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2304 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2306 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2307 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2308 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2309 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2310 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2311 --data-directory command-line option.
2313 * New command line options:
2315 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2316 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2318 * Removed command line options
2320 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2323 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2326 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2330 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2332 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2334 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2336 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2338 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2339 of architecture in the Python API.
2341 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2342 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2344 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2346 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2347 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2349 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2351 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2354 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2355 default for GCC since November 2000.
2357 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2359 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2360 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2362 * New configure options
2364 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2365 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2366 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2367 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2368 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2369 options allow the user to override that default.
2370 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2371 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2372 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2374 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2377 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2378 conditions to be attached.
2381 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2383 python-interactive [command]
2385 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2386 and print the result of expressions.
2389 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2391 enable type-printer [name]...
2392 disable type-printer [name]...
2393 Enable or disable type printers.
2397 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2398 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2403 set print type methods (on|off)
2404 show print type methods
2405 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2406 The default is to show them.
2408 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2409 show print type typedefs
2410 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2411 The default is to show them.
2413 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2414 show filename-display
2415 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2416 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
2418 set trace-buffer-size
2419 show trace-buffer-size
2420 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
2422 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
2423 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
2424 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
2428 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
2431 set debug coff-pe-read
2432 show debug coff-pe-read
2433 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
2438 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
2441 set debug notification
2442 show debug notification
2443 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
2447 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
2448 "=cmd-param-changed".
2449 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
2450 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
2451 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
2452 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
2453 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
2454 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
2455 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
2456 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
2458 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
2459 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
2460 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
2461 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
2462 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
2463 library load/unload events.
2464 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
2465 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
2466 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
2467 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
2468 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
2469 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
2470 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
2471 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
2473 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
2474 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
2475 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
2476 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
2478 * New remote packets
2481 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
2482 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2485 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
2486 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
2490 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
2491 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2494 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
2495 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2497 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
2499 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
2500 for more x32 ABI info.
2502 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
2504 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
2506 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2507 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
2508 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
2509 "info os files" lists file descriptors
2510 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
2511 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
2512 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
2513 "info os msg" lists message queues
2514 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
2516 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
2517 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
2518 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
2519 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
2520 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
2521 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
2523 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
2524 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
2525 record/replay support.
2527 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
2531 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
2534 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
2536 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
2537 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
2539 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
2541 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
2542 the source at which the symbol was defined.
2544 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
2545 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
2546 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
2549 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
2550 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
2552 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2553 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2554 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2556 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2557 object associated with a PC value.
2559 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2560 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2562 * Go language support.
2563 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2566 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2567 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2569 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2570 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2572 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2573 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2574 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2575 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2576 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2579 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
2580 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
2581 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
2582 build/libcpp/expr.c.
2584 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
2585 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
2587 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
2588 since December 2007.
2590 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
2591 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
2592 command does. For instance:
2594 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
2596 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
2597 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
2598 created, using the "condition" command.
2600 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
2601 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
2603 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
2605 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
2606 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
2607 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
2608 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
2609 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
2610 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
2611 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
2612 files with older .gdb_index sections.
2614 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
2615 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
2616 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
2617 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
2618 the .gdb_index section.
2620 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
2622 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
2627 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
2629 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
2633 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2634 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2635 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
2637 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
2638 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
2640 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
2643 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
2644 C++ and Java objects.
2646 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
2647 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
2648 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
2649 configured with '--with-python'.
2651 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
2652 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
2653 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
2654 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
2655 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
2656 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
2657 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
2659 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
2660 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
2661 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
2662 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
2664 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
2665 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
2666 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
2667 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
2669 ** "set print symbol"
2671 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
2672 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
2673 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
2675 * Deprecated commands
2677 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
2678 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
2682 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2683 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
2685 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
2686 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
2687 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
2688 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
2693 set mips compression
2694 show mips compression
2695 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
2696 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
2699 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
2701 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
2702 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
2703 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
2704 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
2706 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
2710 Disable auto-loading globally.
2713 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
2715 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
2716 show auto-load gdb-scripts
2717 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
2719 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
2720 show auto-load python-scripts
2721 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
2723 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
2724 show auto-load local-gdbinit
2725 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
2727 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
2728 show auto-load libthread-db
2729 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
2731 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2732 show auto-load scripts-directory
2733 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
2734 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
2735 of the directories listed by this option.
2736 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2738 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2739 show auto-load safe-path
2740 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
2741 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2743 set debug auto-load on|off
2744 show debug auto-load
2745 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
2747 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
2749 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
2750 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
2751 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
2752 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
2754 set dprintf-function <expr>
2755 show dprintf-function
2756 set dprintf-channel <expr>
2757 show dprintf-channel
2758 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
2759 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
2761 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
2762 show disconnected-dprintf
2763 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
2764 after GDB disconnects.
2766 * New configure options
2768 --with-auto-load-dir
2769 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
2770 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
2771 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
2772 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
2773 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
2775 --with-auto-load-safe-path
2776 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
2777 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
2779 --without-auto-load-safe-path
2780 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
2783 * New remote packets
2785 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
2787 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
2788 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
2789 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
2790 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
2794 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
2795 program without GDB involvement.
2797 * New command line options
2799 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
2800 before loading inferior.
2801 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
2802 execute it before loading inferior.
2804 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
2806 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
2807 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
2808 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
2809 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
2812 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
2813 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
2815 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
2816 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
2817 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
2818 target hardware watchpoint.
2820 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
2821 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
2822 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
2823 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
2827 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
2828 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
2831 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
2832 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
2833 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
2834 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
2835 now "message", which just prints the error message without
2838 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
2841 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
2842 modules library. This module provides functionality for
2843 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
2844 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
2845 corresponding value.
2847 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
2848 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
2849 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
2852 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
2853 static_block will return the global and static blocks
2854 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
2855 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
2857 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
2859 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
2862 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
2863 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
2864 available in the CLI.
2866 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
2867 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
2868 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
2869 "some_type.items()".
2871 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
2874 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
2875 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
2876 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
2877 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
2878 any anonymous fields.
2882 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
2885 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
2886 "=breakpoint-modified".
2888 ** New command -ada-task-info.
2890 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
2891 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
2892 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
2895 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
2896 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
2897 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
2898 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
2899 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
2901 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
2902 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
2904 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
2905 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
2906 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
2907 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
2908 use this option to specify where to find it.
2910 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2911 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
2912 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
2913 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
2914 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
2915 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2916 section in the user manual for more details.
2918 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
2919 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
2920 become available after that.
2922 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
2924 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
2925 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
2931 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
2932 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
2936 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
2937 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
2938 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
2940 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
2941 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
2942 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
2944 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
2945 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
2946 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
2947 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
2948 name starts with a hyphen.
2950 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
2951 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
2952 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
2953 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
2954 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
2955 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
2956 number of bytes that will be collected.
2959 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
2960 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
2961 setting the variable trace-notes.
2964 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
2965 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
2966 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
2969 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
2970 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
2971 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
2972 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
2973 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
2976 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
2977 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
2978 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
2982 set debug dwarf2-read
2983 show debug dwarf2-read
2984 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
2985 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
2987 set debug symtab-create
2988 show debug symtab-create
2989 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
2990 creation. The default is off.
2993 show extended-prompt
2994 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
2995 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
2996 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
2997 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
2998 prompt is displayed.
3000 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
3001 show print entry-values
3002 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
3003 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
3004 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
3006 set debug entry-values
3007 show debug entry-values
3008 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
3009 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
3011 set basenames-may-differ
3012 show basenames-may-differ
3013 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
3014 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
3015 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
3016 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
3017 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
3018 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
3019 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
3020 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
3026 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
3027 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
3028 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
3029 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
3031 set trace-stop-notes
3032 show trace-stop-notes
3033 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
3034 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
3035 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
3036 started by someone else.
3038 * New remote packets
3042 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3046 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3050 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
3054 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
3058 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
3061 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
3062 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
3066 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
3070 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3072 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
3074 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
3076 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
3078 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
3079 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
3080 matches the given regular expression.
3082 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
3084 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
3085 dumping the instruction opcodes.
3087 * New command line options
3089 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
3090 This is mostly for testing purposes.
3092 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
3093 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
3095 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
3096 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
3097 source path list instead of augmenting it.
3099 * GDB now understands thread names.
3101 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
3102 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
3104 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
3105 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
3108 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
3109 has been integrated into GDB.
3113 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
3114 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
3115 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
3117 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3118 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
3119 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
3120 and allows for more dynamic content.
3122 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
3123 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
3124 have an is_valid method.
3126 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3127 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
3128 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
3130 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
3132 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
3133 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
3134 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
3135 that function like so:
3137 result = some_value (10,20)
3139 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
3140 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
3141 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
3143 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
3144 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
3145 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
3146 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
3147 New function: register_pretty_printer.
3149 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
3150 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
3152 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
3154 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
3157 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
3158 holds the thread's name.
3160 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
3161 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
3162 occurring in the process being debugged.
3163 The following events are currently supported:
3164 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
3165 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
3166 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
3170 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
3171 instantiation. For example, if you have:
3173 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
3175 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
3176 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
3177 was added to GCC 4.5.
3179 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
3180 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
3181 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
3182 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
3183 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
3184 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
3186 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
3187 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
3188 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
3189 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
3190 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
3192 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
3193 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
3194 execution to a label.
3196 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
3197 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
3198 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
3199 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
3201 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
3202 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
3203 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
3206 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
3208 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
3209 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
3210 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
3211 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
3212 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
3213 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
3216 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
3218 While now you see this:
3221 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
3223 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
3226 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
3227 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
3228 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
3229 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
3231 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3232 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
3233 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
3234 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3235 section in the user manual for more details.
3237 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3239 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
3240 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
3242 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
3244 * New native configurations
3246 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3250 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
3252 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
3253 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
3254 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
3255 in the GDB user manual.
3257 * Guile support was removed.
3259 * New features in the GNU simulator
3261 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
3263 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
3265 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
3267 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
3269 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
3270 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
3271 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
3272 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
3273 was always disabled for such configurations.
3277 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
3279 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
3280 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
3290 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
3291 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
3292 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
3294 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
3296 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
3297 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
3298 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
3299 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3301 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3302 mentioned flavors of operators.
3304 ** static const class members
3306 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3307 class definition has been fixed.
3309 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3311 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3312 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3313 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3314 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3315 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3316 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3318 * Static tracepoints
3320 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3321 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3322 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3323 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3324 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3325 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3326 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3327 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3328 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3329 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3330 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3331 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3332 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3333 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3334 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3335 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3336 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3337 the "New remote packets" section below.
3339 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3341 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3342 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3343 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3344 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3348 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3349 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3350 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3351 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3352 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3353 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3354 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3356 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3359 * New remote packets
3363 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3367 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3368 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3369 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3370 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3371 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3372 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3376 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3380 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3383 qXfer:statictrace:read
3385 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3386 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3387 to gdb's qSupported query.
3391 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3395 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3396 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3398 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3399 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3402 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3404 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3405 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3406 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3407 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3409 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3410 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3411 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3412 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3413 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3414 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3415 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3417 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
3418 for static tracepoints support.
3420 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
3422 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
3423 it understands register description.
3425 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
3427 * X86 general purpose registers
3429 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
3430 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
3431 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
3432 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
3433 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
3435 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
3436 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
3437 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
3438 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
3439 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
3440 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
3442 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
3443 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
3444 in the specified file.
3446 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
3447 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
3448 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
3449 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
3450 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
3451 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
3452 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
3453 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
3454 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
3455 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
3459 eval template, expressions...
3460 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
3461 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
3463 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
3464 show target-file-system-kind
3465 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
3468 save breakpoints <filename>
3469 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
3470 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
3471 definitions, use the `source' command.
3473 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
3476 info static-tracepoint-markers
3477 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
3479 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
3480 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
3481 function, line, address, or marker ID.
3485 Enable and disable observer mode.
3487 set may-write-registers on|off
3488 set may-write-memory on|off
3489 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
3490 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
3491 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
3492 set may-interrupt on|off
3493 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
3494 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
3495 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
3496 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
3497 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
3498 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
3499 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
3501 set record memory-query on|off
3502 show record memory-query
3503 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
3504 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
3509 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
3513 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
3514 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
3515 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
3516 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
3517 GDB using Python' in the manual.
3519 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
3520 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
3521 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
3522 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
3524 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
3525 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
3527 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
3529 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
3531 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
3533 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
3534 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
3535 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
3537 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
3538 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
3539 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
3540 regular breakpoints.
3544 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
3546 * D language support.
3547 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
3550 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
3551 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
3552 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3553 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3554 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3556 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3557 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3558 conditions of the form:
3560 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3562 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3563 interface mentioned above.
3565 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
3569 ** Namespace Support
3571 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3572 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3573 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3574 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3575 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3579 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
3580 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
3585 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
3586 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
3590 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
3595 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
3598 * Multi-program debugging.
3600 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
3601 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
3602 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
3603 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
3604 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
3605 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
3606 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
3607 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
3609 * New tracing features
3611 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
3613 ** Trace state variables
3615 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
3616 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
3617 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
3618 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
3619 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
3620 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
3621 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
3622 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
3623 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
3624 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
3628 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
3629 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
3630 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
3631 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
3632 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
3633 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
3634 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
3635 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
3636 the regular trace command.
3638 ** Disconnected tracing
3640 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
3641 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
3642 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
3643 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
3644 connection is lost unexpectedly.
3648 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
3649 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
3650 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
3651 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
3652 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
3653 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
3656 ** Circular trace buffer
3658 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
3659 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
3660 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
3661 not be available for all target agents.
3666 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
3667 the arguments to be comma-separated.
3670 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
3671 which only declare a variable are not shown.
3674 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
3675 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
3678 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
3679 "set script-extension" (see below).
3681 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3683 record save [<FILENAME>]
3684 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
3685 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
3687 record restore <FILENAME>
3688 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
3689 earlier time, for replay debugging.
3691 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
3694 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
3695 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
3696 inferior has loaded.
3701 maint info program-spaces
3702 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
3704 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
3705 show remote interrupt-sequence
3706 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
3707 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
3708 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
3709 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
3710 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
3712 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
3713 show remote interrupt-on-connect
3714 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
3715 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
3718 set remotebreak [on | off]
3720 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
3722 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
3723 Create or modify a trace state variable.
3726 List trace state variables and their values.
3728 delete tvariable $NAME ...
3729 Delete one or more trace state variables.
3732 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
3733 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
3735 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
3736 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
3738 * New expression syntax
3740 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
3741 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
3745 set follow-exec-mode new|same
3746 show follow-exec-mode
3747 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
3748 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
3749 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
3751 set default-collect EXPR, ...
3752 show default-collect
3753 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
3754 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
3755 such as registers or a critical global variable.
3757 set disconnected-tracing
3758 show disconnected-tracing
3759 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
3760 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
3763 set circular-trace-buffer
3764 show circular-trace-buffer
3765 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
3766 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
3767 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
3768 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
3770 set script-extension off|soft|strict
3771 show script-extension
3772 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
3773 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
3774 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
3775 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
3777 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
3779 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
3780 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
3781 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
3782 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
3783 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
3784 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
3785 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
3788 * Python API Improvements
3790 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
3791 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
3792 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
3794 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
3795 `is_base_class' attribute.
3797 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
3799 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
3800 evaluate an expression.
3802 * New remote packets
3805 Define a trace state variable.
3808 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
3811 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
3814 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
3817 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
3821 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
3823 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
3824 much more reliable. In particular:
3825 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
3826 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
3827 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
3828 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
3829 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
3830 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
3831 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
3832 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
3833 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
3834 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
3835 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
3836 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
3837 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
3838 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
3839 non-threaded programs.
3841 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
3842 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
3843 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
3846 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
3848 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
3849 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
3850 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
3851 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
3852 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
3854 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
3855 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
3856 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
3857 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
3858 for tracepoint actions.
3860 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
3861 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
3862 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
3864 * Process record and replay
3866 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
3867 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
3868 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
3871 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
3872 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
3873 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
3876 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
3877 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
3880 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
3881 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
3882 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
3883 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
3884 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
3885 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
3886 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
3887 the installation instructions for more information.
3889 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
3890 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
3891 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
3892 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
3894 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
3895 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
3897 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
3898 now complete on file names.
3900 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
3901 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
3902 For instance, consider:
3904 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
3905 # struct example variable;
3908 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
3909 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
3911 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
3912 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
3914 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
3915 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
3918 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
3919 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
3920 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
3922 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
3923 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
3924 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
3925 and simulator targets may also provide them.
3927 * New remote packets
3930 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3933 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
3934 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
3935 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
3938 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
3939 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
3942 Obtains additional operating system information
3946 Read or write additional signal information.
3948 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
3950 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
3951 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
3952 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
3954 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
3955 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
3957 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
3958 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
3959 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
3961 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
3962 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
3964 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
3966 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
3968 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
3969 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
3971 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
3972 list of section offsets.
3974 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
3975 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
3976 have also been fixed.
3978 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
3979 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
3980 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
3982 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
3985 template<typename T> class C { };
3988 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
3990 ptype C<char const *>
3991 ptype C<char const*>
3992 ptype C<const char *>
3993 ptype C<const char*>
3995 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
3997 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
3998 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4000 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
4001 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4002 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
4004 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
4005 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
4007 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
4010 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
4011 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4013 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
4014 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
4019 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
4020 available is determined at configure time.
4022 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
4024 * Ada tasking support
4026 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
4030 Print the list of Ada tasks.
4032 Print detailed information about task number N.
4034 Print the task number of the current task.
4036 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
4038 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
4039 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
4041 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
4043 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
4044 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
4045 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
4046 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
4047 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
4048 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
4051 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
4052 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
4055 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
4056 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
4057 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
4058 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
4061 * Multi-architecture debugging.
4063 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
4064 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
4065 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
4066 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
4067 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
4069 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
4070 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
4071 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
4072 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
4073 --enable-targets configure option.
4075 * Non-stop mode debugging.
4077 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
4078 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
4079 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
4080 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
4081 section in the user manual for more information.
4083 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
4084 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
4085 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
4086 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
4087 extensions on linux targets.
4089 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4091 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
4092 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
4093 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
4094 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
4095 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
4096 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
4097 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
4098 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
4099 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
4101 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
4103 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4105 maint set python print-stack
4106 maint show python print-stack
4107 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
4110 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
4115 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
4119 Show operating system information about processes.
4122 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
4125 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
4128 Detach from inferior number NUM.
4131 Kill inferior number NUM.
4135 set spu stop-on-load
4136 show spu stop-on-load
4137 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4139 set spu auto-flush-cache
4140 show spu auto-flush-cache
4141 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
4142 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4144 set sh calling-convention
4145 show sh calling-convention
4146 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
4149 show debug timestamp
4150 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
4152 set disassemble-next-line
4153 show disassemble-next-line
4154 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
4157 set remote noack-packet
4158 show remote noack-packet
4159 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
4160 under "New remote packets."
4162 set remote query-attached-packet
4163 show remote query-attached-packet
4164 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
4166 set remote read-siginfo-object
4167 show remote read-siginfo-object
4168 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
4171 set remote write-siginfo-object
4172 show remote write-siginfo-object
4173 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
4176 set remote reverse-continue
4177 show remote reverse-continue
4178 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
4180 set remote reverse-step
4181 show remote reverse-step
4182 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
4184 set displaced-stepping
4185 show displaced-stepping
4186 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
4187 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
4188 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
4191 show debug displaced
4192 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
4194 maint set internal-error
4195 maint show internal-error
4196 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
4198 maint set internal-warning
4199 maint show internal-warning
4200 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
4205 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4207 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
4208 show multiple-symbols
4209 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
4210 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
4211 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
4213 set breakpoint always-inserted
4214 show breakpoint always-inserted
4215 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
4216 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
4217 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
4219 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4220 show arm fallback-mode
4221 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4223 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
4224 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
4225 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
4226 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
4228 set disable-randomization
4229 show disable-randomization
4230 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
4231 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
4232 multiple debugging sessions.
4236 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
4241 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
4242 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
4243 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
4244 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
4246 set target-wide-charset
4247 show target-wide-charset
4248 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
4249 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
4251 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
4253 set tcp connect-timeout
4254 show tcp connect-timeout
4255 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
4256 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
4257 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
4259 set libthread-db-search-path
4260 show libthread-db-search-path
4261 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
4264 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
4265 show schedule-multiple
4266 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
4267 the current process.
4271 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
4272 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
4273 affecting correctness.
4275 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
4276 show interactive-mode
4277 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
4278 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
4279 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
4280 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
4281 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
4286 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
4287 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
4288 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
4292 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
4293 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
4294 alias for the `fork' command.
4297 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
4298 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
4299 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4302 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4303 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4304 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4308 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4309 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4310 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4313 * New native configurations
4315 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4317 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4321 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4322 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4323 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4326 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4327 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4333 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4335 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4337 * New native configurations
4339 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4340 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4344 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4345 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
4347 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4349 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4350 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4351 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4352 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4354 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4355 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4357 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4360 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4361 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4362 and in inlined functions.
4364 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4365 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4366 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4368 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4370 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4371 registers on PowerPC targets.
4373 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4374 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4376 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4377 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4379 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4380 extended-remote mode.
4382 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4383 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4384 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4385 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4387 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4388 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4389 target architectures.
4391 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4392 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4393 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4394 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4396 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4399 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4400 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4402 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4403 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4404 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4405 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4407 - Improved command completion in Ada
4410 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4415 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4416 show print frame-arguments
4417 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
4418 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
4423 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4430 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4432 * New remote packets
4439 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
4442 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
4446 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
4448 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
4450 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
4451 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
4452 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
4454 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
4455 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
4456 -Bsymbolic linker option.
4458 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
4459 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
4462 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
4463 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
4465 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
4466 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
4468 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
4470 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
4471 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
4472 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
4474 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
4475 automatically displayed as character or string data.
4477 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
4478 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
4481 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
4482 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
4483 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
4485 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
4488 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
4489 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
4490 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
4492 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
4494 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
4496 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
4497 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
4498 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
4500 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
4501 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
4503 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
4504 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
4505 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
4506 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
4507 Windows and SymbianOS).
4509 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
4510 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
4512 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
4513 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
4519 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
4520 when debugging using remote targets.
4522 set mem inaccessible-by-default
4523 show mem inaccessible-by-default
4524 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4525 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4526 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
4527 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
4528 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
4530 set breakpoint auto-hw
4531 show breakpoint auto-hw
4532 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4533 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4534 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
4535 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
4536 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
4537 including "next" and "finish".
4540 catch exception unhandled
4541 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
4544 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
4548 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
4549 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
4550 an alias to "set sysroot".
4553 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4554 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4557 * New native configurations
4559 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4562 unset tdesc filename
4564 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4565 not query the target for its built-in description.
4569 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4570 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4571 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4573 * New remote packets
4576 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4577 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4579 qXfer:features:read:
4580 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
4585 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
4586 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
4588 qXfer:libraries:read:
4589 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
4590 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
4591 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
4592 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
4596 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
4604 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
4605 i[34567]86-*-netware*
4606 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
4607 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
4609 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
4612 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
4613 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
4622 * Other removed features
4629 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
4636 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
4641 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
4642 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
4647 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
4648 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
4650 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
4652 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
4653 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
4654 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
4655 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
4657 MIPS ".pdr" sections
4659 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
4660 in debugging information.
4664 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
4665 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
4667 set mips stack-arg-size
4668 set mips saved-gpreg-size
4670 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
4672 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
4677 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
4679 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
4680 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
4681 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
4683 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
4684 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
4687 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
4688 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
4690 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
4691 stub provides the required support.
4693 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
4694 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
4699 unset substitute-path
4700 show substitute-path
4701 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
4702 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
4703 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
4704 between compilation and debugging.
4708 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
4709 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
4710 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
4714 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
4716 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
4717 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
4719 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
4721 * New remote packets
4724 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
4725 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
4726 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
4727 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
4731 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
4732 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
4734 qXfer:memory-map:read:
4735 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
4736 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
4741 Erase and program a flash memory device.
4743 * Removed remote packets
4746 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
4747 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
4749 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
4753 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
4755 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4759 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
4760 only if it doesn't already have a value.
4762 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
4764 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
4766 restart <n> Return the program state to a
4767 previously saved state.
4769 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
4771 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
4773 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
4774 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
4776 info forks List forks of the user program that
4777 are available to be debugged.
4779 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
4780 forks of the user program that are
4781 available to be debugged.
4783 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4784 that are available to be debugged (and
4785 kill the forked process).
4787 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4788 that are available to be debugged (and
4789 allow the process to continue).
4793 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
4795 * Improved Windows host support
4797 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
4798 native console support, and remote communications using either
4799 network sockets or serial ports.
4801 * Improved Modula-2 language support
4803 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
4804 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
4805 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
4806 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
4807 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
4808 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
4812 The ARM rdi-share module.
4814 The Netware NLM debug server.
4816 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
4818 * New native configurations
4820 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
4821 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
4825 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4827 * New command line options
4829 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
4830 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
4831 the child (debugged) program exited with.
4832 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
4833 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
4834 specified multiple times and in conjunction
4835 with the --command (-x) option.
4837 * Deprecated commands removed
4839 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
4843 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
4844 othernames set arm disassembler
4845 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
4846 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
4847 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
4850 * New BSD user-level threads support
4852 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
4853 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
4856 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4857 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
4858 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
4860 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
4861 are not yet supported.
4863 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
4864 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
4866 * REMOVED configurations and files
4868 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
4869 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4870 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
4872 * New "set print array-indexes" command
4874 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
4875 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
4878 * VAX floating point support
4880 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
4882 * User-defined command support
4884 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
4885 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
4886 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
4888 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
4890 * New command line option
4892 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
4895 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
4897 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
4898 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
4899 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
4900 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
4901 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
4903 * Internationalization
4905 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
4906 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
4907 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
4911 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
4912 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
4913 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
4915 * New native configurations
4917 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
4921 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
4922 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
4924 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
4926 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4927 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
4928 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
4931 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
4932 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
4933 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
4943 powerpc bdm protocol
4945 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4946 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
4948 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4950 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4951 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4952 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4953 permanently REMOVED.
4962 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
4964 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
4966 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
4967 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
4970 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
4972 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
4973 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
4974 IRIX long double values).
4978 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
4979 command. This problem has been fixed.
4981 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
4983 * Fix for ``many threads''
4985 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
4986 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
4989 ptrace: No such process.
4990 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
4992 This problem has been fixed.
4994 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
4996 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
4999 * New ``start'' command.
5001 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
5003 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
5005 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
5006 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
5007 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
5009 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5010 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
5011 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
5012 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
5013 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
5014 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5015 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
5016 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
5017 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5019 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
5021 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
5022 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
5023 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
5024 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
5025 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
5027 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
5028 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
5029 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
5031 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
5033 * New native configurations
5035 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
5036 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
5037 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
5038 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
5039 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
5040 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
5041 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
5043 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
5045 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5046 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
5047 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
5048 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
5049 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
5050 work, was also included.
5052 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
5053 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
5063 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5064 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
5066 * REMOVED configurations and files
5068 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5069 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5070 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5071 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5072 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5073 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5074 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5075 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5076 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5077 sonymips mips-sony-*
5078 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5080 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
5082 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
5084 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
5085 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
5086 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
5087 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
5090 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
5092 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
5093 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
5094 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
5095 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
5096 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
5097 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
5100 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
5102 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
5104 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
5105 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
5106 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
5108 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
5110 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
5111 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
5113 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
5115 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
5116 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
5117 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
5119 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
5121 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
5122 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
5124 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
5126 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
5127 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
5128 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
5130 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
5132 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
5133 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
5134 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
5136 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
5138 * Removed --with-mmalloc
5140 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
5141 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
5143 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
5145 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
5146 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
5147 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
5148 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
5150 * Revised SPARC target
5152 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
5153 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
5154 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
5155 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
5156 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
5160 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
5161 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
5162 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
5165 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5167 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
5168 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
5171 * C++ nested types and namespaces
5173 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
5174 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
5175 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
5176 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
5177 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
5178 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
5179 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
5180 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
5181 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
5183 * New native configurations
5185 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
5186 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5187 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
5188 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5189 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
5191 * New debugging protocols
5193 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
5195 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
5197 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
5198 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
5199 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
5201 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5203 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5204 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5205 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5206 permanently REMOVED.
5208 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5209 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5210 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5211 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5212 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5213 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5214 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5215 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5216 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5217 sonymips mips-sony-*
5218 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5220 * REMOVED configurations and files
5222 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5223 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5224 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5225 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5226 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5227 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5228 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5229 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5230 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5231 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
5232 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5233 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5234 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5235 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
5236 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
5237 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5238 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5240 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
5244 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
5245 integrated into GDB.
5247 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
5249 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
5250 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
5251 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
5254 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
5255 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
5256 DWARF 2 CFI support.
5260 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
5261 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
5262 remote protocol documentation for details.
5264 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
5266 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
5267 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
5268 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
5271 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
5273 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
5274 per-thread variables.
5276 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
5278 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
5279 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
5281 * Separate debug info.
5283 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
5284 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
5285 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
5286 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
5287 and optional debug files.
5289 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5291 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
5292 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
5295 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
5296 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5300 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5301 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5302 considered "useable".
5304 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5306 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5307 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5310 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5312 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5313 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5315 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5317 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5318 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5321 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5323 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5324 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5328 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5329 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5330 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5331 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5332 data, for more informative profiling results.
5334 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5336 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5337 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5338 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5340 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5343 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5344 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5345 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5346 in a subsequent -var-update.
5348 * New native configurations.
5350 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5352 * Multi-arched targets.
5354 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5355 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5357 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5359 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5360 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5361 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5362 permanently REMOVED.
5364 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5365 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5366 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5367 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5368 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5369 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5370 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5371 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5372 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5373 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5374 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5375 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5377 * REMOVED configurations and files
5380 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5381 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5382 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5383 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5384 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5385 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5387 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5388 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5389 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5390 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5391 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5392 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5394 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5396 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5397 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5398 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5399 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5400 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5402 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5404 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5406 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5407 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5408 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5409 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5410 shared libs like mad''.
5412 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5414 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5415 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5416 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5417 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
5419 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
5421 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
5422 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
5425 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
5426 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
5428 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
5429 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
5431 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
5432 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
5433 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
5434 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
5436 * Multi-arched targets.
5438 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
5439 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
5441 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
5442 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
5443 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5447 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
5450 * New native configurations
5452 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
5453 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
5454 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
5455 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
5457 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5459 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5460 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5461 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5462 permanently REMOVED.
5464 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5465 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5466 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5467 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5468 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5469 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5470 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5471 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5472 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5473 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5475 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5476 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5478 * OBSOLETE languages
5480 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
5482 * REMOVED configurations and files
5484 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5485 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5486 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5487 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5488 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5490 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5492 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
5494 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
5495 commands. The default is 1024.
5497 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
5499 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
5501 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
5503 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
5504 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
5505 from a file into memory (restore).
5507 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
5509 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
5510 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
5511 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
5513 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
5521 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
5522 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
5523 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
5525 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
5526 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
5527 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
5529 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
5530 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
5531 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
5533 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
5534 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
5535 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
5537 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
5539 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
5541 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
5542 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
5543 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
5544 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
5545 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
5546 (notably embedded) targets.
5548 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
5550 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
5551 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
5552 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5553 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5555 * New command line option
5557 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5559 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5561 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5562 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5563 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5564 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5565 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5566 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5567 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5568 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5569 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5570 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5572 * Changes in ARM configurations.
5574 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5575 configuration is fully multi-arch.
5577 * New native configurations
5579 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
5580 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
5581 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
5582 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
5586 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
5588 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5590 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5591 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5592 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5593 permanently REMOVED.
5595 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5596 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5597 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5598 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5599 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5601 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5603 * REMOVED configurations and files
5605 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5607 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5608 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5609 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5610 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5611 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5612 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5613 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5614 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5615 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5616 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5617 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
5619 * Changes to command line processing
5621 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
5622 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
5624 * Changes to key bindings
5626 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
5628 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
5630 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
5632 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
5635 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
5637 Numerous documentation fixes.
5639 Numerous testsuite fixes.
5641 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
5643 * New native configurations
5645 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
5646 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
5647 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
5648 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5649 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
5650 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
5654 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
5656 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
5658 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5660 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
5661 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5662 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5663 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5664 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5666 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5667 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5668 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5669 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5670 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5671 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5672 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5673 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
5675 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
5676 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
5678 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5679 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5680 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5681 permanently REMOVED.
5683 * REMOVED configurations and files
5685 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5686 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5688 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5692 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
5694 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
5695 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
5700 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
5702 * The MI enabled by default.
5704 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
5705 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
5706 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
5707 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
5708 which is now deprecated.
5710 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
5712 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
5713 main features are supported:
5715 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
5717 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
5720 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
5722 - a Pascal expression parser.
5724 However, some important features are not yet supported.
5726 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
5728 - there are some problems with boolean types;
5730 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
5731 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
5733 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
5735 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
5737 * Changes in completion.
5739 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
5740 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
5741 users expect at the shell prompt.
5743 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
5744 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
5745 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
5746 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
5747 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
5748 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
5749 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
5751 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
5753 * New platform-independent commands:
5755 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
5756 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
5757 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
5759 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
5761 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
5762 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
5763 many threads as your system allows you to have.
5765 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
5767 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
5768 multi-threaded programs though.
5770 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
5772 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
5774 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
5775 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
5778 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
5780 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
5781 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
5782 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
5783 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
5784 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
5787 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
5788 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
5789 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
5791 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
5793 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
5794 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
5796 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
5797 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
5800 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
5801 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
5802 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
5803 a given linear address.
5805 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
5806 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
5807 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
5809 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
5811 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
5813 * Changes in documentation.
5815 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
5816 Documentation License.
5818 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5821 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
5823 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5826 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
5827 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
5828 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
5830 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
5832 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
5833 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
5834 contents of this file.
5838 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
5840 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
5842 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
5844 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
5845 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
5846 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
5847 greater level of detail.
5849 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
5851 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
5852 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
5853 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
5856 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
5858 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
5859 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
5860 machines ``out of the box''.
5862 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
5863 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
5864 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
5865 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
5866 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
5868 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
5869 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
5870 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
5871 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
5872 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
5874 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
5875 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
5878 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
5881 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
5882 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
5883 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
5884 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
5886 * New native configurations
5888 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
5889 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5893 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
5894 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
5895 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
5896 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5898 * OBSOLETE configurations
5900 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5901 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5903 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5906 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5907 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5908 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5909 be permanently REMOVED.
5911 * Gould support removed
5913 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
5915 * New features for SVR4
5917 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
5918 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
5919 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
5921 * Many C++ enhancements
5923 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
5924 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
5926 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
5928 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
5929 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
5930 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
5931 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
5933 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
5934 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
5936 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
5938 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
5939 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
5940 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
5942 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
5943 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
5945 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
5947 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
5948 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
5949 include ``set remote P-packet''.
5951 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
5953 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
5954 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
5955 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
5957 * ``apropos'' command added.
5959 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
5960 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
5961 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
5965 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
5966 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
5967 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
5968 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
5969 enabled by configuring with:
5971 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
5973 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
5975 * New native configurations
5977 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
5978 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
5979 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
5983 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5984 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
5985 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5987 * OBSOLETE configurations
5989 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
5991 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5992 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5993 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5994 be permanently REMOVED.
5998 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
5999 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
6000 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
6001 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
6002 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
6003 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
6004 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
6009 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
6011 * set extension-language
6013 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
6014 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
6015 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
6016 set extension-language .c c++
6017 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
6018 and their associated languages.
6020 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
6022 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
6023 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
6024 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
6028 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
6029 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
6031 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
6032 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
6034 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
6035 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
6036 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
6037 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
6038 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
6039 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
6040 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
6041 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
6043 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
6044 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
6045 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
6046 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
6050 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
6051 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
6052 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
6053 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
6054 for xdb and dbx commands.
6058 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
6059 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
6060 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
6062 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
6063 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
6064 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
6066 * Debugging across forks
6068 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
6073 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
6074 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
6075 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
6077 * GDB remote protocol additions
6079 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
6080 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
6081 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
6082 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
6084 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
6085 full 64-bit address. The command
6087 set remoteaddresssize 32
6089 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
6090 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
6093 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
6094 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
6096 maint packet heythere
6098 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
6099 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
6102 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
6103 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
6104 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
6106 * Tracing can collect general expressions
6108 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
6109 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
6110 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
6112 * mask-address variable for Mips
6114 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
6115 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
6116 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
6118 * Higher serial baud rates
6120 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
6121 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
6122 to achieve all of these rates.)
6126 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
6127 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
6130 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
6132 * New native configurations
6134 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
6135 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
6136 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6137 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6138 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6139 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
6140 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
6144 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6145 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
6146 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6147 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
6148 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
6149 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
6150 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
6151 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
6152 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6153 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6154 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
6156 * New debugging protocols
6158 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
6159 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
6160 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
6161 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6162 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6163 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6167 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
6168 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
6173 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
6174 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
6176 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
6178 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
6179 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
6180 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
6182 * Live range splitting
6184 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
6185 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
6186 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
6190 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
6191 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
6195 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
6196 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
6197 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
6202 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
6207 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
6208 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
6209 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
6210 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
6211 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
6212 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
6216 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
6217 the symbol at the specified address.
6221 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
6222 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
6223 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
6224 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
6225 file tracepoint.c for more details.
6229 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
6230 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
6231 of most MIPS variants.
6235 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
6236 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
6237 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
6241 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
6242 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
6243 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
6244 the possible architectures.
6246 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
6248 * New native configurations
6250 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
6251 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
6252 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
6253 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
6254 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6255 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
6259 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
6260 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6261 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
6262 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
6263 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
6265 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6269 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
6270 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
6271 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
6272 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
6273 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
6277 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
6279 * Windows 95/NT native
6281 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
6282 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
6283 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
6284 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
6285 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
6287 * dont-repeat command
6289 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
6290 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
6291 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
6292 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
6294 * Send break instead of ^C
6296 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
6297 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
6298 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6300 * Remote protocol timeout
6302 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6303 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6304 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6306 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6308 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6309 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6310 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6311 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6312 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6314 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6315 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6316 automatically on hpux10.
6318 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6320 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6322 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6324 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6325 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6326 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6327 every character. The default value is 1050.
6329 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6331 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6332 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6333 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6334 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6335 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6336 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6338 * Speedups for remote debugging
6340 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6341 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6342 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6344 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6346 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6347 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6349 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6351 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6353 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6354 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6356 * Remote targets use caching
6358 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6359 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6360 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6361 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6362 off' turns the the data cache off.
6364 * Remote targets may have threads
6366 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6367 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6368 gdb/remote.c for details.
6372 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6373 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6374 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6375 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6376 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6377 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6378 sequence is something like
6380 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6382 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6386 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6387 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6388 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6389 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6390 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6391 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6392 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6393 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6397 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6398 but does simplify configuration and building.
6402 GDB now supports hpux10.
6404 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6406 * New native configurations
6408 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6409 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6410 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6411 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6415 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6416 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6417 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
6418 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
6421 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
6423 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
6424 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
6425 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
6426 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
6427 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
6429 * Arguments to user-defined commands
6431 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
6432 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
6435 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
6437 To execute the command use:
6440 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
6441 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
6442 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
6444 * New `if' and `while' commands
6446 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
6447 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
6448 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
6449 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
6450 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
6451 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
6452 if the expression is zero.
6454 * Fortran source language mode
6456 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
6457 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
6458 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
6459 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
6462 * Better HPUX support
6464 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
6465 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
6466 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
6467 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
6468 that behavior do the following before running the program:
6474 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
6475 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
6481 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
6482 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
6485 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
6486 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
6488 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
6490 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
6491 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
6492 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
6493 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
6494 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
6495 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
6497 * New DOS host serial code
6499 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
6500 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
6503 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
6505 * New "complete" command
6507 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
6508 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
6510 * Trailing space optional in prompt
6512 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
6513 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
6515 * Breakpoint hit counts
6517 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
6518 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
6519 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
6520 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
6521 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
6524 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
6526 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
6527 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
6528 arrays actually contain only short strings.
6530 * Shared library breakpoints
6532 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
6533 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
6535 * Hardware watchpoints
6537 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
6538 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
6540 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
6544 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
6545 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
6547 * Improved Irix 5 support
6549 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
6551 * Improved HPPA support
6553 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6555 * New native configurations
6557 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6558 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6559 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6560 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6564 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6565 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6568 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6570 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6571 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6575 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6576 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6578 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6580 * Irix 5 is now supported
6584 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
6585 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
6586 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
6587 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
6588 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
6591 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
6593 * User visible changes:
6597 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
6598 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
6599 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
6600 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
6601 debugging info for the mips target).
6603 * DEC Alpha native support
6605 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
6606 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
6607 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
6608 Alpha-specific notes.
6610 * Preliminary thread implementation
6612 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
6614 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
6616 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
6617 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
6620 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
6622 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
6623 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
6624 call methods, ...etc.
6626 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
6628 * User visible changes:
6630 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
6631 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
6632 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
6633 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
6635 Filename completion now works.
6637 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
6638 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
6639 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
6641 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
6642 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
6643 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
6644 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
6645 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
6649 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
6650 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
6653 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
6657 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
6658 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
6659 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
6663 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
6664 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
6665 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
6666 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
6667 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
6671 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
6672 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
6673 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
6675 * New targets supported
6677 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6678 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6679 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
6680 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6681 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
6683 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
6684 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
6685 GO32 memory extender.
6687 * New remote protocols
6689 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
6691 * New source languages supported
6693 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
6694 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
6695 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
6698 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
6700 * HP Precision Architecture supported
6702 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
6703 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
6704 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
6705 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
6706 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
6707 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
6709 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
6711 * Faster and better demangling
6713 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
6714 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
6715 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
6716 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
6717 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
6718 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
6721 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
6722 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
6723 compiler does not actually implement.
6725 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
6727 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
6728 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
6729 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
6730 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
6731 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
6732 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
6735 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
6736 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
6738 * Improved configure script
6740 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
6741 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
6742 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
6743 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
6745 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
6746 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
6747 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
6748 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
6749 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
6750 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
6752 * Documentation improvements
6754 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
6755 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
6756 before submitting changes.
6758 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
6759 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
6760 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
6761 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
6762 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
6764 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
6765 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
6766 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
6767 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
6768 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
6769 around this problem.
6773 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
6774 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
6775 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
6778 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
6779 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
6781 * New native hosts supported
6783 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
6784 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
6786 * New targets supported
6788 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
6790 * New file formats supported
6792 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
6793 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
6797 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
6799 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
6800 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
6802 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
6803 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
6804 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
6806 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
6807 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
6809 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
6810 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
6811 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
6814 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
6815 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
6816 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
6817 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
6818 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
6820 * Internal improvements
6822 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
6823 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
6825 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
6826 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
6827 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
6828 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
6829 shared code that handles any of them.
6831 * New command line options
6833 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
6837 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
6838 General Public License.
6840 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
6842 * Host/native/target split
6844 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
6845 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
6846 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
6847 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
6848 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
6850 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
6851 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
6852 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
6853 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
6854 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
6855 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
6856 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
6858 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
6859 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
6860 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
6862 * New hosts supported
6864 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
6865 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6866 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
6868 * New targets supported
6870 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6871 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
6873 * New native hosts supported
6875 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6876 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
6877 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
6879 * New file formats supported
6881 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
6882 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
6883 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
6887 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
6888 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
6889 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
6891 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
6893 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
6894 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
6895 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
6896 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
6900 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
6901 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
6902 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
6904 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
6908 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
6909 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
6912 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
6913 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
6915 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
6916 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
6917 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
6918 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
6919 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
6920 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
6922 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
6923 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
6924 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
6925 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
6929 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
6930 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
6931 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
6932 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
6933 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
6935 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
6936 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
6937 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
6938 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
6942 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
6943 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
6944 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
6945 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
6946 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
6947 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
6948 each instruction being stepped through.
6950 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
6951 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
6953 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
6954 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
6955 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
6956 processor with a serial port.
6960 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
6961 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
6962 supported, and what files each one uses.
6966 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
6967 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
6968 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
6969 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
6971 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
6972 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
6973 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
6974 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
6978 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
6979 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
6980 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
6981 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
6982 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
6983 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
6985 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
6988 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
6990 * Better support for C++ function names
6992 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
6993 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
6994 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
6995 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
6996 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
6998 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
6999 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
7000 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
7001 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
7002 for the list of formats.
7004 * G++ symbol mangling problem
7006 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
7007 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
7008 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
7009 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
7010 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
7011 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
7014 * New 'maintenance' command
7016 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
7017 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
7018 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
7020 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
7021 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
7022 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
7023 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
7024 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
7025 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
7027 The following commands are new:
7029 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
7030 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
7031 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
7033 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
7035 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
7036 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
7037 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
7038 read after argv processing.
7040 * New hosts supported
7042 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
7044 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
7046 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
7047 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
7048 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
7049 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
7050 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
7053 * New targets supported
7055 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7057 * More smarts about finding #include files
7059 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
7060 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
7061 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
7062 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
7063 the one that contains your sources.
7065 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
7066 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
7067 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
7069 * Interesting infernals change
7071 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
7072 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
7073 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
7074 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
7076 * Bug fixes (of course!)
7078 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
7079 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
7080 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
7082 See the ChangeLog for details.
7084 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
7086 * New machines supported (host and target)
7088 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
7090 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
7092 * New malloc package
7094 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
7095 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
7096 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
7097 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
7098 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
7099 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
7103 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
7104 'help info proc' for details.
7106 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
7108 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
7109 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
7112 * File name changes for MS-DOS
7114 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
7115 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
7116 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
7117 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
7118 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
7119 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
7121 * Cross byte order fixes
7123 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
7124 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
7126 * New -mapped and -readnow options
7128 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
7129 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
7130 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
7131 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
7132 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
7133 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
7134 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
7135 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
7136 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
7137 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
7139 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
7140 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
7141 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
7142 slower, but makes future operations faster.
7144 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
7145 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
7146 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
7149 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
7151 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
7152 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
7153 shared across multiple host platforms.
7155 * longjmp() handling
7157 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
7158 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
7159 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
7160 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
7164 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
7165 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
7170 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
7171 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
7172 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
7174 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
7176 * New machines supported (host and target)
7178 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7180 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
7181 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
7183 * New machines supported (target)
7185 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7189 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
7190 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
7191 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
7193 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
7194 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
7195 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
7196 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
7197 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
7200 * New features for SVR4
7202 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
7203 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
7204 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
7206 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
7207 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
7208 it prints the address mappings of the process.
7210 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
7211 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
7213 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
7215 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
7216 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
7217 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
7218 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
7219 same code linked statically.
7223 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
7224 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
7225 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
7226 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
7227 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
7228 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
7232 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7233 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7234 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7237 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
7239 * New machines supported (host and target)
7241 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
7242 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
7243 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7245 * Almost SCO Unix support
7247 We had hoped to support:
7248 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7249 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
7250 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
7251 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
7253 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
7255 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
7256 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
7257 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
7258 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
7263 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
7264 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
7265 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
7269 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7270 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7271 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7273 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
7275 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
7276 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
7277 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
7279 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
7280 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
7281 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
7282 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
7285 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
7286 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
7287 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
7288 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
7291 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
7292 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
7295 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
7296 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
7297 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7300 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7302 * Improved configuration
7304 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7305 Porting BFD is simpler.
7309 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7310 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7311 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7312 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7316 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7318 * New host supported (not target)
7320 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7323 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7325 * Multiple source language support
7327 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7328 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7329 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7330 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7331 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7332 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7336 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7337 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7338 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7339 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7341 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7342 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7343 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7345 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7346 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7350 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7351 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7352 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7353 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7356 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7358 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7359 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7360 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7361 examining core files.
7365 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7368 * New machines supported (host and target)
7370 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7371 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7372 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7374 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7376 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7378 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7380 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7381 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7382 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7384 * New remote interfaces
7390 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7394 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7396 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7397 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7398 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7399 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7400 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7401 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7402 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7403 stub on the target system.
7405 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7407 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7408 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7409 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7411 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7412 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7415 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7417 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
7418 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
7420 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
7421 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
7422 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
7424 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
7425 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
7426 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
7427 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
7429 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
7430 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
7431 it is already running. Default is ON.
7433 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
7434 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
7435 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
7436 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
7439 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
7440 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
7441 or the value of the environment variable
7444 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
7445 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
7448 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
7449 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
7450 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
7452 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
7453 history expansion will be performed on
7454 command line input. The default is OFF.
7456 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
7457 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
7458 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
7460 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
7461 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
7462 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7465 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
7466 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
7467 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7470 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
7471 ``set width'' instead.
7473 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
7474 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
7475 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
7476 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
7478 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
7481 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
7484 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
7487 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
7490 * Support for Epoch Environment.
7492 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
7493 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
7494 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
7498 * Support for Shared Libraries
7500 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
7501 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
7502 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
7503 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
7504 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
7505 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
7506 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
7507 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
7509 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
7510 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
7511 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
7513 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
7518 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
7519 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
7520 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
7521 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
7522 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
7523 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
7525 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
7527 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
7529 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7530 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7531 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7534 * C++ multiple inheritance
7536 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
7539 * C++ exception handling
7541 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
7542 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
7543 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
7546 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
7547 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
7548 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
7550 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
7551 current stack frame.
7554 * Minor command changes
7556 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7557 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7558 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7560 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7561 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7562 frames without printing.
7564 * New directory command
7566 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7567 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7568 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7569 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7570 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7572 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7574 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7577 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7578 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7579 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
7580 where the program that you are debugging will run.