1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
6 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
7 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
10 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
11 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
12 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
15 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
18 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
19 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
20 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
22 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
23 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
25 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
26 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
27 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
28 in the GDB user manual.
30 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
33 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
35 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
36 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
37 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
38 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
39 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
40 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
41 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
42 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
43 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
44 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
45 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
46 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
48 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
49 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
50 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
53 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
59 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
63 set debug compile-cplus-types
64 show debug compile-cplus-types
65 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
66 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiliong
71 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
74 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
75 Apply a command to some frames.
76 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
77 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
80 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
81 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
84 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
85 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
88 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
90 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
92 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
93 maint show dwarf unwinders
94 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
97 Display a list of open files for a process.
101 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
102 These commands all now take a frame specification which
103 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
104 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
105 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
106 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
107 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
109 target remote FILENAME
110 target extended-remote FILENAME
111 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
112 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
114 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
115 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
116 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
117 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
118 These commands can now print only the searched entities
119 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
120 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
121 printing headers or informations messages.
127 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
128 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
129 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
132 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
133 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
134 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
135 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
137 set tui tab-width NCHARS
138 show tui tab-width NCHARS
139 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
141 set style enabled [on|off]
143 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
144 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
146 set style filename foreground COLOR
147 set style filename background COLOR
148 set style filename intensity VALUE
149 Control the styling of file names.
151 set style function foreground COLOR
152 set style function background COLOR
153 set style function intensity VALUE
154 Control the styling of function names.
156 set style variable foreground COLOR
157 set style variable background COLOR
158 set style variable intensity VALUE
159 Control the styling of variable names.
161 set style address foreground COLOR
162 set style address background COLOR
163 set style address intensity VALUE
164 Control the styling of addresses.
168 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
169 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
170 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
171 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
172 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
174 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
175 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
177 * New native configurations
179 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
180 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
184 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
186 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
187 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
191 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
192 space associated to that inferior.
194 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
195 of objfiles associated to that program space.
197 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
198 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
201 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
202 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
203 correct and did not work properly.
205 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
206 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
212 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
213 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
214 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
215 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
216 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
218 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
220 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
223 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
224 offset to all sections.
226 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
227 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
228 address of individual sections using '-s'.
230 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
231 (address of the text section).
233 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
234 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
235 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
236 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
239 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
240 for the rest of the current command.
242 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
243 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
245 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
246 files created on FreeBSD systems.
248 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
251 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
252 the vector length while the process is running.
258 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
260 set|show varsize-limit
261 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
262 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
263 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
265 set|show record btrace cpu
266 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
269 maint check libthread-db
270 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
273 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
274 maint show check-libthread-db
275 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
276 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
281 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
283 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
284 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
286 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
288 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
289 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
290 of convenience variables.
292 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
293 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
294 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
298 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
300 * Removed targets and native configurations
302 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
303 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
304 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
305 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
307 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
309 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
310 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
311 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
312 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
313 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
314 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
319 --enable-codesign=CERT
320 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
321 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
322 gdb to work properly.
324 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
325 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
327 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
329 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
330 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
331 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
333 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
334 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
336 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
337 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
338 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
339 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
340 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
342 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
343 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
344 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
345 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
347 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
348 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
350 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
351 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
352 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
354 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
355 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
356 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
358 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
359 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
360 environment" command.
362 * Completion improvements
364 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
365 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
366 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
367 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
370 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
371 (gdb) b function(int)
373 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
374 C++ anonymous namespaces:
377 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
378 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
379 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
381 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
382 completion support, that better understands what you're
383 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
384 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
385 setting a breakpoint.
387 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
389 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
391 * New command line options (gcore)
394 Dump all memory mappings.
396 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
398 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
399 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
400 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
402 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
407 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
410 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
411 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
412 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
413 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
414 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
415 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
416 a breakpoint from Python.
418 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
420 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
421 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
422 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
424 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
426 function[abi:cxx11](int)
429 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
432 (gdb) b function(int)
434 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
436 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
438 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
442 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
443 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
444 description of these.
446 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
447 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
448 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
450 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
451 manual for a further description of this feature.
454 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
456 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
457 specified initial working directory.
459 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
460 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
462 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
463 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
465 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
466 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
468 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
469 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
470 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
471 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
472 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
474 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
475 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
476 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
478 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
479 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
480 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
481 in the *stopped notification.
483 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
484 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
488 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
489 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
490 the inferior when starting it.
493 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
494 before starting the remote inferior.
497 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
498 user-set environment variables should be unset).
501 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
504 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
507 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
508 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
510 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
511 filter the tests to be run.
513 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
514 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
519 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
522 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
523 with the 'compile' commands.
525 set debug separate-debug-file
526 show debug separate-debug-file
527 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
529 set dump-excluded-mappings
530 show dump-excluded-mappings
531 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
532 dumped when generating a core file.
535 List the registered selftests.
538 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
541 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
543 set|show print type nested-type-limit
544 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
545 type printer will show.
547 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
550 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
552 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
555 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
556 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
557 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
558 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
560 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
561 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
562 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
563 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
564 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
565 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
567 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
568 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
569 unless you tell it the variable's type:
572 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
576 * New native configurations
578 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
579 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
583 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
584 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
585 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
587 * Removed targets and native configurations
589 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
591 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
593 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
594 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
595 available in future Intel CPUs.
597 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
601 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
602 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
604 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
607 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
609 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
611 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
612 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
615 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
617 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
618 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
620 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
622 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
623 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
624 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
625 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
628 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
630 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
631 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
634 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
636 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
637 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
639 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
641 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
646 eval "print $arg%d", $i
651 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
653 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
654 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
656 * New native configurations
658 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
662 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
663 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
665 * Removed targets and native configurations
667 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
668 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
673 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
675 maint print arc arc-instruction address
676 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
680 set disassembler-options
681 show disassembler-options
682 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
683 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
684 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
685 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
686 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
691 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
692 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
694 -file-list-shared-libraries
695 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
696 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
699 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
700 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
702 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
704 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
706 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
707 default. One must now explicitly configure with
708 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
709 option will be removed in a future release.
711 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
714 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
715 memory backward from the given address. For example:
718 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
719 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
720 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
721 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
722 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
723 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
724 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
725 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
726 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
728 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
729 arrays of dynamic types.
731 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
732 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
733 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
734 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
735 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
736 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
738 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
741 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
742 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
743 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
745 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
747 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
748 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
749 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
750 signal received and code location.
754 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
755 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
756 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
757 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
759 * Rust language support.
760 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
761 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
764 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
766 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
767 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
768 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
769 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
770 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
771 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
772 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
773 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
774 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
775 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
778 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
780 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
781 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
786 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
787 skip -function function
788 skip -rfunction regular-expression
789 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
790 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
791 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
793 maint info line-table REGEXP
794 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data struture.
797 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
800 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
801 using the TTY file for input/output.
805 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
806 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
807 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
808 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
809 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
812 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
813 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
814 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
815 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
818 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
819 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
820 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
822 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
825 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
826 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
827 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
828 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
829 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
830 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
832 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
833 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
834 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
835 bytecode into native code.
837 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
838 recording. For example:
840 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
842 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
844 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
848 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
850 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
852 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
854 * Per-inferior thread numbers
856 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
857 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
858 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
862 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
863 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
864 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
865 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
867 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
868 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
869 are no longer unique between inferiors.
871 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
872 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
873 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
875 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
878 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
879 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
882 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
885 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
886 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
887 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
888 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
891 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
894 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
897 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
900 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
901 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
904 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
905 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
907 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
909 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
911 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
912 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
914 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
915 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
918 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
919 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
922 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
923 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
926 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
928 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
929 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
930 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
932 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
933 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
937 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
938 maint show target-non-stop
939 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
940 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
941 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
943 maint set bfd-sharing
944 maint show bfd-sharing
945 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
949 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
953 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
955 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
956 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
957 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
959 set remote thread-events
960 show remote thread-events
961 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
963 set ada print-signatures on|off
964 show ada print-signatures"
965 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
966 selection menus. It is activaled (@code{on}) by default.
970 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
971 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
972 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
974 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
975 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
976 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
977 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
978 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
979 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
981 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
982 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
984 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
985 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
987 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
989 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
990 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
991 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
992 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
993 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
994 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
996 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
997 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1000 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1002 * New remote packets
1005 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1007 exec-events feature in qSupported
1008 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1009 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1010 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1011 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1014 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1017 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1018 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1020 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1021 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1024 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1025 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1026 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1027 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1028 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1029 stop for that same thread.
1032 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1033 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1034 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1037 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1038 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1040 syscall_entry stop reason
1041 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1043 syscall_return stop reason
1044 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1046 * Extended-remote exec events
1048 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1049 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1050 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1052 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1053 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1054 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1056 * Thread names in remote protocol
1058 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1061 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1063 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1064 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1065 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1066 fork and exec catchpoints.
1068 * Remote syscall events
1070 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1071 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1073 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1074 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1075 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1079 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1080 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1085 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1086 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1087 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1088 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1089 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1090 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1092 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1094 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1095 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1096 including advance SIMD instructions.
1098 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1100 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1101 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1102 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1103 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1104 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1105 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1106 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1108 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1110 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1112 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1113 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1116 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1117 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
1118 and may include things like its command line arguments.
1120 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
1121 is now available on all platforms.
1123 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
1124 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
1125 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
1126 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
1127 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
1128 backward compatibility.
1130 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
1131 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
1132 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
1133 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
1135 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
1136 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
1137 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
1138 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
1141 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
1143 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
1145 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
1146 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
1147 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
1148 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
1149 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
1150 See "New remote packets" below.
1152 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
1153 available register groups, including target specific groups.
1155 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
1156 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
1157 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
1158 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
1163 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
1167 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
1168 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
1169 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
1170 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
1171 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
1172 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
1173 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
1174 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
1175 "const" version of the value respectively.
1179 maint print symbol-cache
1180 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
1182 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
1183 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
1185 maint flush-symbol-cache
1186 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
1190 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
1193 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
1197 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
1200 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
1201 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
1205 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
1208 Print information about branch tracing internals.
1210 maint btrace packet-history
1211 Print the raw branch tracing data.
1213 maint btrace clear-packet-history
1214 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
1217 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
1218 anew by the next "record" command.
1223 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
1224 show debug dwarf-die
1225 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
1227 set debug dwarf-read
1228 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
1229 show debug dwarf-read
1230 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
1232 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
1233 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1234 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
1235 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1237 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
1238 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1239 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
1240 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1242 set debug dwarf-line
1243 show debug dwarf-line
1244 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
1247 show max-completions
1248 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
1249 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
1250 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
1251 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
1253 set history remove-duplicates
1254 show history remove-duplicates
1255 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1257 maint set symbol-cache-size
1258 maint show symbol-cache-size
1259 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1261 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1262 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1264 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1265 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1267 set debug linux-namespaces
1268 show debug linux-namespaces
1269 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1271 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1272 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1273 Intel Processor Trace format.
1274 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1275 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1277 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1278 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1281 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
1282 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
1284 * Python/Guile scripting
1286 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
1287 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
1289 * New remote packets
1291 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
1292 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
1294 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
1295 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
1298 Enable Intel Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
1299 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
1302 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
1303 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
1307 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
1308 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
1309 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
1313 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
1314 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
1317 Return information about files on the remote system.
1319 qXfer:exec-file:read
1320 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
1321 create a process running on the remote system.
1324 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
1325 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
1326 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
1327 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
1330 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
1333 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
1335 vforkdone stop reason
1336 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
1337 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
1339 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
1340 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
1341 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
1342 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
1343 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
1344 whether these features are enabled.
1346 * Extended-remote fork events
1348 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
1349 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
1350 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
1351 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
1353 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
1354 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
1355 the btrace record target.
1356 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
1358 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
1359 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
1361 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
1364 * Removed command line options
1366 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
1368 * Removed targets and native configurations
1370 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
1371 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1373 * New configure options
1376 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
1377 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
1379 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
1380 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
1381 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
1382 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
1384 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
1388 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
1390 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
1392 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
1396 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
1397 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
1398 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
1399 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
1400 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
1401 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
1402 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
1403 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
1404 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
1405 selecting a new file to debug.
1406 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
1407 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
1409 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
1412 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
1413 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
1414 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
1415 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
1417 * New Python-based convenience functions:
1419 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1420 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1421 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1422 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1424 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
1425 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
1426 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
1427 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
1428 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
1429 interface with this new feature are:
1431 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
1432 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
1436 demangle [-l language] [--] name
1437 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
1438 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
1439 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
1440 as "maint demangler-warning".
1442 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
1443 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
1445 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
1446 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
1449 maint print user-registers
1450 List all currently available "user" registers.
1452 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
1453 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
1454 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
1456 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
1457 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
1458 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
1461 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
1462 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
1463 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
1464 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
1467 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
1468 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
1469 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
1470 switched threads meanwhile.
1472 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
1474 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
1475 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
1476 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
1477 is now the default mode.
1481 set debug symbol-lookup
1482 show debug symbol-lookup
1483 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
1487 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
1488 inferiors that have exited.
1492 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
1496 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1498 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
1499 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
1500 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
1501 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
1502 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
1504 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1505 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1506 its alias "share", instead.
1508 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
1510 * New command line options
1513 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
1515 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
1516 as specified in ISO C99.
1518 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
1519 with or without disassembly.
1523 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
1524 available is determined at configure time.
1525 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
1526 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
1528 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1532 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
1536 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
1538 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
1539 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
1541 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
1542 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
1546 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
1547 show print symbol-loading
1548 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
1549 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
1550 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
1551 becomes less useful.
1553 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
1554 show guile print-stack
1555 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
1557 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
1558 show auto-load guile-scripts
1559 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
1561 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
1562 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
1563 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
1564 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
1565 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
1566 usage of this option.
1568 set auto-connect-native-target
1570 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
1571 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
1572 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
1574 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
1575 show record btrace replay-memory-access
1576 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
1578 maint set target-async (on|off)
1579 maint show target-async
1580 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
1581 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
1582 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
1583 occurring only in synchronous mode.
1585 set mi-async (on|off)
1587 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
1588 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
1590 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
1591 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
1593 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
1594 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
1595 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
1596 "set target-async on" command.
1598 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1600 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
1601 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
1602 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
1603 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
1604 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
1606 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
1607 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
1608 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
1610 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
1611 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
1612 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
1613 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
1614 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
1615 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
1616 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
1618 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
1619 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
1621 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
1622 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
1623 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
1625 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
1626 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
1627 memory or registers.
1629 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
1631 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
1632 remote. It now works with all targets.
1634 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
1635 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
1636 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
1637 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
1638 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
1639 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
1640 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
1641 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
1642 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
1645 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
1646 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
1647 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
1649 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
1651 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
1652 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
1653 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
1655 * New remote packets
1657 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
1658 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
1659 branch trace incrementally.
1663 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
1664 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
1666 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
1667 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
1668 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
1669 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
1670 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
1673 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
1675 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1676 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1677 its alias "share", instead.
1679 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
1680 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
1685 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
1686 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
1687 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
1688 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
1689 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
1690 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
1691 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
1692 commands and CLI execution commands.
1694 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
1696 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
1697 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
1698 recording has been added.
1700 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1702 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
1703 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
1705 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
1706 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
1707 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
1708 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
1709 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
1710 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
1713 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
1715 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
1717 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
1718 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
1719 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
1720 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
1725 (gdb) info registers rax
1728 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
1729 "*value not available*".
1731 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
1736 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
1737 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
1738 ** Line tables representation has been added.
1739 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
1740 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
1741 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
1745 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
1746 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
1747 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
1749 * Removed native configurations
1751 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
1752 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
1754 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1755 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1756 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
1757 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
1758 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1759 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1760 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1764 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
1765 maint check-psymtabs
1766 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
1768 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
1769 maint expand-symtabs
1770 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
1773 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1775 maint set|show per-command
1776 maint set|show per-command space
1777 maint set|show per-command time
1778 maint set|show per-command symtab
1779 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
1781 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
1782 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
1783 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
1784 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
1785 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
1788 info exceptions REGEXP
1789 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
1790 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
1795 set debug symfile off|on
1797 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
1798 symbol tables within those files
1800 set print raw frame-arguments
1801 show print raw frame-arguments
1802 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
1803 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
1805 set remote trace-status-packet
1806 show remote trace-status-packet
1807 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
1811 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
1815 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
1817 set startup-with-shell
1818 show startup-with-shell
1819 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
1824 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
1825 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
1827 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
1828 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
1829 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
1830 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
1833 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
1834 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
1835 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
1837 * New command-line options
1839 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1841 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
1842 buffer in Common Trace Format.
1844 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
1847 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
1849 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
1850 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
1852 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
1853 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
1855 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
1856 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
1857 due to an uncaught signal.
1861 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
1862 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
1863 command, which should contain "language-option".
1865 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
1866 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
1868 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
1869 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
1870 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
1871 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
1872 "undefined-command-error-code".
1874 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
1877 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
1879 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
1880 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
1883 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
1884 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
1886 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
1887 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
1888 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
1890 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
1891 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
1892 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
1893 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
1894 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
1895 "exec-run-start-option".
1897 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
1898 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
1900 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
1901 the new "info exceptions" command.
1903 * New system-wide configuration scripts
1904 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
1905 configuration scripts for the following systems:
1909 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
1910 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
1911 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
1914 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
1915 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
1917 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
1918 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
1919 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
1921 * New remote packets
1925 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
1926 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
1927 involvemement at each single-step.
1929 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
1930 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
1931 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
1932 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
1933 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
1934 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
1937 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1939 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
1940 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
1942 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
1943 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
1944 trace state variables.
1946 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
1949 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
1950 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
1952 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
1954 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
1955 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
1956 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
1957 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1959 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
1961 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
1962 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
1963 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
1964 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
1966 set|show record full insn-number-max
1967 set|show record full stop-at-limit
1968 set|show record full memory-query
1970 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
1971 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
1972 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
1973 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
1974 This new recording method can be enabled using:
1978 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
1979 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
1981 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
1982 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
1983 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
1985 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
1986 instruction granularity
1988 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
1989 function granularity
1991 * New native configurations
1993 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
1994 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
1995 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
1996 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2000 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2001 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2002 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2003 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2004 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2006 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2007 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2008 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2009 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2010 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2011 --data-directory command-line option.
2013 * New command line options:
2015 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2016 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2018 * Removed command line options
2020 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2023 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2026 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2030 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2032 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2034 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2036 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2038 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2039 of architecture in the Python API.
2041 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2042 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2044 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2046 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2047 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2049 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2051 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2054 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2055 default for GCC since November 2000.
2057 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2059 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2060 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2062 * New configure options
2064 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2065 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2066 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2067 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2068 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2069 options allow the user to override that default.
2070 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2071 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2072 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2074 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2077 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2078 conditions to be attached.
2081 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2083 python-interactive [command]
2085 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2086 and print the result of expressions.
2089 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2091 enable type-printer [name]...
2092 disable type-printer [name]...
2093 Enable or disable type printers.
2097 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2098 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2103 set print type methods (on|off)
2104 show print type methods
2105 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2106 The default is to show them.
2108 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2109 show print type typedefs
2110 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2111 The default is to show them.
2113 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2114 show filename-display
2115 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2116 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
2118 set trace-buffer-size
2119 show trace-buffer-size
2120 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
2122 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
2123 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
2124 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
2128 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
2131 set debug coff-pe-read
2132 show debug coff-pe-read
2133 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
2138 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
2141 set debug notification
2142 show debug notification
2143 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
2147 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
2148 "=cmd-param-changed".
2149 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
2150 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
2151 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
2152 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
2153 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
2154 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
2155 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
2156 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
2158 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
2159 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
2160 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
2161 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
2162 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
2163 library load/unload events.
2164 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
2165 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
2166 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
2167 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
2168 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
2169 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
2170 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
2171 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
2173 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
2174 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
2175 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
2176 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
2178 * New remote packets
2181 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
2182 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2185 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
2186 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
2190 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
2191 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2194 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
2195 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2197 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
2199 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
2200 for more x32 ABI info.
2202 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
2204 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
2206 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2207 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
2208 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
2209 "info os files" lists file descriptors
2210 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
2211 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
2212 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
2213 "info os msg" lists message queues
2214 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
2216 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
2217 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
2218 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
2219 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
2220 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
2221 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
2223 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
2224 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
2225 record/replay support.
2227 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
2231 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
2234 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
2236 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
2237 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
2239 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
2241 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
2242 the source at which the symbol was defined.
2244 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
2245 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
2246 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
2249 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
2250 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
2252 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2253 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2254 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2256 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2257 object associated with a PC value.
2259 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2260 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2262 * Go language support.
2263 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2266 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2267 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2269 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2270 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2272 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2273 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2274 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2275 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2276 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2279 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
2280 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
2281 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
2282 build/libcpp/expr.c.
2284 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
2285 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
2287 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
2288 since December 2007.
2290 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
2291 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
2292 command does. For instance:
2294 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
2296 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
2297 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
2298 created, using the "condition" command.
2300 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
2301 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
2303 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
2305 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
2306 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
2307 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
2308 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
2309 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
2310 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
2311 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
2312 files with older .gdb_index sections.
2314 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
2315 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
2316 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
2317 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
2318 the .gdb_index section.
2320 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
2322 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
2327 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
2329 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
2333 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2334 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2335 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
2337 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
2338 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
2340 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
2343 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
2344 C++ and Java objects.
2346 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
2347 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
2348 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
2349 configured with '--with-python'.
2351 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
2352 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
2353 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
2354 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
2355 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
2356 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
2357 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
2359 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
2360 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
2361 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
2362 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
2364 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
2365 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
2366 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
2367 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
2369 ** "set print symbol"
2371 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
2372 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
2373 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
2375 * Deprecated commands
2377 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
2378 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
2382 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2383 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
2385 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
2386 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
2387 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
2388 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
2393 set mips compression
2394 show mips compression
2395 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
2396 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
2399 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
2401 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
2402 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
2403 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
2404 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
2406 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
2410 Disable auto-loading globally.
2413 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
2415 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
2416 show auto-load gdb-scripts
2417 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
2419 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
2420 show auto-load python-scripts
2421 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
2423 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
2424 show auto-load local-gdbinit
2425 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
2427 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
2428 show auto-load libthread-db
2429 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
2431 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2432 show auto-load scripts-directory
2433 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
2434 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
2435 of the directories listed by this option.
2436 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2438 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2439 show auto-load safe-path
2440 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
2441 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2443 set debug auto-load on|off
2444 show debug auto-load
2445 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
2447 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
2449 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
2450 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
2451 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
2452 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
2454 set dprintf-function <expr>
2455 show dprintf-function
2456 set dprintf-channel <expr>
2457 show dprintf-channel
2458 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
2459 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
2461 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
2462 show disconnected-dprintf
2463 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
2464 after GDB disconnects.
2466 * New configure options
2468 --with-auto-load-dir
2469 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
2470 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
2471 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
2472 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
2473 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
2475 --with-auto-load-safe-path
2476 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
2477 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
2479 --without-auto-load-safe-path
2480 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
2483 * New remote packets
2485 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
2487 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
2488 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
2489 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
2490 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
2494 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
2495 program without GDB involvement.
2497 * New command line options
2499 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
2500 before loading inferior.
2501 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
2502 execute it before loading inferior.
2504 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
2506 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
2507 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
2508 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
2509 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
2512 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
2513 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
2515 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
2516 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
2517 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
2518 target hardware watchpoint.
2520 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
2521 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
2522 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
2523 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
2527 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
2528 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
2531 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
2532 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
2533 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
2534 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
2535 now "message", which just prints the error message without
2538 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
2541 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
2542 modules library. This module provides functionality for
2543 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
2544 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
2545 corresponding value.
2547 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
2548 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
2549 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
2552 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
2553 static_block will return the global and static blocks
2554 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
2555 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
2557 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
2559 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
2562 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
2563 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
2564 available in the CLI.
2566 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
2567 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
2568 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
2569 "some_type.items()".
2571 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
2574 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
2575 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
2576 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
2577 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
2578 any anonymous fields.
2582 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
2585 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
2586 "=breakpoint-modified".
2588 ** New command -ada-task-info.
2590 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
2591 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
2592 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
2595 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
2596 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
2597 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
2598 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
2599 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
2601 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
2602 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
2604 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
2605 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
2606 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
2607 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
2608 use this option to specify where to find it.
2610 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2611 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
2612 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
2613 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
2614 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
2615 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2616 section in the user manual for more details.
2618 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
2619 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
2620 become available after that.
2622 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
2624 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
2625 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
2631 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
2632 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
2636 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
2637 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
2638 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
2640 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
2641 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
2642 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
2644 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
2645 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
2646 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
2647 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
2648 name starts with a hyphen.
2650 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
2651 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
2652 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
2653 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
2654 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
2655 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
2656 number of bytes that will be collected.
2659 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
2660 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
2661 setting the variable trace-notes.
2664 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
2665 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
2666 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
2669 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
2670 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
2671 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
2672 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
2673 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
2676 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
2677 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
2678 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
2682 set debug dwarf2-read
2683 show debug dwarf2-read
2684 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
2685 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
2687 set debug symtab-create
2688 show debug symtab-create
2689 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
2690 creation. The default is off.
2693 show extended-prompt
2694 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
2695 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
2696 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
2697 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
2698 prompt is displayed.
2700 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
2701 show print entry-values
2702 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
2703 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
2704 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
2706 set debug entry-values
2707 show debug entry-values
2708 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
2709 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
2711 set basenames-may-differ
2712 show basenames-may-differ
2713 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
2714 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
2715 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
2716 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
2717 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
2718 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
2719 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
2720 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
2726 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
2727 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
2728 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
2729 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
2731 set trace-stop-notes
2732 show trace-stop-notes
2733 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
2734 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
2735 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
2736 started by someone else.
2738 * New remote packets
2742 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2746 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2750 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
2754 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
2758 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
2761 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
2762 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
2766 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
2770 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2772 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
2774 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
2776 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
2778 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
2779 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
2780 matches the given regular expression.
2782 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
2784 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
2785 dumping the instruction opcodes.
2787 * New command line options
2789 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
2790 This is mostly for testing purposes.
2792 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
2793 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
2795 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
2796 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
2797 source path list instead of augmenting it.
2799 * GDB now understands thread names.
2801 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
2802 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
2804 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
2805 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
2808 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
2809 has been integrated into GDB.
2813 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
2814 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
2815 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
2817 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2818 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
2819 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
2820 and allows for more dynamic content.
2822 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
2823 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
2824 have an is_valid method.
2826 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2827 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
2828 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
2830 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
2832 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
2833 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
2834 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
2835 that function like so:
2837 result = some_value (10,20)
2839 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
2840 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
2841 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
2843 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
2844 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
2845 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
2846 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
2847 New function: register_pretty_printer.
2849 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
2850 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
2852 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
2854 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
2857 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
2858 holds the thread's name.
2860 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
2861 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
2862 occurring in the process being debugged.
2863 The following events are currently supported:
2864 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
2865 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
2866 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
2870 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
2871 instantiation. For example, if you have:
2873 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
2875 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
2876 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
2877 was added to GCC 4.5.
2879 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
2880 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
2881 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
2882 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
2883 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
2884 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
2886 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
2887 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
2888 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
2889 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
2890 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
2892 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
2893 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
2894 execution to a label.
2896 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
2897 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
2898 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
2899 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
2901 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
2902 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
2903 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
2906 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
2908 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
2909 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
2910 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
2911 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
2912 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
2913 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
2916 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
2918 While now you see this:
2921 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
2923 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
2926 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
2927 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
2928 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
2929 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
2931 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2932 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
2933 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
2934 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2935 section in the user manual for more details.
2937 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2939 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
2940 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
2942 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
2944 * New native configurations
2946 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
2950 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
2952 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
2953 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
2954 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
2955 in the GDB user manual.
2957 * Guile support was removed.
2959 * New features in the GNU simulator
2961 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
2963 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
2965 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
2967 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
2969 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
2970 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
2971 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
2972 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
2973 was always disabled for such configurations.
2977 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
2979 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
2980 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
2990 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
2991 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
2992 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
2994 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
2996 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
2997 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
2998 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
2999 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3001 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3002 mentioned flavors of operators.
3004 ** static const class members
3006 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3007 class definition has been fixed.
3009 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3011 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3012 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3013 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3014 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3015 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3016 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3018 * Static tracepoints
3020 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3021 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3022 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3023 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3024 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3025 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3026 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3027 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3028 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3029 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3030 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3031 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3032 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3033 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3034 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3035 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3036 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3037 the "New remote packets" section below.
3039 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3041 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3042 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3043 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3044 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3048 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3049 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3050 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3051 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3052 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3053 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3054 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3056 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3059 * New remote packets
3063 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3067 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3068 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3069 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3070 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3071 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3072 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3076 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3080 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3083 qXfer:statictrace:read
3085 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3086 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3087 to gdb's qSupported query.
3091 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3095 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3096 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3098 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3099 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3102 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3104 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3105 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3106 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3107 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3109 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3110 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3111 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3112 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3113 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3114 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3115 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3117 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
3118 for static tracepoints support.
3120 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
3122 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
3123 it understands register description.
3125 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
3127 * X86 general purpose registers
3129 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
3130 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
3131 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
3132 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
3133 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
3135 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
3136 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
3137 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
3138 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
3139 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
3140 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
3142 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
3143 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
3144 in the specified file.
3146 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
3147 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
3148 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
3149 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
3150 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
3151 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
3152 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
3153 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
3154 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
3155 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
3159 eval template, expressions...
3160 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
3161 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
3163 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
3164 show target-file-system-kind
3165 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
3168 save breakpoints <filename>
3169 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
3170 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
3171 definitions, use the `source' command.
3173 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
3176 info static-tracepoint-markers
3177 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
3179 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
3180 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
3181 function, line, address, or marker ID.
3185 Enable and disable observer mode.
3187 set may-write-registers on|off
3188 set may-write-memory on|off
3189 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
3190 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
3191 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
3192 set may-interrupt on|off
3193 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
3194 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
3195 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
3196 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
3197 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
3198 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
3199 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
3201 set record memory-query on|off
3202 show record memory-query
3203 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
3204 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
3209 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
3213 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
3214 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
3215 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
3216 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
3217 GDB using Python' in the manual.
3219 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
3220 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
3221 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
3222 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
3224 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
3225 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
3227 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
3229 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
3231 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
3233 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
3234 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
3235 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
3237 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
3238 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
3239 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
3240 regular breakpoints.
3244 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
3246 * D language support.
3247 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
3250 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
3251 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
3252 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3253 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3254 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3256 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3257 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3258 conditions of the form:
3260 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3262 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3263 interface mentioned above.
3265 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
3269 ** Namespace Support
3271 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3272 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3273 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3274 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3275 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3279 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
3280 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
3285 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
3286 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
3290 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
3295 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
3298 * Multi-program debugging.
3300 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
3301 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
3302 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
3303 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
3304 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
3305 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
3306 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
3307 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
3309 * New tracing features
3311 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
3313 ** Trace state variables
3315 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
3316 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
3317 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
3318 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
3319 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
3320 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
3321 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
3322 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
3323 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
3324 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
3328 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
3329 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
3330 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
3331 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
3332 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
3333 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
3334 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
3335 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
3336 the regular trace command.
3338 ** Disconnected tracing
3340 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
3341 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
3342 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
3343 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
3344 connection is lost unexpectedly.
3348 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
3349 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
3350 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
3351 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
3352 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
3353 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
3356 ** Circular trace buffer
3358 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
3359 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
3360 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
3361 not be available for all target agents.
3366 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
3367 the arguments to be comma-separated.
3370 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
3371 which only declare a variable are not shown.
3374 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
3375 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
3378 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
3379 "set script-extension" (see below).
3381 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3383 record save [<FILENAME>]
3384 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
3385 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
3387 record restore <FILENAME>
3388 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
3389 earlier time, for replay debugging.
3391 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
3394 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
3395 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
3396 inferior has loaded.
3401 maint info program-spaces
3402 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
3404 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
3405 show remote interrupt-sequence
3406 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
3407 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
3408 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
3409 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
3410 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
3412 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
3413 show remote interrupt-on-connect
3414 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
3415 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
3418 set remotebreak [on | off]
3420 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
3422 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
3423 Create or modify a trace state variable.
3426 List trace state variables and their values.
3428 delete tvariable $NAME ...
3429 Delete one or more trace state variables.
3432 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
3433 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
3435 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
3436 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
3438 * New expression syntax
3440 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
3441 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
3445 set follow-exec-mode new|same
3446 show follow-exec-mode
3447 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
3448 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
3449 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
3451 set default-collect EXPR, ...
3452 show default-collect
3453 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
3454 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
3455 such as registers or a critical global variable.
3457 set disconnected-tracing
3458 show disconnected-tracing
3459 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
3460 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
3463 set circular-trace-buffer
3464 show circular-trace-buffer
3465 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
3466 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
3467 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
3468 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
3470 set script-extension off|soft|strict
3471 show script-extension
3472 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
3473 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
3474 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
3475 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
3477 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
3479 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
3480 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
3481 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
3482 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
3483 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
3484 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
3485 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
3488 * Python API Improvements
3490 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
3491 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
3492 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
3494 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
3495 `is_base_class' attribute.
3497 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
3499 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
3500 evaluate an expression.
3502 * New remote packets
3505 Define a trace state variable.
3508 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
3511 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
3514 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
3517 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
3521 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
3523 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
3524 much more reliable. In particular:
3525 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
3526 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
3527 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
3528 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
3529 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
3530 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
3531 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
3532 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
3533 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
3534 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
3535 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
3536 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
3537 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
3538 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
3539 non-threaded programs.
3541 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
3542 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
3543 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
3546 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
3548 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
3549 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
3550 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
3551 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
3552 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
3554 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
3555 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
3556 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
3557 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
3558 for tracepoint actions.
3560 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
3561 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
3562 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
3564 * Process record and replay
3566 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
3567 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
3568 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
3571 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
3572 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
3573 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
3576 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
3577 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
3580 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
3581 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
3582 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
3583 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
3584 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
3585 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
3586 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
3587 the installation instructions for more information.
3589 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
3590 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
3591 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
3592 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
3594 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
3595 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
3597 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
3598 now complete on file names.
3600 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
3601 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
3602 For instance, consider:
3604 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
3605 # struct example variable;
3608 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
3609 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
3611 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
3612 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
3614 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
3615 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
3618 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
3619 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
3620 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
3622 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
3623 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
3624 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
3625 and simulator targets may also provide them.
3627 * New remote packets
3630 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3633 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
3634 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
3635 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
3638 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
3639 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
3642 Obtains additional operating system information
3646 Read or write additional signal information.
3648 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
3650 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
3651 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
3652 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
3654 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
3655 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
3657 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
3658 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
3659 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
3661 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
3662 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
3664 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
3666 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
3668 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
3669 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
3671 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
3672 list of section offsets.
3674 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
3675 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
3676 have also been fixed.
3678 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
3679 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
3680 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
3682 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
3685 template<typename T> class C { };
3688 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
3690 ptype C<char const *>
3691 ptype C<char const*>
3692 ptype C<const char *>
3693 ptype C<const char*>
3695 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
3697 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
3698 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3700 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
3701 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3702 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
3704 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
3705 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
3707 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
3710 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
3711 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3713 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
3714 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
3719 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
3720 available is determined at configure time.
3722 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
3724 * Ada tasking support
3726 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
3730 Print the list of Ada tasks.
3732 Print detailed information about task number N.
3734 Print the task number of the current task.
3736 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
3738 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
3739 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
3741 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
3743 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
3744 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
3745 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
3746 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
3747 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
3748 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
3751 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
3752 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
3755 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
3756 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
3757 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
3758 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
3761 * Multi-architecture debugging.
3763 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
3764 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
3765 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
3766 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
3767 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
3769 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
3770 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
3771 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
3772 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
3773 --enable-targets configure option.
3775 * Non-stop mode debugging.
3777 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
3778 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
3779 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
3780 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
3781 section in the user manual for more information.
3783 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
3784 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
3785 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
3786 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
3787 extensions on linux targets.
3789 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3791 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
3792 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
3793 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
3794 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
3795 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
3796 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
3797 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
3798 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
3799 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
3801 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
3803 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3805 maint set python print-stack
3806 maint show python print-stack
3807 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
3810 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
3815 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
3819 Show operating system information about processes.
3822 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
3825 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
3828 Detach from inferior number NUM.
3831 Kill inferior number NUM.
3835 set spu stop-on-load
3836 show spu stop-on-load
3837 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3839 set spu auto-flush-cache
3840 show spu auto-flush-cache
3841 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
3842 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3844 set sh calling-convention
3845 show sh calling-convention
3846 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
3849 show debug timestamp
3850 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
3852 set disassemble-next-line
3853 show disassemble-next-line
3854 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
3857 set remote noack-packet
3858 show remote noack-packet
3859 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
3860 under "New remote packets."
3862 set remote query-attached-packet
3863 show remote query-attached-packet
3864 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
3866 set remote read-siginfo-object
3867 show remote read-siginfo-object
3868 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
3871 set remote write-siginfo-object
3872 show remote write-siginfo-object
3873 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
3876 set remote reverse-continue
3877 show remote reverse-continue
3878 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
3880 set remote reverse-step
3881 show remote reverse-step
3882 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
3884 set displaced-stepping
3885 show displaced-stepping
3886 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
3887 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
3888 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
3891 show debug displaced
3892 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
3894 maint set internal-error
3895 maint show internal-error
3896 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
3898 maint set internal-warning
3899 maint show internal-warning
3900 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
3905 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3907 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
3908 show multiple-symbols
3909 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
3910 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
3911 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
3913 set breakpoint always-inserted
3914 show breakpoint always-inserted
3915 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
3916 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
3917 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
3919 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
3920 show arm fallback-mode
3921 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
3923 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
3924 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
3925 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
3926 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
3928 set disable-randomization
3929 show disable-randomization
3930 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
3931 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
3932 multiple debugging sessions.
3936 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
3941 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
3942 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
3943 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
3944 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
3946 set target-wide-charset
3947 show target-wide-charset
3948 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
3949 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
3951 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
3953 set tcp connect-timeout
3954 show tcp connect-timeout
3955 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
3956 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
3957 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
3959 set libthread-db-search-path
3960 show libthread-db-search-path
3961 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
3964 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
3965 show schedule-multiple
3966 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
3967 the current process.
3971 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
3972 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
3973 affecting correctness.
3975 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
3976 show interactive-mode
3977 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
3978 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
3979 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
3980 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
3981 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
3986 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
3987 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
3988 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
3992 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
3993 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
3994 alias for the `fork' command.
3997 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
3998 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
3999 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4002 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4003 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4004 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4008 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4009 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4010 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4013 * New native configurations
4015 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4017 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4021 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4022 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4023 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4026 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4027 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4033 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4035 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4037 * New native configurations
4039 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4040 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4044 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4045 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
4047 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4049 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4050 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4051 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4052 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4054 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4055 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4057 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4060 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4061 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4062 and in inlined functions.
4064 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4065 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4066 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4068 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4070 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4071 registers on PowerPC targets.
4073 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4074 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4076 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4077 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4079 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4080 extended-remote mode.
4082 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4083 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4084 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4085 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4087 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4088 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4089 target architectures.
4091 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4092 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4093 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4094 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4096 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4099 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4100 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4102 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4103 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4104 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4105 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4107 - Improved command completion in Ada
4110 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4115 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4116 show print frame-arguments
4117 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
4118 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
4123 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4130 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4132 * New remote packets
4139 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
4142 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
4146 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
4148 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
4150 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
4151 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
4152 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
4154 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
4155 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
4156 -Bsymbolic linker option.
4158 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
4159 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
4162 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
4163 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
4165 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
4166 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
4168 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
4170 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
4171 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
4172 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
4174 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
4175 automatically displayed as character or string data.
4177 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
4178 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
4181 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
4182 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
4183 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
4185 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
4188 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
4189 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
4190 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
4192 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
4194 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
4196 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
4197 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
4198 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
4200 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
4201 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
4203 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
4204 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
4205 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
4206 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
4207 Windows and SymbianOS).
4209 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
4210 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
4212 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
4213 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
4219 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
4220 when debugging using remote targets.
4222 set mem inaccessible-by-default
4223 show mem inaccessible-by-default
4224 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4225 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4226 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
4227 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
4228 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
4230 set breakpoint auto-hw
4231 show breakpoint auto-hw
4232 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4233 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4234 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
4235 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
4236 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
4237 including "next" and "finish".
4240 catch exception unhandled
4241 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
4244 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
4248 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
4249 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
4250 an alias to "set sysroot".
4253 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4254 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4257 * New native configurations
4259 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4262 unset tdesc filename
4264 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4265 not query the target for its built-in description.
4269 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4270 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4271 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4273 * New remote packets
4276 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4277 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4279 qXfer:features:read:
4280 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
4285 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
4286 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
4288 qXfer:libraries:read:
4289 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
4290 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
4291 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
4292 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
4296 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
4304 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
4305 i[34567]86-*-netware*
4306 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
4307 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
4309 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
4312 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
4313 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
4322 * Other removed features
4329 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
4336 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
4341 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
4342 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
4347 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
4348 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
4350 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
4352 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
4353 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
4354 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
4355 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
4357 MIPS ".pdr" sections
4359 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
4360 in debugging information.
4364 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
4365 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
4367 set mips stack-arg-size
4368 set mips saved-gpreg-size
4370 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
4372 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
4377 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
4379 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
4380 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
4381 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
4383 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
4384 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
4387 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
4388 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
4390 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
4391 stub provides the required support.
4393 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
4394 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
4399 unset substitute-path
4400 show substitute-path
4401 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
4402 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
4403 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
4404 between compilation and debugging.
4408 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
4409 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
4410 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
4414 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
4416 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
4417 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
4419 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
4421 * New remote packets
4424 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
4425 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
4426 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
4427 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
4431 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
4432 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
4434 qXfer:memory-map:read:
4435 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
4436 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
4441 Erase and program a flash memory device.
4443 * Removed remote packets
4446 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
4447 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
4449 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
4453 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
4455 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4459 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
4460 only if it doesn't already have a value.
4462 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
4464 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
4466 restart <n> Return the program state to a
4467 previously saved state.
4469 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
4471 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
4473 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
4474 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
4476 info forks List forks of the user program that
4477 are available to be debugged.
4479 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
4480 forks of the user program that are
4481 available to be debugged.
4483 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4484 that are available to be debugged (and
4485 kill the forked process).
4487 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4488 that are available to be debugged (and
4489 allow the process to continue).
4493 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
4495 * Improved Windows host support
4497 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
4498 native console support, and remote communications using either
4499 network sockets or serial ports.
4501 * Improved Modula-2 language support
4503 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
4504 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
4505 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
4506 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
4507 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
4508 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
4512 The ARM rdi-share module.
4514 The Netware NLM debug server.
4516 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
4518 * New native configurations
4520 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
4521 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
4525 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4527 * New command line options
4529 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
4530 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
4531 the child (debugged) program exited with.
4532 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
4533 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
4534 specified multiple times and in conjunction
4535 with the --command (-x) option.
4537 * Deprecated commands removed
4539 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
4543 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
4544 othernames set arm disassembler
4545 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
4546 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
4547 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
4550 * New BSD user-level threads support
4552 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
4553 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
4556 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4557 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
4558 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
4560 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
4561 are not yet supported.
4563 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
4564 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
4566 * REMOVED configurations and files
4568 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
4569 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4570 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
4572 * New "set print array-indexes" command
4574 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
4575 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
4578 * VAX floating point support
4580 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
4582 * User-defined command support
4584 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
4585 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
4586 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
4588 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
4590 * New command line option
4592 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
4595 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
4597 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
4598 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
4599 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
4600 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
4601 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
4603 * Internationalization
4605 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
4606 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
4607 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
4611 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
4612 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
4613 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
4615 * New native configurations
4617 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
4621 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
4622 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
4624 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
4626 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4627 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
4628 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
4631 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
4632 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
4633 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
4643 powerpc bdm protocol
4645 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4646 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
4648 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4650 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4651 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4652 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4653 permanently REMOVED.
4662 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
4664 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
4666 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
4667 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
4670 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
4672 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
4673 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
4674 IRIX long double values).
4678 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
4679 command. This problem has been fixed.
4681 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
4683 * Fix for ``many threads''
4685 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
4686 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
4689 ptrace: No such process.
4690 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
4692 This problem has been fixed.
4694 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
4696 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
4699 * New ``start'' command.
4701 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
4703 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
4705 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
4706 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
4707 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
4709 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4710 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
4711 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
4712 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
4713 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
4714 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4715 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
4716 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
4717 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4719 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
4721 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
4722 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
4723 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
4724 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
4725 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
4727 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
4728 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
4729 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
4731 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
4733 * New native configurations
4735 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
4736 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
4737 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
4738 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
4739 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
4740 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
4741 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
4743 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
4745 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4746 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
4747 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
4748 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
4749 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
4750 work, was also included.
4752 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
4753 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
4763 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4764 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
4766 * REMOVED configurations and files
4768 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
4769 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
4770 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
4771 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
4772 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
4773 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
4774 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
4775 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
4776 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
4777 sonymips mips-sony-*
4778 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
4780 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
4782 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
4784 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
4785 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
4786 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
4787 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
4790 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
4792 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
4793 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
4794 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
4795 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
4796 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
4797 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
4800 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
4802 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
4804 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
4805 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
4806 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
4808 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
4810 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
4811 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
4813 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
4815 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
4816 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
4817 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
4819 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
4821 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
4822 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
4824 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
4826 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
4827 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
4828 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
4830 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
4832 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
4833 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
4834 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
4836 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
4838 * Removed --with-mmalloc
4840 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
4841 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
4843 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
4845 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
4846 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
4847 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
4848 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
4850 * Revised SPARC target
4852 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
4853 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
4854 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
4855 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
4856 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
4860 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
4861 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
4862 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
4865 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
4867 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
4868 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
4871 * C++ nested types and namespaces
4873 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
4874 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
4875 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
4876 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
4877 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
4878 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
4879 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
4880 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
4881 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
4883 * New native configurations
4885 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
4886 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4887 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
4888 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4889 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
4891 * New debugging protocols
4893 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
4895 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
4897 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
4898 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
4899 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
4901 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4903 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4904 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4905 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4906 permanently REMOVED.
4908 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
4909 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
4910 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
4911 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
4912 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
4913 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
4914 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
4915 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
4916 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
4917 sonymips mips-sony-*
4918 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
4920 * REMOVED configurations and files
4922 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4923 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4924 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4925 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4926 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4927 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
4928 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4929 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
4930 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
4931 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4932 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
4933 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
4934 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
4935 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
4936 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4937 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4938 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4940 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
4944 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
4945 integrated into GDB.
4947 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
4949 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
4950 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
4951 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
4954 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
4955 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
4956 DWARF 2 CFI support.
4960 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
4961 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
4962 remote protocol documentation for details.
4964 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
4966 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
4967 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
4968 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
4971 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
4973 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
4974 per-thread variables.
4976 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
4978 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
4979 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
4981 * Separate debug info.
4983 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
4984 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
4985 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
4986 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
4987 and optional debug files.
4989 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
4991 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
4992 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
4995 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
4996 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5000 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5001 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5002 considered "useable".
5004 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5006 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5007 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5010 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5012 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5013 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5015 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5017 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5018 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5021 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5023 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5024 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5028 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5029 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5030 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5031 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5032 data, for more informative profiling results.
5034 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5036 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5037 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5038 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5040 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5043 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5044 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5045 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5046 in a subsequent -var-update.
5048 * New native configurations.
5050 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5052 * Multi-arched targets.
5054 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5055 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5057 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5059 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5060 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5061 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5062 permanently REMOVED.
5064 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5065 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5066 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5067 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5068 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5069 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5070 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5071 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5072 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5073 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5074 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5075 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5077 * REMOVED configurations and files
5080 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5081 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5082 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5083 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5084 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5085 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5087 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5088 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5089 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5090 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5091 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5092 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5094 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5096 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5097 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5098 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5099 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5100 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5102 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5104 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5106 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5107 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5108 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5109 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5110 shared libs like mad''.
5112 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5114 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5115 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5116 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5117 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
5119 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
5121 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
5122 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
5125 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
5126 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
5128 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
5129 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
5131 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
5132 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
5133 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
5134 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
5136 * Multi-arched targets.
5138 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
5139 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
5141 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
5142 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
5143 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5147 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
5150 * New native configurations
5152 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
5153 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
5154 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
5155 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
5157 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5159 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5160 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5161 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5162 permanently REMOVED.
5164 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5165 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5166 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5167 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5168 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5169 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5170 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5171 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5172 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5173 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5175 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5176 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5178 * OBSOLETE languages
5180 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
5182 * REMOVED configurations and files
5184 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5185 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5186 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5187 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5188 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5190 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5192 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
5194 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
5195 commands. The default is 1024.
5197 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
5199 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
5201 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
5203 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
5204 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
5205 from a file into memory (restore).
5207 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
5209 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
5210 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
5211 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
5213 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
5221 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
5222 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
5223 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
5225 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
5226 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
5227 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
5229 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
5230 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
5231 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
5233 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
5234 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
5235 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
5237 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
5239 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
5241 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
5242 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
5243 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
5244 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
5245 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
5246 (notably embedded) targets.
5248 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
5250 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
5251 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
5252 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5253 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5255 * New command line option
5257 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5259 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5261 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5262 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5263 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5264 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5265 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5266 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5267 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5268 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5269 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5270 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5272 * Changes in ARM configurations.
5274 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5275 configuration is fully multi-arch.
5277 * New native configurations
5279 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
5280 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
5281 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
5282 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
5286 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
5288 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5290 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5291 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5292 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5293 permanently REMOVED.
5295 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5296 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5297 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5298 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5299 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5301 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5303 * REMOVED configurations and files
5305 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5307 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5308 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5309 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5310 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5311 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5312 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5313 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5314 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5315 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5316 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5317 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
5319 * Changes to command line processing
5321 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
5322 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
5324 * Changes to key bindings
5326 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
5328 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
5330 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
5332 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
5335 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
5337 Numerous documentation fixes.
5339 Numerous testsuite fixes.
5341 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
5343 * New native configurations
5345 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
5346 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
5347 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
5348 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5349 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
5350 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
5354 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
5356 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
5358 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5360 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
5361 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5362 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5363 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5364 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5366 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5367 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5368 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5369 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5370 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5371 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5372 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5373 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
5375 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
5376 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
5378 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5379 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5380 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5381 permanently REMOVED.
5383 * REMOVED configurations and files
5385 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5386 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5388 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5392 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
5394 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
5395 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
5400 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
5402 * The MI enabled by default.
5404 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
5405 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
5406 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
5407 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
5408 which is now deprecated.
5410 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
5412 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
5413 main features are supported:
5415 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
5417 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
5420 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
5422 - a Pascal expression parser.
5424 However, some important features are not yet supported.
5426 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
5428 - there are some problems with boolean types;
5430 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
5431 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
5433 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
5435 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
5437 * Changes in completion.
5439 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
5440 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
5441 users expect at the shell prompt.
5443 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
5444 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
5445 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
5446 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
5447 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
5448 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
5449 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
5451 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
5453 * New platform-independent commands:
5455 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
5456 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
5457 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
5459 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
5461 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
5462 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
5463 many threads as your system allows you to have.
5465 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
5467 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
5468 multi-threaded programs though.
5470 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
5472 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
5474 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
5475 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
5478 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
5480 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
5481 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
5482 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
5483 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
5484 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
5487 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
5488 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
5489 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
5491 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
5493 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
5494 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
5496 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
5497 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
5500 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
5501 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
5502 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
5503 a given linear address.
5505 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
5506 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
5507 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
5509 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
5511 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
5513 * Changes in documentation.
5515 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
5516 Documentation License.
5518 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5521 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
5523 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5526 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
5527 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
5528 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
5530 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
5532 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
5533 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
5534 contents of this file.
5538 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
5540 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
5542 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
5544 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
5545 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
5546 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
5547 greater level of detail.
5549 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
5551 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
5552 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
5553 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
5556 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
5558 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
5559 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
5560 machines ``out of the box''.
5562 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
5563 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
5564 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
5565 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
5566 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
5568 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
5569 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
5570 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
5571 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
5572 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
5574 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
5575 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
5578 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
5581 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
5582 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
5583 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
5584 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
5586 * New native configurations
5588 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
5589 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5593 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
5594 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
5595 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
5596 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5598 * OBSOLETE configurations
5600 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5601 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5603 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5606 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5607 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5608 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5609 be permanently REMOVED.
5611 * Gould support removed
5613 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
5615 * New features for SVR4
5617 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
5618 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
5619 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
5621 * Many C++ enhancements
5623 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
5624 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
5626 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
5628 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
5629 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
5630 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
5631 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
5633 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
5634 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
5636 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
5638 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
5639 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
5640 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
5642 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
5643 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
5645 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
5647 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
5648 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
5649 include ``set remote P-packet''.
5651 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
5653 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
5654 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
5655 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
5657 * ``apropos'' command added.
5659 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
5660 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
5661 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
5665 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
5666 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
5667 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
5668 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
5669 enabled by configuring with:
5671 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
5673 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
5675 * New native configurations
5677 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
5678 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
5679 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
5683 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5684 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
5685 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5687 * OBSOLETE configurations
5689 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
5691 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5692 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5693 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5694 be permanently REMOVED.
5698 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
5699 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
5700 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
5701 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
5702 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
5703 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
5704 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
5709 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
5711 * set extension-language
5713 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
5714 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
5715 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
5716 set extension-language .c c++
5717 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
5718 and their associated languages.
5720 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
5722 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
5723 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
5724 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
5728 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
5729 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
5731 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
5732 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
5734 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
5735 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
5736 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
5737 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
5738 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
5739 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
5740 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
5741 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
5743 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
5744 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
5745 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
5746 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
5750 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
5751 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
5752 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
5753 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
5754 for xdb and dbx commands.
5758 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
5759 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
5760 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
5762 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
5763 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
5764 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
5766 * Debugging across forks
5768 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
5773 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
5774 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
5775 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
5777 * GDB remote protocol additions
5779 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
5780 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
5781 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
5782 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
5784 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
5785 full 64-bit address. The command
5787 set remoteaddresssize 32
5789 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
5790 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
5793 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
5794 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
5796 maint packet heythere
5798 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
5799 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
5802 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
5803 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
5804 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
5806 * Tracing can collect general expressions
5808 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
5809 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
5810 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
5812 * mask-address variable for Mips
5814 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
5815 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
5816 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
5818 * Higher serial baud rates
5820 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
5821 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
5822 to achieve all of these rates.)
5826 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
5827 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
5830 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
5832 * New native configurations
5834 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
5835 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
5836 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5837 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5838 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5839 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
5840 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
5844 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5845 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
5846 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5847 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
5848 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
5849 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
5850 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
5851 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
5852 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5853 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5854 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
5856 * New debugging protocols
5858 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
5859 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
5860 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
5861 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5862 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5863 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5867 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
5868 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
5873 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
5874 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
5876 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
5878 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
5879 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
5880 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
5882 * Live range splitting
5884 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
5885 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
5886 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
5890 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
5891 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
5895 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
5896 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
5897 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
5902 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
5907 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
5908 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
5909 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
5910 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
5911 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
5912 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
5916 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
5917 the symbol at the specified address.
5921 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
5922 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
5923 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
5924 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
5925 file tracepoint.c for more details.
5929 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
5930 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
5931 of most MIPS variants.
5935 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
5936 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
5937 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
5941 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
5942 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
5943 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
5944 the possible architectures.
5946 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
5948 * New native configurations
5950 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
5951 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
5952 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
5953 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
5954 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5955 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
5959 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
5960 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5961 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
5962 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
5963 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
5965 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5969 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
5970 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
5971 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
5972 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
5973 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
5977 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
5979 * Windows 95/NT native
5981 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
5982 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
5983 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
5984 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
5985 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
5987 * dont-repeat command
5989 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
5990 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
5991 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
5992 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
5994 * Send break instead of ^C
5996 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
5997 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
5998 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6000 * Remote protocol timeout
6002 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6003 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6004 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6006 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6008 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6009 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6010 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6011 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6012 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6014 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6015 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6016 automatically on hpux10.
6018 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6020 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6022 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6024 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6025 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6026 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6027 every character. The default value is 1050.
6029 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6031 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6032 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6033 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6034 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6035 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6036 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6038 * Speedups for remote debugging
6040 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6041 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6042 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6044 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6046 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6047 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6049 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6051 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6053 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6054 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6056 * Remote targets use caching
6058 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6059 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6060 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6061 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6062 off' turns the the data cache off.
6064 * Remote targets may have threads
6066 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6067 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6068 gdb/remote.c for details.
6072 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6073 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6074 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6075 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6076 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6077 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6078 sequence is something like
6080 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6082 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6086 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6087 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6088 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6089 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6090 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6091 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6092 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6093 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6097 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6098 but does simplify configuration and building.
6102 GDB now supports hpux10.
6104 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6106 * New native configurations
6108 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6109 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6110 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6111 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6115 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6116 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6117 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
6118 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
6121 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
6123 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
6124 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
6125 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
6126 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
6127 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
6129 * Arguments to user-defined commands
6131 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
6132 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
6135 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
6137 To execute the command use:
6140 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
6141 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
6142 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
6144 * New `if' and `while' commands
6146 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
6147 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
6148 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
6149 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
6150 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
6151 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
6152 if the expression is zero.
6154 * Fortran source language mode
6156 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
6157 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
6158 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
6159 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
6162 * Better HPUX support
6164 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
6165 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
6166 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
6167 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
6168 that behavior do the following before running the program:
6174 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
6175 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
6181 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
6182 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
6185 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
6186 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
6188 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
6190 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
6191 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
6192 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
6193 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
6194 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
6195 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
6197 * New DOS host serial code
6199 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
6200 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
6203 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
6205 * New "complete" command
6207 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
6208 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
6210 * Trailing space optional in prompt
6212 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
6213 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
6215 * Breakpoint hit counts
6217 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
6218 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
6219 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
6220 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
6221 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
6224 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
6226 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
6227 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
6228 arrays actually contain only short strings.
6230 * Shared library breakpoints
6232 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
6233 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
6235 * Hardware watchpoints
6237 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
6238 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
6240 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
6244 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
6245 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
6247 * Improved Irix 5 support
6249 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
6251 * Improved HPPA support
6253 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6255 * New native configurations
6257 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6258 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6259 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6260 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6264 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6265 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6268 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6270 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6271 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6275 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6276 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6278 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6280 * Irix 5 is now supported
6284 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
6285 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
6286 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
6287 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
6288 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
6291 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
6293 * User visible changes:
6297 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
6298 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
6299 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
6300 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
6301 debugging info for the mips target).
6303 * DEC Alpha native support
6305 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
6306 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
6307 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
6308 Alpha-specific notes.
6310 * Preliminary thread implementation
6312 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
6314 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
6316 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
6317 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
6320 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
6322 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
6323 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
6324 call methods, ...etc.
6326 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
6328 * User visible changes:
6330 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
6331 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
6332 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
6333 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
6335 Filename completion now works.
6337 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
6338 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
6339 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
6341 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
6342 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
6343 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
6344 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
6345 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
6349 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
6350 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
6353 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
6357 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
6358 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
6359 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
6363 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
6364 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
6365 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
6366 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
6367 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
6371 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
6372 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
6373 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
6375 * New targets supported
6377 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6378 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6379 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
6380 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6381 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
6383 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
6384 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
6385 GO32 memory extender.
6387 * New remote protocols
6389 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
6391 * New source languages supported
6393 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
6394 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
6395 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
6398 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
6400 * HP Precision Architecture supported
6402 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
6403 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
6404 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
6405 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
6406 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
6407 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
6409 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
6411 * Faster and better demangling
6413 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
6414 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
6415 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
6416 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
6417 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
6418 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
6421 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
6422 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
6423 compiler does not actually implement.
6425 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
6427 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
6428 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
6429 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
6430 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
6431 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
6432 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
6435 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
6436 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
6438 * Improved configure script
6440 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
6441 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
6442 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
6443 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
6445 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
6446 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
6447 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
6448 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
6449 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
6450 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
6452 * Documentation improvements
6454 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
6455 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
6456 before submitting changes.
6458 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
6459 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
6460 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
6461 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
6462 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
6464 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
6465 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
6466 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
6467 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
6468 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
6469 around this problem.
6473 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
6474 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
6475 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
6478 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
6479 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
6481 * New native hosts supported
6483 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
6484 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
6486 * New targets supported
6488 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
6490 * New file formats supported
6492 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
6493 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
6497 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
6499 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
6500 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
6502 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
6503 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
6504 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
6506 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
6507 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
6509 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
6510 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
6511 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
6514 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
6515 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
6516 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
6517 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
6518 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
6520 * Internal improvements
6522 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
6523 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
6525 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
6526 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
6527 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
6528 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
6529 shared code that handles any of them.
6531 * New command line options
6533 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
6537 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
6538 General Public License.
6540 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
6542 * Host/native/target split
6544 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
6545 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
6546 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
6547 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
6548 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
6550 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
6551 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
6552 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
6553 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
6554 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
6555 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
6556 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
6558 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
6559 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
6560 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
6562 * New hosts supported
6564 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
6565 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6566 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
6568 * New targets supported
6570 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6571 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
6573 * New native hosts supported
6575 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6576 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
6577 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
6579 * New file formats supported
6581 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
6582 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
6583 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
6587 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
6588 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
6589 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
6591 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
6593 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
6594 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
6595 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
6596 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
6600 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
6601 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
6602 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
6604 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
6608 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
6609 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
6612 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
6613 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
6615 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
6616 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
6617 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
6618 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
6619 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
6620 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
6622 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
6623 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
6624 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
6625 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
6629 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
6630 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
6631 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
6632 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
6633 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
6635 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
6636 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
6637 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
6638 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
6642 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
6643 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
6644 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
6645 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
6646 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
6647 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
6648 each instruction being stepped through.
6650 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
6651 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
6653 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
6654 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
6655 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
6656 processor with a serial port.
6660 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
6661 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
6662 supported, and what files each one uses.
6666 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
6667 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
6668 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
6669 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
6671 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
6672 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
6673 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
6674 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
6678 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
6679 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
6680 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
6681 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
6682 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
6683 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
6685 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
6688 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
6690 * Better support for C++ function names
6692 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
6693 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
6694 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
6695 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
6696 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
6698 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
6699 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
6700 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
6701 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
6702 for the list of formats.
6704 * G++ symbol mangling problem
6706 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
6707 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
6708 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
6709 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
6710 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
6711 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
6714 * New 'maintenance' command
6716 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
6717 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
6718 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
6720 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
6721 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
6722 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
6723 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
6724 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
6725 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
6727 The following commands are new:
6729 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
6730 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
6731 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
6733 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
6735 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
6736 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
6737 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
6738 read after argv processing.
6740 * New hosts supported
6742 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
6744 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
6746 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
6747 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
6748 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
6749 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
6750 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
6753 * New targets supported
6755 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6757 * More smarts about finding #include files
6759 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
6760 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
6761 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
6762 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
6763 the one that contains your sources.
6765 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
6766 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
6767 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
6769 * Interesting infernals change
6771 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
6772 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
6773 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
6774 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
6776 * Bug fixes (of course!)
6778 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
6779 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
6780 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
6782 See the ChangeLog for details.
6784 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
6786 * New machines supported (host and target)
6788 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
6790 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
6792 * New malloc package
6794 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
6795 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
6796 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
6797 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
6798 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
6799 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
6803 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
6804 'help info proc' for details.
6806 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
6808 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
6809 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
6812 * File name changes for MS-DOS
6814 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
6815 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
6816 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
6817 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
6818 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
6819 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
6821 * Cross byte order fixes
6823 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
6824 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
6826 * New -mapped and -readnow options
6828 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
6829 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
6830 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
6831 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
6832 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
6833 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
6834 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
6835 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
6836 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
6837 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
6839 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
6840 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
6841 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
6842 slower, but makes future operations faster.
6844 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
6845 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
6846 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
6849 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
6851 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
6852 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
6853 shared across multiple host platforms.
6855 * longjmp() handling
6857 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
6858 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
6859 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
6860 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
6864 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
6865 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
6870 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
6871 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
6872 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
6874 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
6876 * New machines supported (host and target)
6878 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
6880 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
6881 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
6883 * New machines supported (target)
6885 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6889 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
6890 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
6891 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
6893 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
6894 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
6895 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
6896 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
6897 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
6900 * New features for SVR4
6902 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
6903 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
6904 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
6906 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
6907 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
6908 it prints the address mappings of the process.
6910 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
6911 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
6913 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
6915 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
6916 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
6917 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
6918 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
6919 same code linked statically.
6923 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
6924 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
6925 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
6926 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
6927 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
6928 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
6932 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
6933 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
6934 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
6937 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
6939 * New machines supported (host and target)
6941 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
6942 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
6943 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
6945 * Almost SCO Unix support
6947 We had hoped to support:
6948 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
6949 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
6950 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
6951 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
6953 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
6955 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
6956 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
6957 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
6958 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
6963 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
6964 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
6965 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
6969 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
6970 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
6971 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
6973 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
6975 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
6976 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
6977 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
6979 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
6980 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
6981 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
6982 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
6985 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
6986 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
6987 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
6988 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
6991 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
6992 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
6995 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
6996 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
6997 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7000 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7002 * Improved configuration
7004 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7005 Porting BFD is simpler.
7009 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7010 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7011 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7012 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7016 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7018 * New host supported (not target)
7020 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7023 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7025 * Multiple source language support
7027 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7028 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7029 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7030 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7031 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7032 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7036 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7037 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7038 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7039 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7041 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7042 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7043 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7045 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7046 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7050 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7051 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7052 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7053 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7056 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7058 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7059 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7060 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7061 examining core files.
7065 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7068 * New machines supported (host and target)
7070 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7071 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7072 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7074 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7076 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7078 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7080 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7081 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7082 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7084 * New remote interfaces
7090 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7094 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7096 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7097 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7098 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7099 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7100 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7101 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7102 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7103 stub on the target system.
7105 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7107 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7108 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7109 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7111 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7112 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7115 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7117 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
7118 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
7120 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
7121 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
7122 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
7124 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
7125 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
7126 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
7127 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
7129 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
7130 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
7131 it is already running. Default is ON.
7133 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
7134 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
7135 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
7136 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
7139 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
7140 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
7141 or the value of the environment variable
7144 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
7145 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
7148 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
7149 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
7150 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
7152 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
7153 history expansion will be performed on
7154 command line input. The default is OFF.
7156 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
7157 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
7158 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
7160 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
7161 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
7162 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7165 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
7166 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
7167 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7170 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
7171 ``set width'' instead.
7173 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
7174 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
7175 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
7176 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
7178 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
7181 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
7184 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
7187 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
7190 * Support for Epoch Environment.
7192 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
7193 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
7194 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
7198 * Support for Shared Libraries
7200 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
7201 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
7202 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
7203 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
7204 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
7205 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
7206 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
7207 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
7209 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
7210 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
7211 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
7213 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
7218 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
7219 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
7220 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
7221 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
7222 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
7223 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
7225 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
7227 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
7229 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7230 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7231 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7234 * C++ multiple inheritance
7236 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
7239 * C++ exception handling
7241 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
7242 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
7243 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
7246 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
7247 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
7248 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
7250 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
7251 current stack frame.
7254 * Minor command changes
7256 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7257 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7258 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7260 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7261 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7262 frames without printing.
7264 * New directory command
7266 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7267 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7268 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7269 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7270 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7272 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7274 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7277 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7278 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7279 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
7280 where the program that you are debugging will run.