1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 8.3
6 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
8 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
9 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
10 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
11 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
12 such as in system-wide init files.
14 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
15 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
16 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
17 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
19 * Support for Pointer Authentication on AArch64 Linux.
21 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
22 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
26 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
27 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
28 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
29 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
30 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
32 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
35 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
36 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
37 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
41 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
42 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
43 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
44 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
45 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
46 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
47 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
49 set may-call-functions [on|off]
50 show may-call-functions
51 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
52 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
53 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
54 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
55 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
56 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
59 set print finish [on|off]
61 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
62 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
63 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
68 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
69 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
70 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
71 the old behavior back.
73 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
74 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
75 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
77 set style title foreground COLOR
78 set style title background COLOR
79 set style title intensity VALUE
80 Control the styling of titles.
82 set style highlight foreground COLOR
83 set style highlight background COLOR
84 set style highlight intensity VALUE
85 Control the styling of highlightings.
87 maint test-settings KIND
88 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
94 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
95 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
99 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
100 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
101 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
102 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
103 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
106 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
107 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
108 the user visualize the different styles.
110 set print raw-frame-arguments
111 show print raw-frame-arguments
113 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
114 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
115 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
118 maint test-options require-delimiter
119 maint test-options unknown-is-error
120 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
121 maint show test-options-completion-result
122 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
125 * New command options, command completion
127 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
128 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
129 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
130 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
131 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
132 number of commands got support for new command options in this
135 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
136 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
137 set by "set print" subcommands:
141 -array-indexes [on|off]
142 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
146 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
147 -static-members [on|off]
152 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
153 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
154 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
155 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
157 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
158 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
159 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
161 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
162 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
163 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
167 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
168 exposed as command options too:
174 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
175 support the following options:
180 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
181 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
182 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
185 (gdb) p -r -p -o 0 -- *myptr
187 The above is equivalent to:
189 (gdb) print -raw -pretty -object off -- *myptr
191 * Completion improvements
193 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
194 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
197 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
198 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
199 completes on filenames.
201 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
202 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
204 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
206 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
212 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
213 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
214 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
218 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
219 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
220 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
221 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
223 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
225 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
226 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
229 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
230 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
231 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
234 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
237 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
238 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
239 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
241 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
242 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
244 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
245 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
246 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
247 in the GDB user manual.
249 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
252 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
254 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
255 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
256 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
257 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
258 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
259 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
260 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
261 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
262 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
263 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
264 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
265 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
267 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
268 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
269 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
272 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
277 set debug compile-cplus-types
278 show debug compile-cplus-types
279 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
280 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiliong
285 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
288 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
289 Apply a command to some frames.
290 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
291 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
294 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
295 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
298 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
299 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
302 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
304 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
306 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
307 maint show dwarf unwinders
308 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
311 Display a list of open files for a process.
315 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
316 These commands all now take a frame specification which
317 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
318 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
319 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
320 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
321 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
323 target remote FILENAME
324 target extended-remote FILENAME
325 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
326 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
328 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
329 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
330 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
331 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
332 These commands can now print only the searched entities
333 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
334 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
335 printing headers or informations messages.
341 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
342 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
343 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
346 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
347 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
348 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
349 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
351 set tui tab-width NCHARS
352 show tui tab-width NCHARS
353 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
355 set style enabled [on|off]
357 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
358 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
360 set style sources [on|off]
362 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
363 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
364 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
366 set style filename foreground COLOR
367 set style filename background COLOR
368 set style filename intensity VALUE
369 Control the styling of file names.
371 set style function foreground COLOR
372 set style function background COLOR
373 set style function intensity VALUE
374 Control the styling of function names.
376 set style variable foreground COLOR
377 set style variable background COLOR
378 set style variable intensity VALUE
379 Control the styling of variable names.
381 set style address foreground COLOR
382 set style address background COLOR
383 set style address intensity VALUE
384 Control the styling of addresses.
388 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
390 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
391 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
392 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
393 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
394 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
396 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
397 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
399 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
400 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
401 the following commands and events:
405 - =breakpoint-created
406 - =breakpoint-modified
408 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
409 this behavior with previous MI versions.
411 * New native configurations
413 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
414 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
418 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
420 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
421 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
423 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
427 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
432 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
434 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
435 space associated to that inferior.
437 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
438 of objfiles associated to that program space.
440 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
441 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
444 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
445 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
446 correct and did not work properly.
448 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
449 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
455 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
456 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
457 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
458 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
459 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
461 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
463 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
466 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
467 offset to all sections.
469 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
470 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
471 address of individual sections using '-s'.
473 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
474 (address of the text section).
476 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
477 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
478 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
479 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
482 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
483 for the rest of the current command.
485 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
486 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
488 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
489 files created on FreeBSD systems.
491 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
494 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
495 the vector length while the process is running.
501 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
503 set|show varsize-limit
504 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
505 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
506 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
508 set|show record btrace cpu
509 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
512 maint check libthread-db
513 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
516 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
517 maint show check-libthread-db
518 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
519 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
524 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
526 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
527 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
529 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
531 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
532 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
533 of convenience variables.
535 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
536 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
537 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
541 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
543 * Removed targets and native configurations
545 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
546 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
547 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
548 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
550 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
552 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
553 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
554 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
555 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
556 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
557 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
562 --enable-codesign=CERT
563 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
564 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
565 gdb to work properly.
567 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
568 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
570 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
572 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
573 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
574 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
576 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
577 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
579 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
580 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
581 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
582 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
583 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
585 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
586 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
587 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
588 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
590 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
591 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
593 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
594 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
595 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
597 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
598 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
599 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
601 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
602 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
603 environment" command.
605 * Completion improvements
607 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
608 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
609 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
610 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
613 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
614 (gdb) b function(int)
616 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
617 C++ anonymous namespaces:
620 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
621 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
622 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
624 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
625 completion support, that better understands what you're
626 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
627 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
628 setting a breakpoint.
630 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
632 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
634 * New command line options (gcore)
637 Dump all memory mappings.
639 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
641 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
642 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
643 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
645 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
650 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
653 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
654 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
655 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
656 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
657 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
658 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
659 a breakpoint from Python.
661 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
663 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
664 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
665 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
667 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
669 function[abi:cxx11](int)
672 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
675 (gdb) b function(int)
677 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
679 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
681 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
685 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
686 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
687 description of these.
689 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
690 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
691 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
693 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
694 manual for a further description of this feature.
697 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
699 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
700 specified initial working directory.
702 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
703 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
705 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
706 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
708 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
709 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
711 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
712 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
713 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
714 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
715 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
717 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
718 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
719 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
721 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
722 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
723 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
724 in the *stopped notification.
726 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
727 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
731 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
732 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
733 the inferior when starting it.
736 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
737 before starting the remote inferior.
740 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
741 user-set environment variables should be unset).
744 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
747 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
750 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
751 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
753 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
754 filter the tests to be run.
756 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
757 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
762 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
765 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
766 with the 'compile' commands.
768 set debug separate-debug-file
769 show debug separate-debug-file
770 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
772 set dump-excluded-mappings
773 show dump-excluded-mappings
774 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
775 dumped when generating a core file.
778 List the registered selftests.
781 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
784 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
786 set|show print type nested-type-limit
787 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
788 type printer will show.
790 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
793 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
795 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
798 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
799 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
800 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
801 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
803 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
804 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
805 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
806 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
807 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
808 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
810 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
811 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
812 unless you tell it the variable's type:
815 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
819 * New native configurations
821 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
822 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
826 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
827 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
828 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
830 * Removed targets and native configurations
832 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
834 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
836 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
837 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
838 available in future Intel CPUs.
840 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
844 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
845 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
847 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
850 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
852 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
854 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
855 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
858 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
860 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
861 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
863 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
865 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
866 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
867 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
868 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
871 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
873 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
874 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
877 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
879 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
880 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
882 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
884 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
889 eval "print $arg%d", $i
894 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
896 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
897 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
899 * New native configurations
901 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
905 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
906 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
908 * Removed targets and native configurations
910 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
911 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
916 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
918 maint print arc arc-instruction address
919 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
923 set disassembler-options
924 show disassembler-options
925 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
926 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
927 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
928 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
929 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
934 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
935 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
937 -file-list-shared-libraries
938 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
939 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
942 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
943 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
945 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
947 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
949 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
950 default. One must now explicitly configure with
951 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
952 option will be removed in a future release.
954 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
957 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
958 memory backward from the given address. For example:
961 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
962 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
963 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
964 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
965 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
966 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
967 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
968 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
969 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
971 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
972 arrays of dynamic types.
974 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
975 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
976 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
977 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
978 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
979 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
981 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
984 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
985 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
986 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
988 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
990 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
991 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
992 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
993 signal received and code location.
997 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
998 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
999 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
1000 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
1002 * Rust language support.
1003 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
1004 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
1007 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
1009 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
1010 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
1011 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
1012 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
1013 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
1014 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
1015 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
1016 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
1017 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
1018 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
1021 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
1023 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
1024 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
1029 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
1030 skip -function function
1031 skip -rfunction regular-expression
1032 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
1033 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
1034 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
1036 maint info line-table REGEXP
1037 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data struture.
1040 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
1043 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
1044 using the TTY file for input/output.
1048 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
1049 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
1050 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
1051 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
1052 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
1054 signal-event EVENTID
1055 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
1056 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
1057 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
1058 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
1059 signalling an event.
1061 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
1062 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
1063 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
1065 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
1068 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
1069 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
1070 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
1071 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
1072 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
1073 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
1075 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
1076 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
1077 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
1078 bytecode into native code.
1080 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
1081 recording. For example:
1083 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
1085 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
1087 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
1091 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
1093 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
1095 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
1097 * Per-inferior thread numbers
1099 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
1100 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
1101 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
1105 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
1106 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
1107 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
1108 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
1110 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
1111 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
1112 are no longer unique between inferiors.
1114 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
1115 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
1116 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
1118 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
1121 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
1122 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
1125 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
1128 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
1129 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
1130 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
1131 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
1134 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
1137 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
1140 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
1143 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
1144 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
1147 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
1148 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
1150 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
1152 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
1154 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
1155 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
1157 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
1158 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
1161 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1162 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
1165 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
1166 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
1169 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1171 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
1172 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
1173 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
1175 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
1176 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
1180 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
1181 maint show target-non-stop
1182 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
1183 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
1184 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
1186 maint set bfd-sharing
1187 maint show bfd-sharing
1188 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
1191 show debug bfd-cache
1192 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
1196 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
1198 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1199 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1200 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
1202 set remote thread-events
1203 show remote thread-events
1204 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
1206 set ada print-signatures on|off
1207 show ada print-signatures"
1208 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
1209 selection menus. It is activaled (@code{on}) by default.
1213 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
1214 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
1215 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
1217 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1218 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
1219 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
1220 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
1221 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
1222 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
1224 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1225 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
1227 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
1228 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
1230 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
1232 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
1233 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
1234 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
1235 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
1236 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
1237 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
1239 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
1240 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1243 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1245 * New remote packets
1248 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1250 exec-events feature in qSupported
1251 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1252 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1253 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1254 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1257 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1260 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1261 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1263 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1264 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1267 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1268 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1269 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1270 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1271 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1272 stop for that same thread.
1275 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1276 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1277 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1280 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1281 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1283 syscall_entry stop reason
1284 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1286 syscall_return stop reason
1287 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1289 * Extended-remote exec events
1291 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1292 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1293 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1295 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1296 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1297 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1299 * Thread names in remote protocol
1301 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1304 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1306 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1307 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1308 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1309 fork and exec catchpoints.
1311 * Remote syscall events
1313 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1314 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1316 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1317 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1318 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1322 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1323 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1328 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1329 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1330 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1331 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1332 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1333 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1335 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1337 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1338 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1339 including advance SIMD instructions.
1341 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1343 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1344 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1345 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1346 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1347 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1348 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1349 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1351 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1353 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1355 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1356 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1359 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1360 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
1361 and may include things like its command line arguments.
1363 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
1364 is now available on all platforms.
1366 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
1367 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
1368 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
1369 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
1370 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
1371 backward compatibility.
1373 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
1374 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
1375 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
1376 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
1378 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
1379 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
1380 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
1381 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
1384 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
1386 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
1388 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
1389 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
1390 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
1391 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
1392 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
1393 See "New remote packets" below.
1395 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
1396 available register groups, including target specific groups.
1398 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
1399 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
1400 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
1401 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
1406 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
1410 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
1411 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
1412 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
1413 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
1414 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
1415 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
1416 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
1417 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
1418 "const" version of the value respectively.
1422 maint print symbol-cache
1423 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
1425 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
1426 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
1428 maint flush-symbol-cache
1429 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
1433 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
1436 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
1440 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
1443 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
1444 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
1448 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
1451 Print information about branch tracing internals.
1453 maint btrace packet-history
1454 Print the raw branch tracing data.
1456 maint btrace clear-packet-history
1457 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
1460 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
1461 anew by the next "record" command.
1466 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
1467 show debug dwarf-die
1468 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
1470 set debug dwarf-read
1471 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
1472 show debug dwarf-read
1473 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
1475 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
1476 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1477 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
1478 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1480 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
1481 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1482 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
1483 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1485 set debug dwarf-line
1486 show debug dwarf-line
1487 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
1490 show max-completions
1491 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
1492 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
1493 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
1494 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
1496 set history remove-duplicates
1497 show history remove-duplicates
1498 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1500 maint set symbol-cache-size
1501 maint show symbol-cache-size
1502 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1504 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1505 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1507 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1508 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1510 set debug linux-namespaces
1511 show debug linux-namespaces
1512 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1514 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1515 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1516 Intel Processor Trace format.
1517 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1518 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1520 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1521 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1524 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
1525 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
1527 * Python/Guile scripting
1529 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
1530 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
1532 * New remote packets
1534 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
1535 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
1537 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
1538 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
1541 Enable Intel Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
1542 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
1545 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
1546 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
1550 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
1551 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
1552 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
1556 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
1557 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
1560 Return information about files on the remote system.
1562 qXfer:exec-file:read
1563 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
1564 create a process running on the remote system.
1567 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
1568 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
1569 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
1570 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
1573 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
1576 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
1578 vforkdone stop reason
1579 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
1580 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
1582 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
1583 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
1584 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
1585 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
1586 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
1587 whether these features are enabled.
1589 * Extended-remote fork events
1591 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
1592 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
1593 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
1594 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
1596 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
1597 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
1598 the btrace record target.
1599 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
1601 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
1602 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
1604 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
1607 * Removed command line options
1609 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
1611 * Removed targets and native configurations
1613 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
1614 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1616 * New configure options
1619 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
1620 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
1622 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
1623 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
1624 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
1625 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
1627 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
1631 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
1633 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
1635 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
1639 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
1640 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
1641 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
1642 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
1643 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
1644 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
1645 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
1646 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
1647 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
1648 selecting a new file to debug.
1649 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
1650 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
1652 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
1655 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
1656 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
1657 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
1658 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
1660 * New Python-based convenience functions:
1662 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1663 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1664 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1665 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1667 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
1668 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
1669 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
1670 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
1671 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
1672 interface with this new feature are:
1674 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
1675 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
1679 demangle [-l language] [--] name
1680 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
1681 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
1682 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
1683 as "maint demangler-warning".
1685 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
1686 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
1688 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
1689 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
1692 maint print user-registers
1693 List all currently available "user" registers.
1695 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
1696 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
1697 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
1699 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
1700 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
1701 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
1704 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
1705 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
1706 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
1707 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
1710 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
1711 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
1712 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
1713 switched threads meanwhile.
1715 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
1717 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
1718 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
1719 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
1720 is now the default mode.
1724 set debug symbol-lookup
1725 show debug symbol-lookup
1726 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
1730 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
1731 inferiors that have exited.
1735 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
1739 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1741 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
1742 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
1743 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
1744 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
1745 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
1747 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1748 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1749 its alias "share", instead.
1751 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
1753 * New command line options
1756 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
1758 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
1759 as specified in ISO C99.
1761 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
1762 with or without disassembly.
1766 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
1767 available is determined at configure time.
1768 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
1769 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
1771 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1775 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
1779 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
1781 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
1782 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
1784 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
1785 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
1789 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
1790 show print symbol-loading
1791 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
1792 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
1793 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
1794 becomes less useful.
1796 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
1797 show guile print-stack
1798 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
1800 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
1801 show auto-load guile-scripts
1802 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
1804 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
1805 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
1806 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
1807 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
1808 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
1809 usage of this option.
1811 set auto-connect-native-target
1813 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
1814 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
1815 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
1817 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
1818 show record btrace replay-memory-access
1819 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
1821 maint set target-async (on|off)
1822 maint show target-async
1823 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
1824 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
1825 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
1826 occurring only in synchronous mode.
1828 set mi-async (on|off)
1830 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
1831 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
1833 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
1834 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
1836 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
1837 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
1838 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
1839 "set target-async on" command.
1841 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1843 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
1844 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
1845 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
1846 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
1847 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
1849 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
1850 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
1851 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
1853 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
1854 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
1855 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
1856 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
1857 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
1858 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
1859 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
1861 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
1862 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
1864 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
1865 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
1866 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
1868 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
1869 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
1870 memory or registers.
1872 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
1874 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
1875 remote. It now works with all targets.
1877 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
1878 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
1879 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
1880 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
1881 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
1882 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
1883 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
1884 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
1885 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
1888 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
1889 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
1890 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
1892 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
1894 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
1895 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
1896 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
1898 * New remote packets
1900 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
1901 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
1902 branch trace incrementally.
1906 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
1907 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
1909 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
1910 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
1911 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
1912 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
1913 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
1916 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
1918 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1919 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1920 its alias "share", instead.
1922 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
1923 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
1928 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
1929 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
1930 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
1931 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
1932 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
1933 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
1934 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
1935 commands and CLI execution commands.
1937 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
1939 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
1940 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
1941 recording has been added.
1943 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1945 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
1946 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
1948 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
1949 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
1950 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
1951 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
1952 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
1953 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
1956 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
1958 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
1960 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
1961 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
1962 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
1963 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
1968 (gdb) info registers rax
1971 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
1972 "*value not available*".
1974 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
1979 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
1980 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
1981 ** Line tables representation has been added.
1982 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
1983 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
1984 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
1988 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
1989 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
1990 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
1992 * Removed native configurations
1994 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
1995 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
1997 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1998 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1999 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
2000 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
2001 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2002 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2003 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2007 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
2008 maint check-psymtabs
2009 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
2011 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
2012 maint expand-symtabs
2013 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
2016 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2018 maint set|show per-command
2019 maint set|show per-command space
2020 maint set|show per-command time
2021 maint set|show per-command symtab
2022 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
2024 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
2025 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
2026 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
2027 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
2028 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
2031 info exceptions REGEXP
2032 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
2033 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
2038 set debug symfile off|on
2040 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
2041 symbol tables within those files
2043 set print raw frame-arguments
2044 show print raw frame-arguments
2045 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
2046 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
2048 set remote trace-status-packet
2049 show remote trace-status-packet
2050 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
2054 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
2058 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
2060 set startup-with-shell
2061 show startup-with-shell
2062 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
2067 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
2068 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
2070 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
2071 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
2072 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
2073 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
2076 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
2077 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
2078 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
2080 * New command-line options
2082 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2084 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
2085 buffer in Common Trace Format.
2087 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
2090 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
2092 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
2093 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
2095 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
2096 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
2098 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
2099 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
2100 due to an uncaught signal.
2104 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
2105 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
2106 command, which should contain "language-option".
2108 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
2109 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
2111 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
2112 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
2113 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
2114 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2115 "undefined-command-error-code".
2117 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
2120 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
2122 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
2123 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
2126 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
2127 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
2129 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
2130 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
2131 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
2133 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
2134 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
2135 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
2136 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
2137 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2138 "exec-run-start-option".
2140 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
2141 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
2143 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
2144 the new "info exceptions" command.
2146 * New system-wide configuration scripts
2147 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
2148 configuration scripts for the following systems:
2152 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
2153 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
2154 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
2157 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
2158 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
2160 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
2161 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
2162 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
2164 * New remote packets
2168 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
2169 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
2170 involvemement at each single-step.
2172 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
2173 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
2174 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
2175 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
2176 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
2177 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
2180 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2182 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
2183 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
2185 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
2186 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
2187 trace state variables.
2189 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
2192 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
2193 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
2195 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
2197 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
2198 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
2199 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
2200 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2202 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
2204 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
2205 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
2206 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
2207 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
2209 set|show record full insn-number-max
2210 set|show record full stop-at-limit
2211 set|show record full memory-query
2213 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
2214 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
2215 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
2216 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
2217 This new recording method can be enabled using:
2221 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
2222 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
2224 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
2225 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
2226 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
2228 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
2229 instruction granularity
2231 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
2232 function granularity
2234 * New native configurations
2236 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
2237 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
2238 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2239 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2243 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2244 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2245 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2246 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2247 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2249 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2250 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2251 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2252 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2253 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2254 --data-directory command-line option.
2256 * New command line options:
2258 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2259 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2261 * Removed command line options
2263 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2266 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2269 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2273 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2275 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2277 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2279 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2281 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2282 of architecture in the Python API.
2284 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2285 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2287 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2289 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2290 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2292 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2294 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2297 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2298 default for GCC since November 2000.
2300 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2302 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2303 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2305 * New configure options
2307 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2308 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2309 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2310 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2311 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2312 options allow the user to override that default.
2313 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2314 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2315 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2317 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2320 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2321 conditions to be attached.
2324 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2326 python-interactive [command]
2328 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2329 and print the result of expressions.
2332 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2334 enable type-printer [name]...
2335 disable type-printer [name]...
2336 Enable or disable type printers.
2340 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2341 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2346 set print type methods (on|off)
2347 show print type methods
2348 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2349 The default is to show them.
2351 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2352 show print type typedefs
2353 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2354 The default is to show them.
2356 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2357 show filename-display
2358 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2359 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
2361 set trace-buffer-size
2362 show trace-buffer-size
2363 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
2365 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
2366 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
2367 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
2371 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
2374 set debug coff-pe-read
2375 show debug coff-pe-read
2376 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
2381 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
2384 set debug notification
2385 show debug notification
2386 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
2390 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
2391 "=cmd-param-changed".
2392 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
2393 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
2394 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
2395 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
2396 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
2397 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
2398 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
2399 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
2401 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
2402 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
2403 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
2404 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
2405 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
2406 library load/unload events.
2407 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
2408 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
2409 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
2410 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
2411 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
2412 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
2413 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
2414 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
2416 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
2417 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
2418 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
2419 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
2421 * New remote packets
2424 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
2425 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2428 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
2429 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
2433 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
2434 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2437 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
2438 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2440 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
2442 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
2443 for more x32 ABI info.
2445 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
2447 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
2449 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2450 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
2451 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
2452 "info os files" lists file descriptors
2453 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
2454 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
2455 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
2456 "info os msg" lists message queues
2457 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
2459 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
2460 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
2461 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
2462 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
2463 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
2464 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
2466 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
2467 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
2468 record/replay support.
2470 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
2474 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
2477 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
2479 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
2480 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
2482 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
2484 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
2485 the source at which the symbol was defined.
2487 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
2488 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
2489 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
2492 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
2493 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
2495 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2496 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2497 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2499 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2500 object associated with a PC value.
2502 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2503 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2505 * Go language support.
2506 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2509 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2510 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2512 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2513 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2515 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2516 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2517 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2518 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2519 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2522 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
2523 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
2524 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
2525 build/libcpp/expr.c.
2527 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
2528 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
2530 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
2531 since December 2007.
2533 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
2534 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
2535 command does. For instance:
2537 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
2539 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
2540 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
2541 created, using the "condition" command.
2543 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
2544 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
2546 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
2548 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
2549 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
2550 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
2551 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
2552 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
2553 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
2554 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
2555 files with older .gdb_index sections.
2557 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
2558 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
2559 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
2560 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
2561 the .gdb_index section.
2563 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
2565 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
2570 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
2572 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
2576 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2577 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2578 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
2580 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
2581 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
2583 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
2586 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
2587 C++ and Java objects.
2589 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
2590 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
2591 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
2592 configured with '--with-python'.
2594 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
2595 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
2596 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
2597 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
2598 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
2599 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
2600 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
2602 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
2603 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
2604 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
2605 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
2607 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
2608 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
2609 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
2610 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
2612 ** "set print symbol"
2614 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
2615 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
2616 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
2618 * Deprecated commands
2620 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
2621 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
2625 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2626 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
2628 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
2629 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
2630 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
2631 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
2636 set mips compression
2637 show mips compression
2638 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
2639 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
2642 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
2644 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
2645 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
2646 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
2647 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
2649 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
2653 Disable auto-loading globally.
2656 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
2658 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
2659 show auto-load gdb-scripts
2660 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
2662 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
2663 show auto-load python-scripts
2664 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
2666 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
2667 show auto-load local-gdbinit
2668 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
2670 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
2671 show auto-load libthread-db
2672 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
2674 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2675 show auto-load scripts-directory
2676 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
2677 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
2678 of the directories listed by this option.
2679 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2681 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2682 show auto-load safe-path
2683 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
2684 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2686 set debug auto-load on|off
2687 show debug auto-load
2688 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
2690 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
2692 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
2693 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
2694 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
2695 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
2697 set dprintf-function <expr>
2698 show dprintf-function
2699 set dprintf-channel <expr>
2700 show dprintf-channel
2701 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
2702 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
2704 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
2705 show disconnected-dprintf
2706 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
2707 after GDB disconnects.
2709 * New configure options
2711 --with-auto-load-dir
2712 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
2713 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
2714 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
2715 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
2716 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
2718 --with-auto-load-safe-path
2719 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
2720 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
2722 --without-auto-load-safe-path
2723 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
2726 * New remote packets
2728 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
2730 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
2731 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
2732 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
2733 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
2737 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
2738 program without GDB involvement.
2740 * New command line options
2742 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
2743 before loading inferior.
2744 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
2745 execute it before loading inferior.
2747 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
2749 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
2750 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
2751 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
2752 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
2755 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
2756 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
2758 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
2759 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
2760 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
2761 target hardware watchpoint.
2763 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
2764 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
2765 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
2766 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
2770 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
2771 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
2774 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
2775 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
2776 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
2777 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
2778 now "message", which just prints the error message without
2781 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
2784 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
2785 modules library. This module provides functionality for
2786 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
2787 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
2788 corresponding value.
2790 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
2791 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
2792 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
2795 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
2796 static_block will return the global and static blocks
2797 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
2798 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
2800 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
2802 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
2805 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
2806 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
2807 available in the CLI.
2809 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
2810 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
2811 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
2812 "some_type.items()".
2814 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
2817 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
2818 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
2819 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
2820 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
2821 any anonymous fields.
2825 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
2828 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
2829 "=breakpoint-modified".
2831 ** New command -ada-task-info.
2833 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
2834 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
2835 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
2838 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
2839 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
2840 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
2841 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
2842 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
2844 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
2845 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
2847 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
2848 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
2849 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
2850 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
2851 use this option to specify where to find it.
2853 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2854 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
2855 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
2856 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
2857 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
2858 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2859 section in the user manual for more details.
2861 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
2862 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
2863 become available after that.
2865 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
2867 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
2868 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
2874 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
2875 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
2879 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
2880 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
2881 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
2883 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
2884 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
2885 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
2887 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
2888 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
2889 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
2890 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
2891 name starts with a hyphen.
2893 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
2894 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
2895 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
2896 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
2897 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
2898 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
2899 number of bytes that will be collected.
2902 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
2903 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
2904 setting the variable trace-notes.
2907 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
2908 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
2909 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
2912 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
2913 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
2914 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
2915 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
2916 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
2919 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
2920 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
2921 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
2925 set debug dwarf2-read
2926 show debug dwarf2-read
2927 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
2928 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
2930 set debug symtab-create
2931 show debug symtab-create
2932 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
2933 creation. The default is off.
2936 show extended-prompt
2937 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
2938 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
2939 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
2940 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
2941 prompt is displayed.
2943 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
2944 show print entry-values
2945 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
2946 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
2947 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
2949 set debug entry-values
2950 show debug entry-values
2951 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
2952 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
2954 set basenames-may-differ
2955 show basenames-may-differ
2956 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
2957 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
2958 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
2959 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
2960 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
2961 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
2962 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
2963 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
2969 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
2970 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
2971 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
2972 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
2974 set trace-stop-notes
2975 show trace-stop-notes
2976 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
2977 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
2978 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
2979 started by someone else.
2981 * New remote packets
2985 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2989 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2993 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
2997 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
3001 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
3004 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
3005 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
3009 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
3013 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3015 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
3017 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
3019 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
3021 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
3022 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
3023 matches the given regular expression.
3025 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
3027 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
3028 dumping the instruction opcodes.
3030 * New command line options
3032 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
3033 This is mostly for testing purposes.
3035 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
3036 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
3038 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
3039 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
3040 source path list instead of augmenting it.
3042 * GDB now understands thread names.
3044 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
3045 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
3047 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
3048 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
3051 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
3052 has been integrated into GDB.
3056 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
3057 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
3058 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
3060 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3061 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
3062 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
3063 and allows for more dynamic content.
3065 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
3066 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
3067 have an is_valid method.
3069 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3070 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
3071 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
3073 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
3075 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
3076 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
3077 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
3078 that function like so:
3080 result = some_value (10,20)
3082 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
3083 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
3084 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
3086 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
3087 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
3088 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
3089 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
3090 New function: register_pretty_printer.
3092 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
3093 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
3095 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
3097 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
3100 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
3101 holds the thread's name.
3103 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
3104 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
3105 occurring in the process being debugged.
3106 The following events are currently supported:
3107 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
3108 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
3109 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
3113 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
3114 instantiation. For example, if you have:
3116 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
3118 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
3119 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
3120 was added to GCC 4.5.
3122 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
3123 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
3124 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
3125 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
3126 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
3127 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
3129 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
3130 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
3131 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
3132 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
3133 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
3135 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
3136 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
3137 execution to a label.
3139 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
3140 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
3141 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
3142 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
3144 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
3145 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
3146 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
3149 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
3151 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
3152 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
3153 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
3154 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
3155 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
3156 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
3159 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
3161 While now you see this:
3164 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
3166 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
3169 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
3170 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
3171 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
3172 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
3174 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3175 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
3176 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
3177 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3178 section in the user manual for more details.
3180 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3182 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
3183 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
3185 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
3187 * New native configurations
3189 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3193 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
3195 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
3196 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
3197 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
3198 in the GDB user manual.
3200 * Guile support was removed.
3202 * New features in the GNU simulator
3204 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
3206 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
3208 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
3210 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
3212 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
3213 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
3214 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
3215 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
3216 was always disabled for such configurations.
3220 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
3222 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
3223 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
3233 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
3234 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
3235 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
3237 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
3239 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
3240 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
3241 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
3242 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3244 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3245 mentioned flavors of operators.
3247 ** static const class members
3249 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3250 class definition has been fixed.
3252 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3254 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3255 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3256 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3257 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3258 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3259 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3261 * Static tracepoints
3263 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3264 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3265 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3266 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3267 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3268 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3269 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3270 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3271 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3272 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3273 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3274 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3275 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3276 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3277 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3278 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3279 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3280 the "New remote packets" section below.
3282 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3284 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3285 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3286 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3287 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3291 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3292 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3293 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3294 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3295 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3296 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3297 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3299 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3302 * New remote packets
3306 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3310 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3311 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3312 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3313 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3314 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3315 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3319 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3323 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3326 qXfer:statictrace:read
3328 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3329 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3330 to gdb's qSupported query.
3334 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3338 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3339 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3341 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3342 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3345 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3347 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3348 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3349 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3350 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3352 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3353 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3354 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3355 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3356 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3357 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3358 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3360 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
3361 for static tracepoints support.
3363 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
3365 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
3366 it understands register description.
3368 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
3370 * X86 general purpose registers
3372 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
3373 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
3374 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
3375 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
3376 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
3378 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
3379 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
3380 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
3381 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
3382 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
3383 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
3385 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
3386 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
3387 in the specified file.
3389 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
3390 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
3391 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
3392 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
3393 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
3394 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
3395 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
3396 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
3397 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
3398 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
3402 eval template, expressions...
3403 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
3404 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
3406 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
3407 show target-file-system-kind
3408 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
3411 save breakpoints <filename>
3412 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
3413 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
3414 definitions, use the `source' command.
3416 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
3419 info static-tracepoint-markers
3420 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
3422 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
3423 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
3424 function, line, address, or marker ID.
3428 Enable and disable observer mode.
3430 set may-write-registers on|off
3431 set may-write-memory on|off
3432 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
3433 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
3434 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
3435 set may-interrupt on|off
3436 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
3437 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
3438 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
3439 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
3440 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
3441 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
3442 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
3444 set record memory-query on|off
3445 show record memory-query
3446 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
3447 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
3452 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
3456 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
3457 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
3458 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
3459 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
3460 GDB using Python' in the manual.
3462 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
3463 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
3464 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
3465 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
3467 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
3468 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
3470 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
3472 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
3474 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
3476 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
3477 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
3478 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
3480 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
3481 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
3482 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
3483 regular breakpoints.
3487 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
3489 * D language support.
3490 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
3493 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
3494 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
3495 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3496 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3497 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3499 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3500 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3501 conditions of the form:
3503 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3505 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3506 interface mentioned above.
3508 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
3512 ** Namespace Support
3514 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3515 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3516 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3517 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3518 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3522 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
3523 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
3528 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
3529 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
3533 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
3538 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
3541 * Multi-program debugging.
3543 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
3544 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
3545 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
3546 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
3547 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
3548 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
3549 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
3550 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
3552 * New tracing features
3554 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
3556 ** Trace state variables
3558 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
3559 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
3560 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
3561 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
3562 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
3563 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
3564 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
3565 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
3566 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
3567 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
3571 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
3572 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
3573 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
3574 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
3575 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
3576 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
3577 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
3578 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
3579 the regular trace command.
3581 ** Disconnected tracing
3583 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
3584 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
3585 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
3586 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
3587 connection is lost unexpectedly.
3591 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
3592 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
3593 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
3594 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
3595 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
3596 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
3599 ** Circular trace buffer
3601 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
3602 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
3603 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
3604 not be available for all target agents.
3609 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
3610 the arguments to be comma-separated.
3613 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
3614 which only declare a variable are not shown.
3617 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
3618 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
3621 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
3622 "set script-extension" (see below).
3624 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3626 record save [<FILENAME>]
3627 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
3628 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
3630 record restore <FILENAME>
3631 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
3632 earlier time, for replay debugging.
3634 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
3637 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
3638 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
3639 inferior has loaded.
3644 maint info program-spaces
3645 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
3647 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
3648 show remote interrupt-sequence
3649 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
3650 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
3651 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
3652 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
3653 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
3655 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
3656 show remote interrupt-on-connect
3657 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
3658 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
3661 set remotebreak [on | off]
3663 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
3665 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
3666 Create or modify a trace state variable.
3669 List trace state variables and their values.
3671 delete tvariable $NAME ...
3672 Delete one or more trace state variables.
3675 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
3676 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
3678 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
3679 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
3681 * New expression syntax
3683 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
3684 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
3688 set follow-exec-mode new|same
3689 show follow-exec-mode
3690 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
3691 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
3692 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
3694 set default-collect EXPR, ...
3695 show default-collect
3696 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
3697 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
3698 such as registers or a critical global variable.
3700 set disconnected-tracing
3701 show disconnected-tracing
3702 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
3703 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
3706 set circular-trace-buffer
3707 show circular-trace-buffer
3708 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
3709 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
3710 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
3711 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
3713 set script-extension off|soft|strict
3714 show script-extension
3715 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
3716 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
3717 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
3718 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
3720 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
3722 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
3723 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
3724 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
3725 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
3726 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
3727 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
3728 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
3731 * Python API Improvements
3733 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
3734 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
3735 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
3737 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
3738 `is_base_class' attribute.
3740 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
3742 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
3743 evaluate an expression.
3745 * New remote packets
3748 Define a trace state variable.
3751 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
3754 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
3757 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
3760 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
3764 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
3766 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
3767 much more reliable. In particular:
3768 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
3769 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
3770 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
3771 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
3772 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
3773 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
3774 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
3775 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
3776 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
3777 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
3778 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
3779 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
3780 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
3781 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
3782 non-threaded programs.
3784 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
3785 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
3786 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
3789 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
3791 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
3792 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
3793 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
3794 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
3795 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
3797 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
3798 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
3799 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
3800 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
3801 for tracepoint actions.
3803 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
3804 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
3805 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
3807 * Process record and replay
3809 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
3810 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
3811 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
3814 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
3815 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
3816 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
3819 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
3820 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
3823 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
3824 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
3825 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
3826 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
3827 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
3828 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
3829 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
3830 the installation instructions for more information.
3832 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
3833 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
3834 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
3835 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
3837 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
3838 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
3840 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
3841 now complete on file names.
3843 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
3844 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
3845 For instance, consider:
3847 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
3848 # struct example variable;
3851 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
3852 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
3854 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
3855 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
3857 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
3858 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
3861 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
3862 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
3863 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
3865 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
3866 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
3867 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
3868 and simulator targets may also provide them.
3870 * New remote packets
3873 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3876 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
3877 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
3878 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
3881 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
3882 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
3885 Obtains additional operating system information
3889 Read or write additional signal information.
3891 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
3893 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
3894 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
3895 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
3897 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
3898 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
3900 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
3901 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
3902 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
3904 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
3905 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
3907 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
3909 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
3911 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
3912 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
3914 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
3915 list of section offsets.
3917 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
3918 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
3919 have also been fixed.
3921 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
3922 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
3923 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
3925 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
3928 template<typename T> class C { };
3931 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
3933 ptype C<char const *>
3934 ptype C<char const*>
3935 ptype C<const char *>
3936 ptype C<const char*>
3938 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
3940 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
3941 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3943 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
3944 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3945 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
3947 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
3948 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
3950 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
3953 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
3954 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3956 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
3957 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
3962 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
3963 available is determined at configure time.
3965 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
3967 * Ada tasking support
3969 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
3973 Print the list of Ada tasks.
3975 Print detailed information about task number N.
3977 Print the task number of the current task.
3979 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
3981 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
3982 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
3984 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
3986 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
3987 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
3988 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
3989 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
3990 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
3991 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
3994 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
3995 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
3998 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
3999 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
4000 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
4001 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
4004 * Multi-architecture debugging.
4006 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
4007 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
4008 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
4009 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
4010 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
4012 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
4013 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
4014 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
4015 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
4016 --enable-targets configure option.
4018 * Non-stop mode debugging.
4020 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
4021 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
4022 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
4023 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
4024 section in the user manual for more information.
4026 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
4027 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
4028 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
4029 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
4030 extensions on linux targets.
4032 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4034 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
4035 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
4036 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
4037 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
4038 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
4039 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
4040 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
4041 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
4042 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
4044 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
4046 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4048 maint set python print-stack
4049 maint show python print-stack
4050 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
4053 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
4058 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
4062 Show operating system information about processes.
4065 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
4068 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
4071 Detach from inferior number NUM.
4074 Kill inferior number NUM.
4078 set spu stop-on-load
4079 show spu stop-on-load
4080 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4082 set spu auto-flush-cache
4083 show spu auto-flush-cache
4084 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
4085 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4087 set sh calling-convention
4088 show sh calling-convention
4089 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
4092 show debug timestamp
4093 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
4095 set disassemble-next-line
4096 show disassemble-next-line
4097 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
4100 set remote noack-packet
4101 show remote noack-packet
4102 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
4103 under "New remote packets."
4105 set remote query-attached-packet
4106 show remote query-attached-packet
4107 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
4109 set remote read-siginfo-object
4110 show remote read-siginfo-object
4111 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
4114 set remote write-siginfo-object
4115 show remote write-siginfo-object
4116 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
4119 set remote reverse-continue
4120 show remote reverse-continue
4121 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
4123 set remote reverse-step
4124 show remote reverse-step
4125 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
4127 set displaced-stepping
4128 show displaced-stepping
4129 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
4130 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
4131 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
4134 show debug displaced
4135 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
4137 maint set internal-error
4138 maint show internal-error
4139 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
4141 maint set internal-warning
4142 maint show internal-warning
4143 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
4148 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4150 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
4151 show multiple-symbols
4152 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
4153 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
4154 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
4156 set breakpoint always-inserted
4157 show breakpoint always-inserted
4158 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
4159 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
4160 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
4162 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4163 show arm fallback-mode
4164 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4166 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
4167 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
4168 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
4169 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
4171 set disable-randomization
4172 show disable-randomization
4173 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
4174 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
4175 multiple debugging sessions.
4179 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
4184 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
4185 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
4186 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
4187 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
4189 set target-wide-charset
4190 show target-wide-charset
4191 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
4192 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
4194 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
4196 set tcp connect-timeout
4197 show tcp connect-timeout
4198 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
4199 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
4200 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
4202 set libthread-db-search-path
4203 show libthread-db-search-path
4204 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
4207 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
4208 show schedule-multiple
4209 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
4210 the current process.
4214 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
4215 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
4216 affecting correctness.
4218 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
4219 show interactive-mode
4220 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
4221 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
4222 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
4223 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
4224 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
4229 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
4230 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
4231 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
4235 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
4236 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
4237 alias for the `fork' command.
4240 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
4241 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
4242 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4245 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4246 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4247 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4251 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4252 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4253 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4256 * New native configurations
4258 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4260 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4264 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4265 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4266 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4269 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4270 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4276 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4278 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4280 * New native configurations
4282 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4283 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4287 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4288 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
4290 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4292 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4293 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4294 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4295 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4297 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4298 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4300 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4303 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4304 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4305 and in inlined functions.
4307 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4308 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4309 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4311 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4313 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4314 registers on PowerPC targets.
4316 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4317 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4319 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4320 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4322 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4323 extended-remote mode.
4325 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4326 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4327 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4328 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4330 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4331 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4332 target architectures.
4334 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4335 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4336 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4337 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4339 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4342 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4343 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4345 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4346 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4347 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4348 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4350 - Improved command completion in Ada
4353 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4358 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4359 show print frame-arguments
4360 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
4361 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
4366 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4373 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4375 * New remote packets
4382 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
4385 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
4389 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
4391 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
4393 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
4394 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
4395 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
4397 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
4398 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
4399 -Bsymbolic linker option.
4401 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
4402 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
4405 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
4406 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
4408 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
4409 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
4411 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
4413 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
4414 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
4415 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
4417 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
4418 automatically displayed as character or string data.
4420 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
4421 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
4424 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
4425 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
4426 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
4428 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
4431 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
4432 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
4433 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
4435 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
4437 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
4439 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
4440 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
4441 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
4443 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
4444 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
4446 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
4447 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
4448 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
4449 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
4450 Windows and SymbianOS).
4452 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
4453 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
4455 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
4456 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
4462 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
4463 when debugging using remote targets.
4465 set mem inaccessible-by-default
4466 show mem inaccessible-by-default
4467 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4468 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4469 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
4470 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
4471 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
4473 set breakpoint auto-hw
4474 show breakpoint auto-hw
4475 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4476 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4477 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
4478 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
4479 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
4480 including "next" and "finish".
4483 catch exception unhandled
4484 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
4487 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
4491 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
4492 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
4493 an alias to "set sysroot".
4496 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4497 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4500 * New native configurations
4502 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4505 unset tdesc filename
4507 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4508 not query the target for its built-in description.
4512 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4513 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4514 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4516 * New remote packets
4519 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4520 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4522 qXfer:features:read:
4523 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
4528 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
4529 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
4531 qXfer:libraries:read:
4532 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
4533 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
4534 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
4535 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
4539 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
4547 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
4548 i[34567]86-*-netware*
4549 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
4550 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
4552 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
4555 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
4556 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
4565 * Other removed features
4572 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
4579 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
4584 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
4585 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
4590 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
4591 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
4593 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
4595 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
4596 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
4597 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
4598 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
4600 MIPS ".pdr" sections
4602 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
4603 in debugging information.
4607 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
4608 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
4610 set mips stack-arg-size
4611 set mips saved-gpreg-size
4613 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
4615 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
4620 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
4622 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
4623 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
4624 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
4626 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
4627 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
4630 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
4631 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
4633 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
4634 stub provides the required support.
4636 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
4637 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
4642 unset substitute-path
4643 show substitute-path
4644 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
4645 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
4646 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
4647 between compilation and debugging.
4651 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
4652 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
4653 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
4657 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
4659 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
4660 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
4662 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
4664 * New remote packets
4667 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
4668 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
4669 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
4670 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
4674 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
4675 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
4677 qXfer:memory-map:read:
4678 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
4679 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
4684 Erase and program a flash memory device.
4686 * Removed remote packets
4689 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
4690 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
4692 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
4696 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
4698 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4702 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
4703 only if it doesn't already have a value.
4705 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
4707 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
4709 restart <n> Return the program state to a
4710 previously saved state.
4712 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
4714 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
4716 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
4717 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
4719 info forks List forks of the user program that
4720 are available to be debugged.
4722 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
4723 forks of the user program that are
4724 available to be debugged.
4726 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4727 that are available to be debugged (and
4728 kill the forked process).
4730 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4731 that are available to be debugged (and
4732 allow the process to continue).
4736 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
4738 * Improved Windows host support
4740 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
4741 native console support, and remote communications using either
4742 network sockets or serial ports.
4744 * Improved Modula-2 language support
4746 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
4747 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
4748 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
4749 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
4750 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
4751 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
4755 The ARM rdi-share module.
4757 The Netware NLM debug server.
4759 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
4761 * New native configurations
4763 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
4764 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
4768 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4770 * New command line options
4772 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
4773 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
4774 the child (debugged) program exited with.
4775 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
4776 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
4777 specified multiple times and in conjunction
4778 with the --command (-x) option.
4780 * Deprecated commands removed
4782 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
4786 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
4787 othernames set arm disassembler
4788 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
4789 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
4790 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
4793 * New BSD user-level threads support
4795 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
4796 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
4799 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4800 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
4801 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
4803 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
4804 are not yet supported.
4806 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
4807 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
4809 * REMOVED configurations and files
4811 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
4812 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4813 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
4815 * New "set print array-indexes" command
4817 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
4818 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
4821 * VAX floating point support
4823 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
4825 * User-defined command support
4827 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
4828 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
4829 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
4831 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
4833 * New command line option
4835 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
4838 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
4840 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
4841 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
4842 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
4843 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
4844 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
4846 * Internationalization
4848 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
4849 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
4850 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
4854 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
4855 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
4856 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
4858 * New native configurations
4860 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
4864 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
4865 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
4867 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
4869 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4870 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
4871 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
4874 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
4875 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
4876 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
4886 powerpc bdm protocol
4888 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4889 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
4891 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4893 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4894 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4895 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4896 permanently REMOVED.
4905 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
4907 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
4909 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
4910 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
4913 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
4915 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
4916 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
4917 IRIX long double values).
4921 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
4922 command. This problem has been fixed.
4924 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
4926 * Fix for ``many threads''
4928 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
4929 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
4932 ptrace: No such process.
4933 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
4935 This problem has been fixed.
4937 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
4939 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
4942 * New ``start'' command.
4944 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
4946 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
4948 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
4949 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
4950 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
4952 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4953 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
4954 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
4955 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
4956 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
4957 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4958 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
4959 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
4960 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4962 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
4964 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
4965 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
4966 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
4967 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
4968 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
4970 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
4971 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
4972 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
4974 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
4976 * New native configurations
4978 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
4979 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
4980 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
4981 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
4982 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
4983 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
4984 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
4986 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
4988 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4989 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
4990 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
4991 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
4992 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
4993 work, was also included.
4995 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
4996 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
5006 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5007 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
5009 * REMOVED configurations and files
5011 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5012 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5013 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5014 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5015 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5016 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5017 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5018 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5019 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5020 sonymips mips-sony-*
5021 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5023 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
5025 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
5027 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
5028 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
5029 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
5030 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
5033 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
5035 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
5036 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
5037 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
5038 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
5039 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
5040 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
5043 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
5045 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
5047 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
5048 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
5049 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
5051 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
5053 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
5054 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
5056 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
5058 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
5059 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
5060 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
5062 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
5064 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
5065 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
5067 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
5069 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
5070 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
5071 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
5073 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
5075 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
5076 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
5077 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
5079 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
5081 * Removed --with-mmalloc
5083 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
5084 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
5086 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
5088 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
5089 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
5090 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
5091 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
5093 * Revised SPARC target
5095 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
5096 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
5097 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
5098 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
5099 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
5103 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
5104 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
5105 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
5108 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5110 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
5111 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
5114 * C++ nested types and namespaces
5116 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
5117 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
5118 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
5119 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
5120 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
5121 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
5122 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
5123 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
5124 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
5126 * New native configurations
5128 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
5129 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5130 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
5131 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5132 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
5134 * New debugging protocols
5136 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
5138 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
5140 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
5141 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
5142 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
5144 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5146 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5147 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5148 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5149 permanently REMOVED.
5151 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5152 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5153 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5154 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5155 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5156 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5157 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5158 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5159 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5160 sonymips mips-sony-*
5161 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5163 * REMOVED configurations and files
5165 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5166 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5167 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5168 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5169 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5170 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5171 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5172 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5173 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5174 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
5175 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5176 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5177 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5178 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
5179 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
5180 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5181 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5183 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
5187 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
5188 integrated into GDB.
5190 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
5192 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
5193 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
5194 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
5197 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
5198 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
5199 DWARF 2 CFI support.
5203 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
5204 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
5205 remote protocol documentation for details.
5207 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
5209 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
5210 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
5211 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
5214 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
5216 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
5217 per-thread variables.
5219 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
5221 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
5222 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
5224 * Separate debug info.
5226 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
5227 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
5228 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
5229 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
5230 and optional debug files.
5232 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5234 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
5235 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
5238 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
5239 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5243 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5244 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5245 considered "useable".
5247 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5249 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5250 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5253 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5255 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5256 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5258 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5260 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5261 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5264 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5266 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5267 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5271 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5272 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5273 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5274 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5275 data, for more informative profiling results.
5277 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5279 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5280 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5281 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5283 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5286 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5287 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5288 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5289 in a subsequent -var-update.
5291 * New native configurations.
5293 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5295 * Multi-arched targets.
5297 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5298 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5300 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5302 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5303 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5304 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5305 permanently REMOVED.
5307 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5308 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5309 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5310 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5311 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5312 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5313 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5314 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5315 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5316 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5317 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5318 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5320 * REMOVED configurations and files
5323 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5324 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5325 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5326 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5327 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5328 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5330 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5331 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5332 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5333 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5334 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5335 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5337 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5339 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5340 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5341 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5342 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5343 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5345 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5347 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5349 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5350 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5351 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5352 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5353 shared libs like mad''.
5355 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5357 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5358 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5359 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5360 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
5362 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
5364 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
5365 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
5368 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
5369 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
5371 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
5372 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
5374 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
5375 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
5376 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
5377 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
5379 * Multi-arched targets.
5381 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
5382 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
5384 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
5385 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
5386 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5390 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
5393 * New native configurations
5395 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
5396 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
5397 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
5398 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
5400 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5402 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5403 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5404 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5405 permanently REMOVED.
5407 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5408 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5409 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5410 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5411 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5412 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5413 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5414 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5415 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5416 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5418 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5419 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5421 * OBSOLETE languages
5423 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
5425 * REMOVED configurations and files
5427 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5428 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5429 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5430 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5431 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5433 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5435 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
5437 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
5438 commands. The default is 1024.
5440 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
5442 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
5444 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
5446 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
5447 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
5448 from a file into memory (restore).
5450 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
5452 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
5453 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
5454 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
5456 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
5464 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
5465 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
5466 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
5468 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
5469 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
5470 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
5472 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
5473 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
5474 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
5476 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
5477 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
5478 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
5480 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
5482 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
5484 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
5485 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
5486 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
5487 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
5488 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
5489 (notably embedded) targets.
5491 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
5493 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
5494 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
5495 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5496 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5498 * New command line option
5500 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5502 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5504 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5505 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5506 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5507 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5508 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5509 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5510 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5511 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5512 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5513 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5515 * Changes in ARM configurations.
5517 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5518 configuration is fully multi-arch.
5520 * New native configurations
5522 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
5523 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
5524 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
5525 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
5529 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
5531 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5533 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5534 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5535 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5536 permanently REMOVED.
5538 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5539 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5540 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5541 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5542 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5544 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5546 * REMOVED configurations and files
5548 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5550 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5551 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5552 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5553 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5554 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5555 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5556 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5557 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5558 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5559 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5560 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
5562 * Changes to command line processing
5564 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
5565 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
5567 * Changes to key bindings
5569 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
5571 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
5573 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
5575 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
5578 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
5580 Numerous documentation fixes.
5582 Numerous testsuite fixes.
5584 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
5586 * New native configurations
5588 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
5589 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
5590 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
5591 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5592 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
5593 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
5597 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
5599 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
5601 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5603 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
5604 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5605 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5606 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5607 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5609 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5610 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5611 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5612 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5613 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5614 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5615 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5616 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
5618 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
5619 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
5621 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5622 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5623 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5624 permanently REMOVED.
5626 * REMOVED configurations and files
5628 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5629 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5631 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5635 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
5637 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
5638 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
5643 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
5645 * The MI enabled by default.
5647 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
5648 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
5649 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
5650 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
5651 which is now deprecated.
5653 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
5655 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
5656 main features are supported:
5658 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
5660 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
5663 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
5665 - a Pascal expression parser.
5667 However, some important features are not yet supported.
5669 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
5671 - there are some problems with boolean types;
5673 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
5674 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
5676 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
5678 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
5680 * Changes in completion.
5682 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
5683 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
5684 users expect at the shell prompt.
5686 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
5687 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
5688 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
5689 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
5690 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
5691 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
5692 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
5694 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
5696 * New platform-independent commands:
5698 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
5699 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
5700 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
5702 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
5704 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
5705 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
5706 many threads as your system allows you to have.
5708 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
5710 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
5711 multi-threaded programs though.
5713 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
5715 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
5717 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
5718 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
5721 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
5723 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
5724 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
5725 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
5726 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
5727 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
5730 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
5731 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
5732 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
5734 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
5736 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
5737 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
5739 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
5740 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
5743 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
5744 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
5745 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
5746 a given linear address.
5748 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
5749 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
5750 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
5752 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
5754 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
5756 * Changes in documentation.
5758 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
5759 Documentation License.
5761 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5764 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
5766 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5769 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
5770 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
5771 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
5773 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
5775 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
5776 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
5777 contents of this file.
5781 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
5783 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
5785 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
5787 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
5788 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
5789 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
5790 greater level of detail.
5792 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
5794 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
5795 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
5796 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
5799 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
5801 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
5802 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
5803 machines ``out of the box''.
5805 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
5806 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
5807 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
5808 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
5809 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
5811 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
5812 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
5813 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
5814 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
5815 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
5817 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
5818 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
5821 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
5824 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
5825 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
5826 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
5827 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
5829 * New native configurations
5831 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
5832 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5836 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
5837 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
5838 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
5839 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5841 * OBSOLETE configurations
5843 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5844 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5846 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5849 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5850 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5851 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5852 be permanently REMOVED.
5854 * Gould support removed
5856 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
5858 * New features for SVR4
5860 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
5861 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
5862 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
5864 * Many C++ enhancements
5866 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
5867 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
5869 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
5871 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
5872 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
5873 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
5874 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
5876 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
5877 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
5879 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
5881 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
5882 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
5883 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
5885 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
5886 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
5888 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
5890 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
5891 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
5892 include ``set remote P-packet''.
5894 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
5896 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
5897 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
5898 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
5900 * ``apropos'' command added.
5902 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
5903 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
5904 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
5908 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
5909 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
5910 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
5911 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
5912 enabled by configuring with:
5914 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
5916 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
5918 * New native configurations
5920 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
5921 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
5922 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
5926 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5927 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
5928 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5930 * OBSOLETE configurations
5932 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
5934 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5935 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5936 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5937 be permanently REMOVED.
5941 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
5942 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
5943 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
5944 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
5945 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
5946 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
5947 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
5952 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
5954 * set extension-language
5956 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
5957 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
5958 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
5959 set extension-language .c c++
5960 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
5961 and their associated languages.
5963 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
5965 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
5966 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
5967 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
5971 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
5972 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
5974 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
5975 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
5977 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
5978 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
5979 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
5980 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
5981 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
5982 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
5983 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
5984 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
5986 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
5987 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
5988 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
5989 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
5993 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
5994 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
5995 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
5996 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
5997 for xdb and dbx commands.
6001 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
6002 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
6003 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
6005 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
6006 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
6007 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
6009 * Debugging across forks
6011 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
6016 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
6017 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
6018 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
6020 * GDB remote protocol additions
6022 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
6023 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
6024 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
6025 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
6027 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
6028 full 64-bit address. The command
6030 set remoteaddresssize 32
6032 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
6033 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
6036 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
6037 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
6039 maint packet heythere
6041 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
6042 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
6045 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
6046 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
6047 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
6049 * Tracing can collect general expressions
6051 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
6052 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
6053 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
6055 * mask-address variable for Mips
6057 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
6058 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
6059 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
6061 * Higher serial baud rates
6063 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
6064 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
6065 to achieve all of these rates.)
6069 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
6070 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
6073 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
6075 * New native configurations
6077 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
6078 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
6079 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6080 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6081 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6082 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
6083 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
6087 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6088 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
6089 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6090 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
6091 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
6092 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
6093 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
6094 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
6095 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6096 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6097 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
6099 * New debugging protocols
6101 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
6102 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
6103 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
6104 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6105 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6106 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6110 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
6111 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
6116 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
6117 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
6119 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
6121 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
6122 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
6123 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
6125 * Live range splitting
6127 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
6128 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
6129 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
6133 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
6134 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
6138 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
6139 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
6140 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
6145 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
6150 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
6151 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
6152 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
6153 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
6154 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
6155 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
6159 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
6160 the symbol at the specified address.
6164 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
6165 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
6166 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
6167 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
6168 file tracepoint.c for more details.
6172 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
6173 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
6174 of most MIPS variants.
6178 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
6179 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
6180 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
6184 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
6185 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
6186 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
6187 the possible architectures.
6189 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
6191 * New native configurations
6193 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
6194 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
6195 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
6196 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
6197 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6198 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
6202 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
6203 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6204 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
6205 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
6206 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
6208 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6212 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
6213 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
6214 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
6215 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
6216 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
6220 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
6222 * Windows 95/NT native
6224 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
6225 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
6226 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
6227 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
6228 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
6230 * dont-repeat command
6232 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
6233 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
6234 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
6235 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
6237 * Send break instead of ^C
6239 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
6240 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
6241 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6243 * Remote protocol timeout
6245 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6246 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6247 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6249 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6251 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6252 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6253 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6254 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6255 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6257 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6258 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6259 automatically on hpux10.
6261 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6263 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6265 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6267 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6268 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6269 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6270 every character. The default value is 1050.
6272 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6274 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6275 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6276 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6277 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6278 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6279 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6281 * Speedups for remote debugging
6283 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6284 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6285 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6287 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6289 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6290 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6292 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6294 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6296 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6297 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6299 * Remote targets use caching
6301 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6302 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6303 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6304 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6305 off' turns the the data cache off.
6307 * Remote targets may have threads
6309 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6310 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6311 gdb/remote.c for details.
6315 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6316 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6317 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6318 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6319 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6320 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6321 sequence is something like
6323 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6325 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6329 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6330 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6331 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6332 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6333 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6334 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6335 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6336 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6340 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6341 but does simplify configuration and building.
6345 GDB now supports hpux10.
6347 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6349 * New native configurations
6351 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6352 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6353 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6354 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6358 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6359 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6360 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
6361 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
6364 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
6366 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
6367 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
6368 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
6369 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
6370 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
6372 * Arguments to user-defined commands
6374 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
6375 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
6378 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
6380 To execute the command use:
6383 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
6384 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
6385 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
6387 * New `if' and `while' commands
6389 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
6390 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
6391 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
6392 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
6393 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
6394 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
6395 if the expression is zero.
6397 * Fortran source language mode
6399 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
6400 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
6401 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
6402 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
6405 * Better HPUX support
6407 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
6408 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
6409 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
6410 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
6411 that behavior do the following before running the program:
6417 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
6418 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
6424 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
6425 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
6428 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
6429 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
6431 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
6433 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
6434 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
6435 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
6436 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
6437 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
6438 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
6440 * New DOS host serial code
6442 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
6443 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
6446 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
6448 * New "complete" command
6450 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
6451 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
6453 * Trailing space optional in prompt
6455 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
6456 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
6458 * Breakpoint hit counts
6460 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
6461 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
6462 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
6463 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
6464 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
6467 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
6469 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
6470 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
6471 arrays actually contain only short strings.
6473 * Shared library breakpoints
6475 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
6476 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
6478 * Hardware watchpoints
6480 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
6481 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
6483 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
6487 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
6488 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
6490 * Improved Irix 5 support
6492 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
6494 * Improved HPPA support
6496 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6498 * New native configurations
6500 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6501 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6502 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6503 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6507 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6508 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6511 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6513 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6514 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6518 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6519 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6521 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6523 * Irix 5 is now supported
6527 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
6528 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
6529 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
6530 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
6531 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
6534 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
6536 * User visible changes:
6540 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
6541 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
6542 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
6543 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
6544 debugging info for the mips target).
6546 * DEC Alpha native support
6548 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
6549 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
6550 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
6551 Alpha-specific notes.
6553 * Preliminary thread implementation
6555 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
6557 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
6559 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
6560 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
6563 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
6565 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
6566 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
6567 call methods, ...etc.
6569 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
6571 * User visible changes:
6573 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
6574 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
6575 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
6576 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
6578 Filename completion now works.
6580 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
6581 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
6582 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
6584 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
6585 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
6586 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
6587 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
6588 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
6592 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
6593 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
6596 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
6600 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
6601 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
6602 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
6606 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
6607 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
6608 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
6609 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
6610 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
6614 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
6615 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
6616 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
6618 * New targets supported
6620 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6621 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6622 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
6623 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6624 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
6626 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
6627 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
6628 GO32 memory extender.
6630 * New remote protocols
6632 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
6634 * New source languages supported
6636 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
6637 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
6638 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
6641 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
6643 * HP Precision Architecture supported
6645 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
6646 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
6647 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
6648 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
6649 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
6650 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
6652 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
6654 * Faster and better demangling
6656 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
6657 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
6658 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
6659 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
6660 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
6661 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
6664 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
6665 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
6666 compiler does not actually implement.
6668 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
6670 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
6671 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
6672 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
6673 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
6674 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
6675 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
6678 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
6679 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
6681 * Improved configure script
6683 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
6684 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
6685 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
6686 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
6688 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
6689 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
6690 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
6691 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
6692 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
6693 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
6695 * Documentation improvements
6697 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
6698 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
6699 before submitting changes.
6701 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
6702 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
6703 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
6704 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
6705 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
6707 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
6708 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
6709 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
6710 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
6711 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
6712 around this problem.
6716 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
6717 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
6718 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
6721 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
6722 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
6724 * New native hosts supported
6726 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
6727 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
6729 * New targets supported
6731 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
6733 * New file formats supported
6735 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
6736 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
6740 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
6742 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
6743 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
6745 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
6746 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
6747 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
6749 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
6750 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
6752 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
6753 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
6754 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
6757 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
6758 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
6759 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
6760 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
6761 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
6763 * Internal improvements
6765 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
6766 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
6768 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
6769 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
6770 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
6771 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
6772 shared code that handles any of them.
6774 * New command line options
6776 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
6780 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
6781 General Public License.
6783 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
6785 * Host/native/target split
6787 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
6788 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
6789 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
6790 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
6791 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
6793 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
6794 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
6795 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
6796 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
6797 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
6798 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
6799 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
6801 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
6802 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
6803 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
6805 * New hosts supported
6807 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
6808 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6809 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
6811 * New targets supported
6813 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6814 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
6816 * New native hosts supported
6818 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6819 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
6820 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
6822 * New file formats supported
6824 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
6825 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
6826 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
6830 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
6831 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
6832 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
6834 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
6836 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
6837 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
6838 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
6839 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
6843 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
6844 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
6845 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
6847 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
6851 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
6852 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
6855 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
6856 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
6858 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
6859 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
6860 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
6861 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
6862 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
6863 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
6865 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
6866 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
6867 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
6868 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
6872 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
6873 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
6874 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
6875 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
6876 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
6878 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
6879 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
6880 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
6881 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
6885 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
6886 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
6887 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
6888 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
6889 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
6890 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
6891 each instruction being stepped through.
6893 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
6894 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
6896 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
6897 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
6898 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
6899 processor with a serial port.
6903 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
6904 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
6905 supported, and what files each one uses.
6909 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
6910 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
6911 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
6912 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
6914 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
6915 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
6916 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
6917 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
6921 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
6922 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
6923 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
6924 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
6925 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
6926 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
6928 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
6931 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
6933 * Better support for C++ function names
6935 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
6936 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
6937 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
6938 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
6939 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
6941 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
6942 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
6943 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
6944 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
6945 for the list of formats.
6947 * G++ symbol mangling problem
6949 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
6950 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
6951 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
6952 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
6953 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
6954 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
6957 * New 'maintenance' command
6959 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
6960 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
6961 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
6963 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
6964 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
6965 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
6966 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
6967 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
6968 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
6970 The following commands are new:
6972 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
6973 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
6974 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
6976 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
6978 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
6979 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
6980 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
6981 read after argv processing.
6983 * New hosts supported
6985 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
6987 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
6989 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
6990 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
6991 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
6992 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
6993 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
6996 * New targets supported
6998 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7000 * More smarts about finding #include files
7002 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
7003 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
7004 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
7005 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
7006 the one that contains your sources.
7008 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
7009 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
7010 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
7012 * Interesting infernals change
7014 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
7015 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
7016 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
7017 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
7019 * Bug fixes (of course!)
7021 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
7022 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
7023 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
7025 See the ChangeLog for details.
7027 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
7029 * New machines supported (host and target)
7031 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
7033 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
7035 * New malloc package
7037 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
7038 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
7039 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
7040 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
7041 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
7042 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
7046 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
7047 'help info proc' for details.
7049 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
7051 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
7052 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
7055 * File name changes for MS-DOS
7057 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
7058 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
7059 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
7060 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
7061 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
7062 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
7064 * Cross byte order fixes
7066 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
7067 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
7069 * New -mapped and -readnow options
7071 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
7072 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
7073 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
7074 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
7075 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
7076 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
7077 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
7078 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
7079 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
7080 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
7082 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
7083 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
7084 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
7085 slower, but makes future operations faster.
7087 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
7088 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
7089 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
7092 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
7094 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
7095 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
7096 shared across multiple host platforms.
7098 * longjmp() handling
7100 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
7101 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
7102 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
7103 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
7107 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
7108 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
7113 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
7114 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
7115 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
7117 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
7119 * New machines supported (host and target)
7121 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7123 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
7124 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
7126 * New machines supported (target)
7128 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7132 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
7133 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
7134 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
7136 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
7137 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
7138 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
7139 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
7140 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
7143 * New features for SVR4
7145 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
7146 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
7147 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
7149 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
7150 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
7151 it prints the address mappings of the process.
7153 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
7154 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
7156 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
7158 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
7159 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
7160 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
7161 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
7162 same code linked statically.
7166 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
7167 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
7168 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
7169 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
7170 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
7171 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
7175 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7176 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7177 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7180 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
7182 * New machines supported (host and target)
7184 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
7185 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
7186 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7188 * Almost SCO Unix support
7190 We had hoped to support:
7191 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7192 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
7193 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
7194 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
7196 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
7198 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
7199 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
7200 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
7201 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
7206 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
7207 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
7208 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
7212 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7213 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7214 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7216 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
7218 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
7219 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
7220 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
7222 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
7223 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
7224 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
7225 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
7228 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
7229 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
7230 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
7231 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
7234 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
7235 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
7238 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
7239 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
7240 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7243 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7245 * Improved configuration
7247 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7248 Porting BFD is simpler.
7252 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7253 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7254 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7255 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7259 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7261 * New host supported (not target)
7263 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7266 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7268 * Multiple source language support
7270 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7271 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7272 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7273 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7274 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7275 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7279 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7280 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7281 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7282 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7284 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7285 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7286 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7288 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7289 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7293 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7294 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7295 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7296 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7299 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7301 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7302 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7303 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7304 examining core files.
7308 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7311 * New machines supported (host and target)
7313 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7314 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7315 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7317 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7319 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7321 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7323 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7324 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7325 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7327 * New remote interfaces
7333 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7337 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7339 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7340 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7341 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7342 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7343 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7344 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7345 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7346 stub on the target system.
7348 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7350 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7351 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7352 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7354 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7355 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7358 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7360 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
7361 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
7363 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
7364 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
7365 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
7367 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
7368 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
7369 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
7370 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
7372 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
7373 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
7374 it is already running. Default is ON.
7376 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
7377 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
7378 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
7379 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
7382 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
7383 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
7384 or the value of the environment variable
7387 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
7388 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
7391 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
7392 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
7393 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
7395 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
7396 history expansion will be performed on
7397 command line input. The default is OFF.
7399 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
7400 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
7401 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
7403 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
7404 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
7405 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7408 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
7409 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
7410 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7413 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
7414 ``set width'' instead.
7416 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
7417 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
7418 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
7419 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
7421 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
7424 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
7427 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
7430 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
7433 * Support for Epoch Environment.
7435 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
7436 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
7437 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
7441 * Support for Shared Libraries
7443 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
7444 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
7445 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
7446 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
7447 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
7448 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
7449 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
7450 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
7452 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
7453 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
7454 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
7456 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
7461 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
7462 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
7463 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
7464 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
7465 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
7466 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
7468 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
7470 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
7472 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7473 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7474 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7477 * C++ multiple inheritance
7479 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
7482 * C++ exception handling
7484 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
7485 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
7486 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
7489 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
7490 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
7491 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
7493 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
7494 current stack frame.
7497 * Minor command changes
7499 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7500 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7501 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7503 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7504 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7505 frames without printing.
7507 * New directory command
7509 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7510 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7511 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7512 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7513 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7515 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7517 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7520 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7521 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7522 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
7523 where the program that you are debugging will run.