1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
6 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
9 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
10 offset to all sections.
12 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
13 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
14 address of individual sections using '-s'.
16 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
17 (address of the text section).
19 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
20 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
21 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
22 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
25 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
26 for the rest of the current command.
28 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
29 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
31 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
32 files created on FreeBSD systems.
34 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
37 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
38 the vector length while the process is running.
44 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
46 set|show varsize-limit
47 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
48 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
49 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
51 set|show record btrace cpu
52 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
55 maint check libthread-db
56 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
59 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
60 maint show check-libthread-db
61 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
62 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
67 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
69 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
70 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
72 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
74 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
75 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
76 of convenience variables.
78 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
79 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
80 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
84 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
86 * Removed targets and native configurations
88 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
89 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
90 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
91 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
93 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
95 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
96 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
97 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
98 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
99 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
100 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
103 * New configure options
105 --enable-codesign=CERT
106 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
107 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
108 gdb to work properly.
110 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
112 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
113 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
114 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
116 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
117 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
119 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
120 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
121 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
122 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
123 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
125 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
126 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
127 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
128 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
130 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
131 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
133 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
134 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
135 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
137 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
138 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
139 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
141 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
142 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
143 environment" command.
145 * Completion improvements
147 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
148 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
149 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
150 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
153 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
154 (gdb) b function(int)
156 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
157 C++ anonymous namespaces:
160 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
161 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
162 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
164 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
165 completion support, that better understands what you're
166 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
167 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
168 setting a breakpoint.
170 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
172 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
174 * New command line options (gcore)
177 Dump all memory mappings.
179 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
181 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
182 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
183 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
185 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
190 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
193 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
194 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
195 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
196 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
197 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
198 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
199 a breakpoint from Python.
201 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
203 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
204 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
205 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
207 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
209 function[abi:cxx11](int)
212 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
215 (gdb) b function(int)
217 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
219 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
221 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
225 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
226 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
227 description of these.
229 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
230 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
231 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
233 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
234 manual for a further description of this feature.
237 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
239 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
240 specified initial working directory.
242 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
243 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
245 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
246 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
248 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
249 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
251 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
252 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
253 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
254 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
255 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
257 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
258 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
259 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
261 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
262 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
263 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
264 in the *stopped notification.
266 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
267 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
271 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
272 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
273 the inferior when starting it.
276 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
277 before starting the remote inferior.
280 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
281 user-set environment variables should be unset).
284 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
287 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
290 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
291 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
293 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
294 filter the tests to be run.
296 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
297 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
302 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
305 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
306 with the 'compile' commands.
308 set debug separate-debug-file
309 show debug separate-debug-file
310 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
312 set dump-excluded-mappings
313 show dump-excluded-mappings
314 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
315 dumped when generating a core file.
318 List the registered selftests.
321 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
324 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
326 set|show print type nested-type-limit
327 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
328 type printer will show.
330 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
333 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
335 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
338 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
339 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
340 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
341 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
343 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
344 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
345 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
346 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
347 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
348 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
350 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
351 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
352 unless you tell it the variable's type:
355 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
359 * New native configurations
361 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
362 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
366 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
367 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
368 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
370 * Removed targets and native configurations
372 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
374 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
376 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
377 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
378 available in future Intel CPUs.
380 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
384 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
385 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
387 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
390 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
392 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
394 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
395 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
398 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
400 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
401 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
403 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
405 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
406 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
407 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
408 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
411 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
413 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
414 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
417 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
419 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
420 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
422 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
424 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
429 eval "print $arg%d", $i
434 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
436 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
437 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
439 * New native configurations
441 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
445 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
446 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
448 * Removed targets and native configurations
450 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
451 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
456 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
458 maint print arc arc-instruction address
459 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
463 set disassembler-options
464 show disassembler-options
465 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
466 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
467 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
468 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
469 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
474 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
475 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
477 -file-list-shared-libraries
478 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
479 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
482 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
483 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
485 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
487 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
489 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
490 default. One must now explicitly configure with
491 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
492 option will be removed in a future release.
494 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
497 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
498 memory backward from the given address. For example:
501 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
502 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
503 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
504 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
505 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
506 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
507 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
508 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
509 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
511 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
512 arrays of dynamic types.
514 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
515 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
516 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
517 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
518 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
519 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
521 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
524 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
525 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
526 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
528 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
530 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
531 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
532 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
533 signal received and code location.
537 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
538 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
539 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
540 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
542 * Rust language support.
543 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
544 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
547 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
549 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
550 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
551 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
552 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
553 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
554 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
555 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
556 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
557 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
558 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
561 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
563 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
564 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
569 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
570 skip -function function
571 skip -rfunction regular-expression
572 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
573 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
574 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
576 maint info line-table REGEXP
577 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data struture.
580 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
583 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
584 using the TTY file for input/output.
588 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
589 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
590 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
591 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
592 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
595 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
596 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
597 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
598 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
601 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
602 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
603 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
605 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
608 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
609 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
610 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
611 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
612 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
613 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
615 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
616 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
617 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
618 bytecode into native code.
620 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
621 recording. For example:
623 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
625 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
627 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
631 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
633 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
635 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
637 * Per-inferior thread numbers
639 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
640 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
641 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
645 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
646 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
647 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
648 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
650 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
651 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
652 are no longer unique between inferiors.
654 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
655 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
656 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
658 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
661 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
662 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
665 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
668 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
669 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
670 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
671 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
674 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
677 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
680 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
683 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
684 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
687 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
688 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
690 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
692 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
694 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
695 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
697 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
698 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
701 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
702 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
705 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
706 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
709 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
711 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
712 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
713 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
715 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
716 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
720 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
721 maint show target-non-stop
722 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
723 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
724 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
726 maint set bfd-sharing
727 maint show bfd-sharing
728 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
732 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
736 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
738 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
739 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
740 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
742 set remote thread-events
743 show remote thread-events
744 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
746 set ada print-signatures on|off
747 show ada print-signatures"
748 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
749 selection menus. It is activaled (@code{on}) by default.
753 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
754 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
755 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
757 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
758 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
759 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
760 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
761 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
762 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
764 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
765 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
767 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
768 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
770 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
772 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
773 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
774 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
775 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
776 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
777 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
779 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
780 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
783 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
788 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
790 exec-events feature in qSupported
791 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
792 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
793 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
794 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
797 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
800 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
801 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
803 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
804 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
807 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
808 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
809 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
810 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
811 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
812 stop for that same thread.
815 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
816 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
817 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
820 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
821 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
823 syscall_entry stop reason
824 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
826 syscall_return stop reason
827 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
829 * Extended-remote exec events
831 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
832 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
833 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
835 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
836 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
837 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
839 * Thread names in remote protocol
841 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
844 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
846 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
847 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
848 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
849 fork and exec catchpoints.
851 * Remote syscall events
853 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
854 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
856 set remote catch-syscall-packet
857 show remote catch-syscall-packet
858 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
862 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
863 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
868 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
869 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
870 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
871 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
872 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
873 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
875 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
877 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
878 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
879 including advance SIMD instructions.
881 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
883 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
884 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
885 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
886 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
887 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
888 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
889 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
891 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
893 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
895 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
896 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
899 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
900 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
901 and may include things like its command line arguments.
903 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
904 is now available on all platforms.
906 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
907 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
908 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
909 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
910 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
911 backward compatibility.
913 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
914 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
915 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
916 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
918 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
919 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
920 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
921 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
924 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
926 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
928 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
929 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
930 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
931 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
932 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
933 See "New remote packets" below.
935 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
936 available register groups, including target specific groups.
938 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
939 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
940 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
941 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
946 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
950 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
951 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
952 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
953 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
954 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
955 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
956 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
957 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
958 "const" version of the value respectively.
962 maint print symbol-cache
963 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
965 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
966 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
968 maint flush-symbol-cache
969 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
973 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
976 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
980 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
983 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
984 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
988 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
991 Print information about branch tracing internals.
993 maint btrace packet-history
994 Print the raw branch tracing data.
996 maint btrace clear-packet-history
997 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
1000 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
1001 anew by the next "record" command.
1006 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
1007 show debug dwarf-die
1008 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
1010 set debug dwarf-read
1011 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
1012 show debug dwarf-read
1013 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
1015 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
1016 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1017 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
1018 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1020 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
1021 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1022 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
1023 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1025 set debug dwarf-line
1026 show debug dwarf-line
1027 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
1030 show max-completions
1031 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
1032 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
1033 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
1034 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
1036 set history remove-duplicates
1037 show history remove-duplicates
1038 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1040 maint set symbol-cache-size
1041 maint show symbol-cache-size
1042 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1044 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1045 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1047 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1048 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1050 set debug linux-namespaces
1051 show debug linux-namespaces
1052 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1054 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1055 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1056 Intel Processor Trace format.
1057 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1058 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1060 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1061 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1064 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
1065 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
1067 * Python/Guile scripting
1069 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
1070 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
1072 * New remote packets
1074 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
1075 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
1077 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
1078 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
1081 Enable Intel Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
1082 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
1085 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
1086 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
1090 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
1091 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
1092 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
1096 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
1097 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
1100 Return information about files on the remote system.
1102 qXfer:exec-file:read
1103 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
1104 create a process running on the remote system.
1107 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
1108 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
1109 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
1110 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
1113 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
1116 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
1118 vforkdone stop reason
1119 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
1120 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
1122 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
1123 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
1124 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
1125 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
1126 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
1127 whether these features are enabled.
1129 * Extended-remote fork events
1131 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
1132 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
1133 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
1134 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
1136 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
1137 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
1138 the btrace record target.
1139 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
1141 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
1142 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
1144 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
1147 * Removed command line options
1149 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
1151 * Removed targets and native configurations
1153 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
1154 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1156 * New configure options
1159 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
1160 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
1162 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
1163 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
1164 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
1165 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
1167 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
1171 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
1173 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
1175 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
1179 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
1180 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
1181 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
1182 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
1183 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
1184 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
1185 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
1186 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
1187 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
1188 selecting a new file to debug.
1189 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
1190 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
1192 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
1195 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
1196 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
1197 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
1198 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
1200 * New Python-based convenience functions:
1202 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1203 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1204 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1205 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1207 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
1208 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
1209 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
1210 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
1211 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
1212 interface with this new feature are:
1214 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
1215 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
1219 demangle [-l language] [--] name
1220 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
1221 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
1222 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
1223 as "maint demangler-warning".
1225 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
1226 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
1228 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
1229 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
1232 maint print user-registers
1233 List all currently available "user" registers.
1235 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
1236 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
1237 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
1239 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
1240 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
1241 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
1244 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
1245 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
1246 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
1247 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
1250 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
1251 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
1252 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
1253 switched threads meanwhile.
1255 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
1257 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
1258 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
1259 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
1260 is now the default mode.
1264 set debug symbol-lookup
1265 show debug symbol-lookup
1266 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
1270 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
1271 inferiors that have exited.
1275 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
1279 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1281 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
1282 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
1283 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
1284 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
1285 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
1287 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1288 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1289 its alias "share", instead.
1291 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
1293 * New command line options
1296 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
1298 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
1299 as specified in ISO C99.
1301 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
1302 with or without disassembly.
1306 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
1307 available is determined at configure time.
1308 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
1309 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
1311 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1315 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
1319 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
1321 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
1322 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
1324 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
1325 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
1329 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
1330 show print symbol-loading
1331 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
1332 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
1333 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
1334 becomes less useful.
1336 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
1337 show guile print-stack
1338 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
1340 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
1341 show auto-load guile-scripts
1342 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
1344 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
1345 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
1346 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
1347 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
1348 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
1349 usage of this option.
1351 set auto-connect-native-target
1353 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
1354 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
1355 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
1357 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
1358 show record btrace replay-memory-access
1359 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
1361 maint set target-async (on|off)
1362 maint show target-async
1363 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
1364 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
1365 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
1366 occurring only in synchronous mode.
1368 set mi-async (on|off)
1370 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
1371 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
1373 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
1374 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
1376 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
1377 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
1378 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
1379 "set target-async on" command.
1381 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1383 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
1384 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
1385 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
1386 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
1387 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
1389 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
1390 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
1391 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
1393 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
1394 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
1395 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
1396 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
1397 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
1398 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
1399 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
1401 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
1402 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
1404 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
1405 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
1406 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
1408 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
1409 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
1410 memory or registers.
1412 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
1414 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
1415 remote. It now works with all targets.
1417 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
1418 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
1419 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
1420 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
1421 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
1422 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
1423 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
1424 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
1425 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
1428 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
1429 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
1430 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
1432 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
1434 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
1435 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
1436 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
1438 * New remote packets
1440 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
1441 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
1442 branch trace incrementally.
1446 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
1447 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
1449 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
1450 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
1451 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
1452 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
1453 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
1456 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
1458 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1459 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1460 its alias "share", instead.
1462 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
1463 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
1468 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
1469 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
1470 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
1471 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
1472 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
1473 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
1474 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
1475 commands and CLI execution commands.
1477 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
1479 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
1480 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
1481 recording has been added.
1483 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1485 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
1486 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
1488 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
1489 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
1490 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
1491 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
1492 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
1493 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
1496 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
1498 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
1500 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
1501 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
1502 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
1503 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
1508 (gdb) info registers rax
1511 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
1512 "*value not available*".
1514 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
1519 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
1520 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
1521 ** Line tables representation has been added.
1522 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
1523 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
1524 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
1528 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
1529 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
1530 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
1532 * Removed native configurations
1534 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
1535 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
1537 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1538 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1539 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
1540 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
1541 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1542 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1543 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1547 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
1548 maint check-psymtabs
1549 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
1551 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
1552 maint expand-symtabs
1553 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
1556 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1558 maint set|show per-command
1559 maint set|show per-command space
1560 maint set|show per-command time
1561 maint set|show per-command symtab
1562 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
1564 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
1565 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
1566 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
1567 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
1568 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
1571 info exceptions REGEXP
1572 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
1573 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
1578 set debug symfile off|on
1580 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
1581 symbol tables within those files
1583 set print raw frame-arguments
1584 show print raw frame-arguments
1585 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
1586 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
1588 set remote trace-status-packet
1589 show remote trace-status-packet
1590 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
1594 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
1598 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
1600 set startup-with-shell
1601 show startup-with-shell
1602 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
1607 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
1608 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
1610 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
1611 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
1612 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
1613 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
1616 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
1617 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
1618 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
1620 * New command-line options
1622 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1624 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
1625 buffer in Common Trace Format.
1627 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
1630 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
1632 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
1633 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
1635 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
1636 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
1638 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
1639 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
1640 due to an uncaught signal.
1644 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
1645 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
1646 command, which should contain "language-option".
1648 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
1649 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
1651 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
1652 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
1653 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
1654 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
1655 "undefined-command-error-code".
1657 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
1660 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
1662 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
1663 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
1666 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
1667 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
1669 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
1670 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
1671 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
1673 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
1674 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
1675 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
1676 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
1677 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
1678 "exec-run-start-option".
1680 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
1681 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
1683 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
1684 the new "info exceptions" command.
1686 * New system-wide configuration scripts
1687 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
1688 configuration scripts for the following systems:
1692 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
1693 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
1694 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
1697 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
1698 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
1700 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
1701 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
1702 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
1704 * New remote packets
1708 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
1709 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
1710 involvemement at each single-step.
1712 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
1713 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
1714 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
1715 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
1716 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
1717 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
1720 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1722 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
1723 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
1725 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
1726 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
1727 trace state variables.
1729 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
1732 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
1733 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
1735 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
1737 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
1738 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
1739 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
1740 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1742 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
1744 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
1745 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
1746 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
1747 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
1749 set|show record full insn-number-max
1750 set|show record full stop-at-limit
1751 set|show record full memory-query
1753 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
1754 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
1755 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
1756 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
1757 This new recording method can be enabled using:
1761 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
1762 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
1764 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
1765 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
1766 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
1768 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
1769 instruction granularity
1771 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
1772 function granularity
1774 * New native configurations
1776 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
1777 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
1778 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
1779 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
1783 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
1784 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
1785 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
1786 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
1787 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
1789 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
1790 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
1791 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
1792 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
1793 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
1794 --data-directory command-line option.
1796 * New command line options:
1798 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
1799 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
1801 * Removed command line options
1803 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
1806 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
1809 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
1813 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
1815 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
1817 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
1819 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
1821 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
1822 of architecture in the Python API.
1824 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
1825 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
1827 * New Python-based convenience functions:
1829 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
1830 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
1832 ** $_regex(str, regex)
1834 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
1837 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
1838 default for GCC since November 2000.
1840 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
1842 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
1843 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
1845 * New configure options
1847 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
1848 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
1849 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
1850 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
1851 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
1852 options allow the user to override that default.
1853 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
1854 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
1855 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
1857 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1860 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
1861 conditions to be attached.
1864 List the BFDs known to GDB.
1866 python-interactive [command]
1868 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
1869 and print the result of expressions.
1872 "py" is a new alias for "python".
1874 enable type-printer [name]...
1875 disable type-printer [name]...
1876 Enable or disable type printers.
1880 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
1881 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
1886 set print type methods (on|off)
1887 show print type methods
1888 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
1889 The default is to show them.
1891 set print type typedefs (on|off)
1892 show print type typedefs
1893 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
1894 The default is to show them.
1896 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
1897 show filename-display
1898 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
1899 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
1901 set trace-buffer-size
1902 show trace-buffer-size
1903 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
1905 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
1906 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
1907 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
1911 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
1914 set debug coff-pe-read
1915 show debug coff-pe-read
1916 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
1921 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
1924 set debug notification
1925 show debug notification
1926 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
1930 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
1931 "=cmd-param-changed".
1932 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
1933 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
1934 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
1935 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
1936 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
1937 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
1938 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
1939 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
1941 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
1942 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
1943 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
1944 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
1945 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
1946 library load/unload events.
1947 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
1948 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
1949 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
1950 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
1951 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
1952 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
1953 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
1954 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
1956 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
1957 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
1958 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
1959 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
1961 * New remote packets
1964 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
1965 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1968 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
1969 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
1973 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
1974 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1977 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
1978 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1980 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
1982 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
1983 for more x32 ABI info.
1985 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
1987 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
1989 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1990 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
1991 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
1992 "info os files" lists file descriptors
1993 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
1994 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
1995 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
1996 "info os msg" lists message queues
1997 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
1999 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
2000 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
2001 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
2002 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
2003 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
2004 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
2006 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
2007 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
2008 record/replay support.
2010 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
2014 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
2017 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
2019 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
2020 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
2022 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
2024 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
2025 the source at which the symbol was defined.
2027 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
2028 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
2029 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
2032 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
2033 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
2035 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2036 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2037 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2039 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2040 object associated with a PC value.
2042 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2043 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2045 * Go language support.
2046 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2049 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2050 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2052 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2053 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2055 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2056 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2057 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2058 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2059 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2062 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
2063 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
2064 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
2065 build/libcpp/expr.c.
2067 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
2068 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
2070 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
2071 since December 2007.
2073 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
2074 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
2075 command does. For instance:
2077 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
2079 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
2080 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
2081 created, using the "condition" command.
2083 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
2084 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
2086 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
2088 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
2089 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
2090 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
2091 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
2092 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
2093 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
2094 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
2095 files with older .gdb_index sections.
2097 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
2098 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
2099 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
2100 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
2101 the .gdb_index section.
2103 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
2105 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
2110 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
2112 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
2116 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2117 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2118 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
2120 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
2121 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
2123 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
2126 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
2127 C++ and Java objects.
2129 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
2130 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
2131 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
2132 configured with '--with-python'.
2134 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
2135 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
2136 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
2137 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
2138 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
2139 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
2140 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
2142 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
2143 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
2144 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
2145 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
2147 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
2148 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
2149 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
2150 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
2152 ** "set print symbol"
2154 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
2155 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
2156 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
2158 * Deprecated commands
2160 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
2161 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
2165 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2166 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
2168 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
2169 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
2170 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
2171 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
2176 set mips compression
2177 show mips compression
2178 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
2179 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
2182 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
2184 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
2185 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
2186 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
2187 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
2189 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
2193 Disable auto-loading globally.
2196 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
2198 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
2199 show auto-load gdb-scripts
2200 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
2202 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
2203 show auto-load python-scripts
2204 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
2206 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
2207 show auto-load local-gdbinit
2208 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
2210 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
2211 show auto-load libthread-db
2212 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
2214 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2215 show auto-load scripts-directory
2216 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
2217 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
2218 of the directories listed by this option.
2219 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2221 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2222 show auto-load safe-path
2223 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
2224 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2226 set debug auto-load on|off
2227 show debug auto-load
2228 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
2230 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
2232 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
2233 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
2234 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
2235 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
2237 set dprintf-function <expr>
2238 show dprintf-function
2239 set dprintf-channel <expr>
2240 show dprintf-channel
2241 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
2242 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
2244 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
2245 show disconnected-dprintf
2246 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
2247 after GDB disconnects.
2249 * New configure options
2251 --with-auto-load-dir
2252 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
2253 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
2254 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
2255 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
2256 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
2258 --with-auto-load-safe-path
2259 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
2260 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
2262 --without-auto-load-safe-path
2263 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
2266 * New remote packets
2268 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
2270 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
2271 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
2272 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
2273 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
2277 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
2278 program without GDB involvement.
2280 * New command line options
2282 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
2283 before loading inferior.
2284 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
2285 execute it before loading inferior.
2287 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
2289 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
2290 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
2291 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
2292 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
2295 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
2296 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
2298 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
2299 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
2300 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
2301 target hardware watchpoint.
2303 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
2304 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
2305 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
2306 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
2310 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
2311 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
2314 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
2315 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
2316 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
2317 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
2318 now "message", which just prints the error message without
2321 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
2324 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
2325 modules library. This module provides functionality for
2326 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
2327 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
2328 corresponding value.
2330 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
2331 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
2332 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
2335 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
2336 static_block will return the global and static blocks
2337 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
2338 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
2340 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
2342 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
2345 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
2346 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
2347 available in the CLI.
2349 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
2350 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
2351 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
2352 "some_type.items()".
2354 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
2357 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
2358 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
2359 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
2360 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
2361 any anonymous fields.
2365 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
2368 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
2369 "=breakpoint-modified".
2371 ** New command -ada-task-info.
2373 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
2374 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
2375 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
2378 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
2379 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
2380 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
2381 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
2382 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
2384 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
2385 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
2387 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
2388 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
2389 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
2390 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
2391 use this option to specify where to find it.
2393 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2394 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
2395 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
2396 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
2397 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
2398 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2399 section in the user manual for more details.
2401 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
2402 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
2403 become available after that.
2405 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
2407 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
2408 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
2414 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
2415 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
2419 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
2420 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
2421 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
2423 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
2424 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
2425 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
2427 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
2428 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
2429 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
2430 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
2431 name starts with a hyphen.
2433 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
2434 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
2435 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
2436 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
2437 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
2438 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
2439 number of bytes that will be collected.
2442 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
2443 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
2444 setting the variable trace-notes.
2447 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
2448 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
2449 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
2452 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
2453 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
2454 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
2455 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
2456 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
2459 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
2460 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
2461 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
2465 set debug dwarf2-read
2466 show debug dwarf2-read
2467 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
2468 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
2470 set debug symtab-create
2471 show debug symtab-create
2472 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
2473 creation. The default is off.
2476 show extended-prompt
2477 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
2478 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
2479 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
2480 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
2481 prompt is displayed.
2483 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
2484 show print entry-values
2485 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
2486 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
2487 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
2489 set debug entry-values
2490 show debug entry-values
2491 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
2492 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
2494 set basenames-may-differ
2495 show basenames-may-differ
2496 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
2497 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
2498 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
2499 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
2500 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
2501 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
2502 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
2503 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
2509 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
2510 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
2511 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
2512 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
2514 set trace-stop-notes
2515 show trace-stop-notes
2516 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
2517 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
2518 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
2519 started by someone else.
2521 * New remote packets
2525 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2529 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2533 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
2537 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
2541 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
2544 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
2545 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
2549 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
2553 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2555 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
2557 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
2559 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
2561 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
2562 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
2563 matches the given regular expression.
2565 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
2567 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
2568 dumping the instruction opcodes.
2570 * New command line options
2572 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
2573 This is mostly for testing purposes.
2575 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
2576 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
2578 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
2579 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
2580 source path list instead of augmenting it.
2582 * GDB now understands thread names.
2584 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
2585 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
2587 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
2588 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
2591 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
2592 has been integrated into GDB.
2596 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
2597 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
2598 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
2600 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2601 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
2602 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
2603 and allows for more dynamic content.
2605 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
2606 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
2607 have an is_valid method.
2609 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2610 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
2611 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
2613 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
2615 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
2616 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
2617 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
2618 that function like so:
2620 result = some_value (10,20)
2622 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
2623 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
2624 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
2626 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
2627 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
2628 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
2629 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
2630 New function: register_pretty_printer.
2632 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
2633 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
2635 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
2637 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
2640 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
2641 holds the thread's name.
2643 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
2644 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
2645 occurring in the process being debugged.
2646 The following events are currently supported:
2647 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
2648 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
2649 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
2653 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
2654 instantiation. For example, if you have:
2656 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
2658 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
2659 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
2660 was added to GCC 4.5.
2662 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
2663 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
2664 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
2665 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
2666 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
2667 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
2669 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
2670 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
2671 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
2672 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
2673 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
2675 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
2676 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
2677 execution to a label.
2679 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
2680 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
2681 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
2682 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
2684 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
2685 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
2686 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
2689 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
2691 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
2692 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
2693 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
2694 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
2695 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
2696 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
2699 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
2701 While now you see this:
2704 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
2706 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
2709 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
2710 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
2711 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
2712 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
2714 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2715 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
2716 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
2717 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2718 section in the user manual for more details.
2720 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2722 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
2723 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
2725 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
2727 * New native configurations
2729 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
2733 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
2735 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
2736 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
2737 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
2738 in the GDB user manual.
2740 * Guile support was removed.
2742 * New features in the GNU simulator
2744 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
2746 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
2748 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
2750 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
2752 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
2753 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
2754 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
2755 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
2756 was always disabled for such configurations.
2760 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
2762 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
2763 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
2773 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
2774 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
2775 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
2777 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
2779 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
2780 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
2781 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
2782 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
2784 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
2785 mentioned flavors of operators.
2787 ** static const class members
2789 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
2790 class definition has been fixed.
2792 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
2794 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
2795 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
2796 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
2797 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
2798 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
2799 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
2801 * Static tracepoints
2803 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
2804 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
2805 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
2806 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
2807 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
2808 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
2809 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
2810 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
2811 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
2812 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
2813 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
2814 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
2815 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
2816 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
2817 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
2818 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
2819 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
2820 the "New remote packets" section below.
2822 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
2824 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
2825 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
2826 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
2827 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
2831 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
2832 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
2833 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
2834 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
2835 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
2836 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
2837 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
2839 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
2842 * New remote packets
2846 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
2850 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
2851 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
2852 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
2853 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
2854 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
2855 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
2859 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
2863 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
2866 qXfer:statictrace:read
2868 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
2869 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
2870 to gdb's qSupported query.
2874 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
2878 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
2879 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
2881 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
2882 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
2885 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2887 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
2888 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
2889 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
2890 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
2892 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
2893 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
2894 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
2895 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
2896 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
2897 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
2898 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
2900 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
2901 for static tracepoints support.
2903 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
2905 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
2906 it understands register description.
2908 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
2910 * X86 general purpose registers
2912 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
2913 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
2914 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
2915 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
2916 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
2918 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
2919 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
2920 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
2921 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
2922 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
2923 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
2925 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
2926 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
2927 in the specified file.
2929 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
2930 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
2931 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
2932 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
2933 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
2934 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
2935 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
2936 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
2937 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
2938 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
2942 eval template, expressions...
2943 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
2944 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
2946 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
2947 show target-file-system-kind
2948 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
2951 save breakpoints <filename>
2952 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
2953 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
2954 definitions, use the `source' command.
2956 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
2959 info static-tracepoint-markers
2960 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
2962 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
2963 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
2964 function, line, address, or marker ID.
2968 Enable and disable observer mode.
2970 set may-write-registers on|off
2971 set may-write-memory on|off
2972 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
2973 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
2974 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
2975 set may-interrupt on|off
2976 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
2977 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
2978 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
2979 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
2980 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
2981 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
2982 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
2984 set record memory-query on|off
2985 show record memory-query
2986 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
2987 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
2992 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
2996 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
2997 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
2998 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
2999 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
3000 GDB using Python' in the manual.
3002 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
3003 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
3004 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
3005 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
3007 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
3008 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
3010 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
3012 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
3014 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
3016 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
3017 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
3018 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
3020 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
3021 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
3022 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
3023 regular breakpoints.
3027 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
3029 * D language support.
3030 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
3033 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
3034 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
3035 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3036 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3037 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3039 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3040 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3041 conditions of the form:
3043 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3045 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3046 interface mentioned above.
3048 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
3052 ** Namespace Support
3054 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3055 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3056 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3057 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3058 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3062 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
3063 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
3068 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
3069 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
3073 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
3078 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
3081 * Multi-program debugging.
3083 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
3084 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
3085 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
3086 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
3087 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
3088 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
3089 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
3090 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
3092 * New tracing features
3094 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
3096 ** Trace state variables
3098 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
3099 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
3100 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
3101 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
3102 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
3103 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
3104 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
3105 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
3106 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
3107 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
3111 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
3112 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
3113 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
3114 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
3115 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
3116 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
3117 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
3118 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
3119 the regular trace command.
3121 ** Disconnected tracing
3123 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
3124 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
3125 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
3126 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
3127 connection is lost unexpectedly.
3131 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
3132 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
3133 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
3134 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
3135 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
3136 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
3139 ** Circular trace buffer
3141 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
3142 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
3143 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
3144 not be available for all target agents.
3149 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
3150 the arguments to be comma-separated.
3153 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
3154 which only declare a variable are not shown.
3157 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
3158 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
3161 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
3162 "set script-extension" (see below).
3164 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3166 record save [<FILENAME>]
3167 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
3168 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
3170 record restore <FILENAME>
3171 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
3172 earlier time, for replay debugging.
3174 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
3177 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
3178 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
3179 inferior has loaded.
3184 maint info program-spaces
3185 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
3187 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
3188 show remote interrupt-sequence
3189 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
3190 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
3191 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
3192 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
3193 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
3195 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
3196 show remote interrupt-on-connect
3197 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
3198 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
3201 set remotebreak [on | off]
3203 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
3205 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
3206 Create or modify a trace state variable.
3209 List trace state variables and their values.
3211 delete tvariable $NAME ...
3212 Delete one or more trace state variables.
3215 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
3216 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
3218 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
3219 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
3221 * New expression syntax
3223 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
3224 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
3228 set follow-exec-mode new|same
3229 show follow-exec-mode
3230 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
3231 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
3232 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
3234 set default-collect EXPR, ...
3235 show default-collect
3236 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
3237 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
3238 such as registers or a critical global variable.
3240 set disconnected-tracing
3241 show disconnected-tracing
3242 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
3243 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
3246 set circular-trace-buffer
3247 show circular-trace-buffer
3248 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
3249 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
3250 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
3251 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
3253 set script-extension off|soft|strict
3254 show script-extension
3255 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
3256 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
3257 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
3258 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
3260 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
3262 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
3263 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
3264 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
3265 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
3266 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
3267 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
3268 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
3271 * Python API Improvements
3273 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
3274 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
3275 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
3277 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
3278 `is_base_class' attribute.
3280 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
3282 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
3283 evaluate an expression.
3285 * New remote packets
3288 Define a trace state variable.
3291 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
3294 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
3297 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
3300 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
3304 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
3306 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
3307 much more reliable. In particular:
3308 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
3309 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
3310 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
3311 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
3312 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
3313 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
3314 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
3315 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
3316 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
3317 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
3318 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
3319 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
3320 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
3321 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
3322 non-threaded programs.
3324 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
3325 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
3326 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
3329 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
3331 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
3332 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
3333 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
3334 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
3335 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
3337 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
3338 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
3339 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
3340 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
3341 for tracepoint actions.
3343 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
3344 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
3345 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
3347 * Process record and replay
3349 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
3350 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
3351 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
3354 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
3355 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
3356 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
3359 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
3360 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
3363 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
3364 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
3365 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
3366 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
3367 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
3368 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
3369 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
3370 the installation instructions for more information.
3372 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
3373 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
3374 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
3375 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
3377 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
3378 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
3380 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
3381 now complete on file names.
3383 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
3384 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
3385 For instance, consider:
3387 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
3388 # struct example variable;
3391 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
3392 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
3394 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
3395 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
3397 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
3398 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
3401 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
3402 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
3403 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
3405 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
3406 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
3407 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
3408 and simulator targets may also provide them.
3410 * New remote packets
3413 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3416 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
3417 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
3418 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
3421 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
3422 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
3425 Obtains additional operating system information
3429 Read or write additional signal information.
3431 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
3433 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
3434 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
3435 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
3437 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
3438 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
3440 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
3441 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
3442 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
3444 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
3445 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
3447 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
3449 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
3451 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
3452 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
3454 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
3455 list of section offsets.
3457 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
3458 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
3459 have also been fixed.
3461 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
3462 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
3463 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
3465 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
3468 template<typename T> class C { };
3471 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
3473 ptype C<char const *>
3474 ptype C<char const*>
3475 ptype C<const char *>
3476 ptype C<const char*>
3478 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
3480 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
3481 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3483 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
3484 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3485 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
3487 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
3488 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
3490 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
3493 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
3494 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3496 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
3497 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
3502 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
3503 available is determined at configure time.
3505 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
3507 * Ada tasking support
3509 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
3513 Print the list of Ada tasks.
3515 Print detailed information about task number N.
3517 Print the task number of the current task.
3519 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
3521 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
3522 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
3524 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
3526 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
3527 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
3528 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
3529 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
3530 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
3531 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
3534 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
3535 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
3538 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
3539 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
3540 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
3541 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
3544 * Multi-architecture debugging.
3546 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
3547 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
3548 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
3549 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
3550 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
3552 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
3553 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
3554 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
3555 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
3556 --enable-targets configure option.
3558 * Non-stop mode debugging.
3560 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
3561 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
3562 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
3563 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
3564 section in the user manual for more information.
3566 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
3567 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
3568 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
3569 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
3570 extensions on linux targets.
3572 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3574 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
3575 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
3576 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
3577 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
3578 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
3579 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
3580 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
3581 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
3582 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
3584 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
3586 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3588 maint set python print-stack
3589 maint show python print-stack
3590 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
3593 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
3598 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
3602 Show operating system information about processes.
3605 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
3608 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
3611 Detach from inferior number NUM.
3614 Kill inferior number NUM.
3618 set spu stop-on-load
3619 show spu stop-on-load
3620 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3622 set spu auto-flush-cache
3623 show spu auto-flush-cache
3624 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
3625 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3627 set sh calling-convention
3628 show sh calling-convention
3629 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
3632 show debug timestamp
3633 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
3635 set disassemble-next-line
3636 show disassemble-next-line
3637 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
3640 set remote noack-packet
3641 show remote noack-packet
3642 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
3643 under "New remote packets."
3645 set remote query-attached-packet
3646 show remote query-attached-packet
3647 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
3649 set remote read-siginfo-object
3650 show remote read-siginfo-object
3651 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
3654 set remote write-siginfo-object
3655 show remote write-siginfo-object
3656 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
3659 set remote reverse-continue
3660 show remote reverse-continue
3661 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
3663 set remote reverse-step
3664 show remote reverse-step
3665 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
3667 set displaced-stepping
3668 show displaced-stepping
3669 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
3670 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
3671 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
3674 show debug displaced
3675 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
3677 maint set internal-error
3678 maint show internal-error
3679 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
3681 maint set internal-warning
3682 maint show internal-warning
3683 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
3688 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3690 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
3691 show multiple-symbols
3692 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
3693 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
3694 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
3696 set breakpoint always-inserted
3697 show breakpoint always-inserted
3698 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
3699 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
3700 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
3702 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
3703 show arm fallback-mode
3704 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
3706 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
3707 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
3708 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
3709 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
3711 set disable-randomization
3712 show disable-randomization
3713 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
3714 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
3715 multiple debugging sessions.
3719 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
3724 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
3725 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
3726 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
3727 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
3729 set target-wide-charset
3730 show target-wide-charset
3731 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
3732 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
3734 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
3736 set tcp connect-timeout
3737 show tcp connect-timeout
3738 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
3739 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
3740 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
3742 set libthread-db-search-path
3743 show libthread-db-search-path
3744 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
3747 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
3748 show schedule-multiple
3749 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
3750 the current process.
3754 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
3755 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
3756 affecting correctness.
3758 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
3759 show interactive-mode
3760 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
3761 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
3762 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
3763 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
3764 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
3769 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
3770 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
3771 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
3775 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
3776 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
3777 alias for the `fork' command.
3780 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
3781 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
3782 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
3785 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
3786 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
3787 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
3791 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
3792 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
3793 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
3796 * New native configurations
3798 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
3800 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
3804 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
3805 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
3806 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
3809 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
3810 (mingw32ce) debugging.
3816 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
3818 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
3820 * New native configurations
3822 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
3823 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
3827 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
3828 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
3830 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3832 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
3833 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
3834 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
3835 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
3837 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
3838 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
3840 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
3843 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
3844 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
3845 and in inlined functions.
3847 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
3848 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
3849 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
3851 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
3853 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
3854 registers on PowerPC targets.
3856 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
3857 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
3859 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
3860 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
3862 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
3863 extended-remote mode.
3865 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
3866 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
3867 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
3868 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
3870 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
3871 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
3872 target architectures.
3874 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
3875 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
3876 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
3877 stored in two consecutive float registers.
3879 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
3882 * Improved support for debugging Ada
3883 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
3885 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
3886 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
3887 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
3888 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
3890 - Improved command completion in Ada
3893 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
3898 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
3899 show print frame-arguments
3900 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
3901 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
3906 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
3913 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
3915 * New remote packets
3922 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
3925 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
3929 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
3931 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
3933 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
3934 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
3935 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
3937 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
3938 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
3939 -Bsymbolic linker option.
3941 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
3942 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
3945 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
3946 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
3948 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
3949 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
3951 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
3953 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
3954 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
3955 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
3957 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
3958 automatically displayed as character or string data.
3960 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
3961 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
3964 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
3965 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
3966 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
3968 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
3971 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
3972 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
3973 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
3975 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
3977 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
3979 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
3980 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
3981 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
3983 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
3984 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
3986 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
3987 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
3988 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
3989 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
3990 Windows and SymbianOS).
3992 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
3993 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
3995 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
3996 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
4002 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
4003 when debugging using remote targets.
4005 set mem inaccessible-by-default
4006 show mem inaccessible-by-default
4007 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4008 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4009 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
4010 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
4011 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
4013 set breakpoint auto-hw
4014 show breakpoint auto-hw
4015 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4016 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4017 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
4018 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
4019 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
4020 including "next" and "finish".
4023 catch exception unhandled
4024 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
4027 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
4031 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
4032 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
4033 an alias to "set sysroot".
4036 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4037 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4040 * New native configurations
4042 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4045 unset tdesc filename
4047 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4048 not query the target for its built-in description.
4052 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4053 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4054 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4056 * New remote packets
4059 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4060 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4062 qXfer:features:read:
4063 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
4068 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
4069 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
4071 qXfer:libraries:read:
4072 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
4073 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
4074 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
4075 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
4079 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
4087 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
4088 i[34567]86-*-netware*
4089 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
4090 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
4092 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
4095 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
4096 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
4105 * Other removed features
4112 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
4119 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
4124 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
4125 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
4130 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
4131 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
4133 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
4135 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
4136 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
4137 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
4138 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
4140 MIPS ".pdr" sections
4142 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
4143 in debugging information.
4147 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
4148 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
4150 set mips stack-arg-size
4151 set mips saved-gpreg-size
4153 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
4155 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
4160 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
4162 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
4163 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
4164 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
4166 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
4167 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
4170 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
4171 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
4173 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
4174 stub provides the required support.
4176 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
4177 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
4182 unset substitute-path
4183 show substitute-path
4184 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
4185 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
4186 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
4187 between compilation and debugging.
4191 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
4192 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
4193 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
4197 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
4199 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
4200 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
4202 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
4204 * New remote packets
4207 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
4208 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
4209 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
4210 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
4214 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
4215 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
4217 qXfer:memory-map:read:
4218 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
4219 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
4224 Erase and program a flash memory device.
4226 * Removed remote packets
4229 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
4230 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
4232 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
4236 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
4238 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4242 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
4243 only if it doesn't already have a value.
4245 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
4247 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
4249 restart <n> Return the program state to a
4250 previously saved state.
4252 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
4254 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
4256 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
4257 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
4259 info forks List forks of the user program that
4260 are available to be debugged.
4262 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
4263 forks of the user program that are
4264 available to be debugged.
4266 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4267 that are available to be debugged (and
4268 kill the forked process).
4270 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4271 that are available to be debugged (and
4272 allow the process to continue).
4276 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
4278 * Improved Windows host support
4280 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
4281 native console support, and remote communications using either
4282 network sockets or serial ports.
4284 * Improved Modula-2 language support
4286 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
4287 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
4288 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
4289 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
4290 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
4291 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
4295 The ARM rdi-share module.
4297 The Netware NLM debug server.
4299 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
4301 * New native configurations
4303 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
4304 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
4308 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4310 * New command line options
4312 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
4313 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
4314 the child (debugged) program exited with.
4315 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
4316 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
4317 specified multiple times and in conjunction
4318 with the --command (-x) option.
4320 * Deprecated commands removed
4322 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
4326 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
4327 othernames set arm disassembler
4328 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
4329 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
4330 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
4333 * New BSD user-level threads support
4335 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
4336 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
4339 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4340 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
4341 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
4343 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
4344 are not yet supported.
4346 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
4347 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
4349 * REMOVED configurations and files
4351 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
4352 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4353 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
4355 * New "set print array-indexes" command
4357 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
4358 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
4361 * VAX floating point support
4363 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
4365 * User-defined command support
4367 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
4368 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
4369 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
4371 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
4373 * New command line option
4375 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
4378 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
4380 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
4381 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
4382 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
4383 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
4384 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
4386 * Internationalization
4388 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
4389 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
4390 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
4394 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
4395 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
4396 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
4398 * New native configurations
4400 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
4404 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
4405 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
4407 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
4409 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4410 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
4411 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
4414 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
4415 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
4416 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
4426 powerpc bdm protocol
4428 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4429 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
4431 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4433 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4434 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4435 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4436 permanently REMOVED.
4445 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
4447 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
4449 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
4450 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
4453 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
4455 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
4456 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
4457 IRIX long double values).
4461 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
4462 command. This problem has been fixed.
4464 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
4466 * Fix for ``many threads''
4468 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
4469 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
4472 ptrace: No such process.
4473 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
4475 This problem has been fixed.
4477 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
4479 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
4482 * New ``start'' command.
4484 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
4486 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
4488 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
4489 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
4490 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
4492 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4493 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
4494 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
4495 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
4496 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
4497 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4498 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
4499 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
4500 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4502 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
4504 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
4505 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
4506 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
4507 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
4508 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
4510 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
4511 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
4512 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
4514 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
4516 * New native configurations
4518 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
4519 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
4520 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
4521 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
4522 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
4523 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
4524 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
4526 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
4528 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4529 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
4530 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
4531 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
4532 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
4533 work, was also included.
4535 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
4536 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
4546 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4547 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
4549 * REMOVED configurations and files
4551 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
4552 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
4553 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
4554 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
4555 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
4556 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
4557 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
4558 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
4559 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
4560 sonymips mips-sony-*
4561 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
4563 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
4565 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
4567 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
4568 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
4569 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
4570 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
4573 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
4575 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
4576 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
4577 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
4578 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
4579 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
4580 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
4583 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
4585 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
4587 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
4588 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
4589 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
4591 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
4593 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
4594 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
4596 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
4598 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
4599 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
4600 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
4602 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
4604 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
4605 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
4607 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
4609 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
4610 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
4611 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
4613 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
4615 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
4616 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
4617 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
4619 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
4621 * Removed --with-mmalloc
4623 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
4624 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
4626 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
4628 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
4629 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
4630 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
4631 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
4633 * Revised SPARC target
4635 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
4636 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
4637 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
4638 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
4639 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
4643 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
4644 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
4645 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
4648 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
4650 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
4651 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
4654 * C++ nested types and namespaces
4656 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
4657 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
4658 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
4659 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
4660 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
4661 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
4662 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
4663 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
4664 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
4666 * New native configurations
4668 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
4669 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4670 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
4671 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4672 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
4674 * New debugging protocols
4676 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
4678 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
4680 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
4681 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
4682 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
4684 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4686 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4687 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4688 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4689 permanently REMOVED.
4691 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
4692 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
4693 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
4694 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
4695 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
4696 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
4697 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
4698 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
4699 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
4700 sonymips mips-sony-*
4701 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
4703 * REMOVED configurations and files
4705 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4706 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4707 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4708 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4709 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4710 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
4711 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4712 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
4713 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
4714 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4715 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
4716 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
4717 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
4718 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
4719 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4720 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4721 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4723 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
4727 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
4728 integrated into GDB.
4730 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
4732 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
4733 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
4734 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
4737 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
4738 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
4739 DWARF 2 CFI support.
4743 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
4744 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
4745 remote protocol documentation for details.
4747 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
4749 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
4750 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
4751 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
4754 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
4756 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
4757 per-thread variables.
4759 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
4761 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
4762 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
4764 * Separate debug info.
4766 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
4767 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
4768 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
4769 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
4770 and optional debug files.
4772 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
4774 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
4775 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
4778 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
4779 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
4783 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
4784 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
4785 considered "useable".
4787 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
4789 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
4790 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
4793 * GDB supports logging output to a file
4795 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
4796 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
4798 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
4800 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
4801 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
4804 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
4806 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
4807 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
4811 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
4812 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
4813 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
4814 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
4815 data, for more informative profiling results.
4817 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
4819 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
4820 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
4821 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
4823 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
4826 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
4827 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
4828 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
4829 in a subsequent -var-update.
4831 * New native configurations.
4833 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4835 * Multi-arched targets.
4837 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
4838 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4840 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4842 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4843 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4844 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4845 permanently REMOVED.
4847 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4848 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4849 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4850 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
4851 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4852 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
4853 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
4854 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
4855 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
4856 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
4857 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4858 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4860 * REMOVED configurations and files
4863 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4864 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
4865 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
4866 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
4867 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
4868 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
4870 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4871 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4872 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4873 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4874 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4875 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4877 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
4879 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
4880 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
4881 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
4882 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
4883 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
4885 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
4887 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
4889 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
4890 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
4891 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
4892 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
4893 shared libs like mad''.
4895 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
4897 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
4898 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
4899 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
4900 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
4902 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
4904 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
4905 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
4908 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
4909 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
4911 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
4912 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
4914 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
4915 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
4916 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
4917 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
4919 * Multi-arched targets.
4921 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
4922 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
4924 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
4925 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
4926 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4930 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
4933 * New native configurations
4935 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
4936 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
4937 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
4938 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
4940 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4942 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4943 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4944 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4945 permanently REMOVED.
4947 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4948 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4949 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
4950 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4951 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4952 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4953 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
4954 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
4955 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
4956 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
4958 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4959 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4961 * OBSOLETE languages
4963 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
4965 * REMOVED configurations and files
4967 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
4968 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4969 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4970 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4971 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4973 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
4975 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
4977 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
4978 commands. The default is 1024.
4980 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
4982 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
4984 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
4986 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
4987 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
4988 from a file into memory (restore).
4990 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
4992 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
4993 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
4994 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
4996 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
5004 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
5005 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
5006 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
5008 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
5009 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
5010 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
5012 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
5013 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
5014 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
5016 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
5017 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
5018 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
5020 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
5022 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
5024 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
5025 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
5026 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
5027 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
5028 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
5029 (notably embedded) targets.
5031 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
5033 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
5034 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
5035 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5036 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5038 * New command line option
5040 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5042 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5044 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5045 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5046 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5047 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5048 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5049 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5050 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5051 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5052 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5053 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5055 * Changes in ARM configurations.
5057 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5058 configuration is fully multi-arch.
5060 * New native configurations
5062 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
5063 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
5064 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
5065 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
5069 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
5071 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5073 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5074 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5075 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5076 permanently REMOVED.
5078 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5079 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5080 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5081 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5082 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5084 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5086 * REMOVED configurations and files
5088 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5090 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5091 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5092 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5093 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5094 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5095 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5096 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5097 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5098 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5099 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5100 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
5102 * Changes to command line processing
5104 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
5105 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
5107 * Changes to key bindings
5109 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
5111 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
5113 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
5115 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
5118 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
5120 Numerous documentation fixes.
5122 Numerous testsuite fixes.
5124 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
5126 * New native configurations
5128 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
5129 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
5130 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
5131 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5132 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
5133 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
5137 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
5139 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
5141 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5143 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
5144 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5145 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5146 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5147 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5149 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5150 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5151 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5152 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5153 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5154 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5155 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5156 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
5158 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
5159 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
5161 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5162 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5163 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5164 permanently REMOVED.
5166 * REMOVED configurations and files
5168 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5169 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5171 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5175 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
5177 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
5178 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
5183 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
5185 * The MI enabled by default.
5187 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
5188 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
5189 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
5190 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
5191 which is now deprecated.
5193 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
5195 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
5196 main features are supported:
5198 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
5200 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
5203 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
5205 - a Pascal expression parser.
5207 However, some important features are not yet supported.
5209 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
5211 - there are some problems with boolean types;
5213 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
5214 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
5216 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
5218 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
5220 * Changes in completion.
5222 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
5223 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
5224 users expect at the shell prompt.
5226 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
5227 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
5228 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
5229 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
5230 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
5231 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
5232 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
5234 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
5236 * New platform-independent commands:
5238 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
5239 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
5240 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
5242 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
5244 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
5245 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
5246 many threads as your system allows you to have.
5248 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
5250 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
5251 multi-threaded programs though.
5253 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
5255 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
5257 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
5258 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
5261 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
5263 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
5264 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
5265 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
5266 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
5267 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
5270 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
5271 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
5272 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
5274 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
5276 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
5277 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
5279 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
5280 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
5283 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
5284 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
5285 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
5286 a given linear address.
5288 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
5289 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
5290 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
5292 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
5294 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
5296 * Changes in documentation.
5298 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
5299 Documentation License.
5301 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5304 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
5306 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5309 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
5310 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
5311 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
5313 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
5315 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
5316 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
5317 contents of this file.
5321 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
5323 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
5325 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
5327 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
5328 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
5329 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
5330 greater level of detail.
5332 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
5334 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
5335 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
5336 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
5339 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
5341 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
5342 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
5343 machines ``out of the box''.
5345 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
5346 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
5347 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
5348 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
5349 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
5351 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
5352 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
5353 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
5354 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
5355 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
5357 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
5358 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
5361 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
5364 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
5365 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
5366 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
5367 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
5369 * New native configurations
5371 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
5372 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5376 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
5377 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
5378 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
5379 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5381 * OBSOLETE configurations
5383 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5384 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5386 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5389 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5390 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5391 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5392 be permanently REMOVED.
5394 * Gould support removed
5396 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
5398 * New features for SVR4
5400 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
5401 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
5402 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
5404 * Many C++ enhancements
5406 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
5407 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
5409 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
5411 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
5412 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
5413 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
5414 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
5416 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
5417 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
5419 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
5421 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
5422 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
5423 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
5425 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
5426 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
5428 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
5430 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
5431 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
5432 include ``set remote P-packet''.
5434 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
5436 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
5437 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
5438 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
5440 * ``apropos'' command added.
5442 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
5443 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
5444 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
5448 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
5449 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
5450 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
5451 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
5452 enabled by configuring with:
5454 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
5456 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
5458 * New native configurations
5460 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
5461 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
5462 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
5466 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5467 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
5468 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5470 * OBSOLETE configurations
5472 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
5474 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5475 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5476 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5477 be permanently REMOVED.
5481 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
5482 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
5483 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
5484 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
5485 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
5486 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
5487 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
5492 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
5494 * set extension-language
5496 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
5497 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
5498 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
5499 set extension-language .c c++
5500 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
5501 and their associated languages.
5503 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
5505 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
5506 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
5507 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
5511 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
5512 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
5514 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
5515 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
5517 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
5518 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
5519 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
5520 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
5521 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
5522 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
5523 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
5524 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
5526 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
5527 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
5528 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
5529 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
5533 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
5534 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
5535 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
5536 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
5537 for xdb and dbx commands.
5541 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
5542 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
5543 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
5545 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
5546 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
5547 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
5549 * Debugging across forks
5551 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
5556 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
5557 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
5558 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
5560 * GDB remote protocol additions
5562 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
5563 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
5564 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
5565 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
5567 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
5568 full 64-bit address. The command
5570 set remoteaddresssize 32
5572 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
5573 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
5576 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
5577 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
5579 maint packet heythere
5581 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
5582 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
5585 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
5586 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
5587 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
5589 * Tracing can collect general expressions
5591 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
5592 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
5593 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
5595 * mask-address variable for Mips
5597 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
5598 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
5599 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
5601 * Higher serial baud rates
5603 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
5604 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
5605 to achieve all of these rates.)
5609 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
5610 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
5613 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
5615 * New native configurations
5617 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
5618 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
5619 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5620 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5621 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5622 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
5623 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
5627 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5628 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
5629 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5630 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
5631 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
5632 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
5633 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
5634 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
5635 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5636 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5637 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
5639 * New debugging protocols
5641 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
5642 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
5643 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
5644 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5645 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5646 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5650 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
5651 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
5656 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
5657 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
5659 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
5661 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
5662 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
5663 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
5665 * Live range splitting
5667 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
5668 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
5669 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
5673 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
5674 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
5678 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
5679 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
5680 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
5685 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
5690 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
5691 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
5692 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
5693 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
5694 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
5695 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
5699 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
5700 the symbol at the specified address.
5704 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
5705 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
5706 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
5707 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
5708 file tracepoint.c for more details.
5712 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
5713 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
5714 of most MIPS variants.
5718 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
5719 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
5720 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
5724 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
5725 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
5726 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
5727 the possible architectures.
5729 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
5731 * New native configurations
5733 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
5734 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
5735 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
5736 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
5737 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5738 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
5742 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
5743 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5744 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
5745 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
5746 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
5748 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5752 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
5753 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
5754 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
5755 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
5756 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
5760 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
5762 * Windows 95/NT native
5764 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
5765 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
5766 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
5767 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
5768 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
5770 * dont-repeat command
5772 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
5773 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
5774 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
5775 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
5777 * Send break instead of ^C
5779 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
5780 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
5781 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
5783 * Remote protocol timeout
5785 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
5786 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
5787 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
5789 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
5791 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
5792 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
5793 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
5794 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
5795 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
5797 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
5798 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
5799 automatically on hpux10.
5801 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
5803 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
5805 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
5807 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
5808 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
5809 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
5810 every character. The default value is 1050.
5812 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
5814 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
5815 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
5816 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
5817 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
5818 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
5819 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
5821 * Speedups for remote debugging
5823 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
5824 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
5825 and more efficient S-record downloading.
5827 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
5829 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
5830 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
5832 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
5834 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
5836 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
5837 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
5839 * Remote targets use caching
5841 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
5842 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
5843 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
5844 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
5845 off' turns the the data cache off.
5847 * Remote targets may have threads
5849 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
5850 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
5851 gdb/remote.c for details.
5855 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
5856 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
5857 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
5858 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
5859 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
5860 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
5861 sequence is something like
5863 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
5865 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
5869 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
5870 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
5871 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
5872 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
5873 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
5874 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
5875 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
5876 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
5880 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
5881 but does simplify configuration and building.
5885 GDB now supports hpux10.
5887 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
5889 * New native configurations
5891 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
5892 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
5893 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
5894 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
5898 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5899 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
5900 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
5901 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
5904 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
5906 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
5907 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
5908 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
5909 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
5910 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
5912 * Arguments to user-defined commands
5914 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
5915 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
5918 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
5920 To execute the command use:
5923 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
5924 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
5925 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
5927 * New `if' and `while' commands
5929 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
5930 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
5931 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
5932 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
5933 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
5934 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
5935 if the expression is zero.
5937 * Fortran source language mode
5939 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
5940 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
5941 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
5942 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
5945 * Better HPUX support
5947 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
5948 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
5949 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
5950 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
5951 that behavior do the following before running the program:
5957 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
5958 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
5964 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
5965 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
5968 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
5969 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
5971 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
5973 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
5974 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
5975 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
5976 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
5977 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
5978 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
5980 * New DOS host serial code
5982 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
5983 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
5986 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
5988 * New "complete" command
5990 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
5991 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
5993 * Trailing space optional in prompt
5995 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
5996 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
5998 * Breakpoint hit counts
6000 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
6001 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
6002 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
6003 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
6004 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
6007 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
6009 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
6010 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
6011 arrays actually contain only short strings.
6013 * Shared library breakpoints
6015 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
6016 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
6018 * Hardware watchpoints
6020 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
6021 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
6023 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
6027 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
6028 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
6030 * Improved Irix 5 support
6032 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
6034 * Improved HPPA support
6036 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6038 * New native configurations
6040 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6041 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6042 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6043 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6047 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6048 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6051 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6053 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6054 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6058 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6059 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6061 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6063 * Irix 5 is now supported
6067 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
6068 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
6069 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
6070 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
6071 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
6074 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
6076 * User visible changes:
6080 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
6081 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
6082 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
6083 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
6084 debugging info for the mips target).
6086 * DEC Alpha native support
6088 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
6089 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
6090 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
6091 Alpha-specific notes.
6093 * Preliminary thread implementation
6095 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
6097 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
6099 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
6100 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
6103 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
6105 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
6106 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
6107 call methods, ...etc.
6109 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
6111 * User visible changes:
6113 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
6114 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
6115 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
6116 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
6118 Filename completion now works.
6120 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
6121 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
6122 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
6124 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
6125 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
6126 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
6127 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
6128 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
6132 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
6133 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
6136 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
6140 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
6141 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
6142 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
6146 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
6147 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
6148 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
6149 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
6150 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
6154 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
6155 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
6156 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
6158 * New targets supported
6160 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6161 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6162 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
6163 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6164 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
6166 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
6167 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
6168 GO32 memory extender.
6170 * New remote protocols
6172 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
6174 * New source languages supported
6176 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
6177 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
6178 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
6181 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
6183 * HP Precision Architecture supported
6185 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
6186 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
6187 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
6188 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
6189 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
6190 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
6192 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
6194 * Faster and better demangling
6196 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
6197 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
6198 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
6199 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
6200 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
6201 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
6204 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
6205 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
6206 compiler does not actually implement.
6208 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
6210 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
6211 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
6212 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
6213 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
6214 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
6215 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
6218 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
6219 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
6221 * Improved configure script
6223 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
6224 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
6225 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
6226 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
6228 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
6229 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
6230 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
6231 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
6232 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
6233 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
6235 * Documentation improvements
6237 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
6238 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
6239 before submitting changes.
6241 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
6242 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
6243 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
6244 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
6245 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
6247 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
6248 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
6249 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
6250 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
6251 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
6252 around this problem.
6256 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
6257 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
6258 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
6261 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
6262 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
6264 * New native hosts supported
6266 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
6267 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
6269 * New targets supported
6271 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
6273 * New file formats supported
6275 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
6276 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
6280 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
6282 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
6283 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
6285 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
6286 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
6287 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
6289 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
6290 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
6292 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
6293 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
6294 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
6297 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
6298 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
6299 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
6300 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
6301 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
6303 * Internal improvements
6305 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
6306 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
6308 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
6309 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
6310 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
6311 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
6312 shared code that handles any of them.
6314 * New command line options
6316 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
6320 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
6321 General Public License.
6323 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
6325 * Host/native/target split
6327 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
6328 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
6329 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
6330 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
6331 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
6333 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
6334 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
6335 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
6336 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
6337 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
6338 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
6339 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
6341 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
6342 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
6343 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
6345 * New hosts supported
6347 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
6348 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6349 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
6351 * New targets supported
6353 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6354 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
6356 * New native hosts supported
6358 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6359 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
6360 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
6362 * New file formats supported
6364 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
6365 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
6366 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
6370 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
6371 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
6372 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
6374 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
6376 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
6377 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
6378 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
6379 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
6383 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
6384 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
6385 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
6387 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
6391 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
6392 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
6395 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
6396 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
6398 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
6399 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
6400 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
6401 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
6402 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
6403 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
6405 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
6406 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
6407 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
6408 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
6412 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
6413 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
6414 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
6415 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
6416 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
6418 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
6419 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
6420 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
6421 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
6425 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
6426 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
6427 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
6428 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
6429 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
6430 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
6431 each instruction being stepped through.
6433 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
6434 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
6436 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
6437 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
6438 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
6439 processor with a serial port.
6443 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
6444 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
6445 supported, and what files each one uses.
6449 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
6450 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
6451 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
6452 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
6454 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
6455 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
6456 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
6457 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
6461 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
6462 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
6463 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
6464 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
6465 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
6466 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
6468 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
6471 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
6473 * Better support for C++ function names
6475 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
6476 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
6477 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
6478 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
6479 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
6481 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
6482 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
6483 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
6484 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
6485 for the list of formats.
6487 * G++ symbol mangling problem
6489 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
6490 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
6491 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
6492 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
6493 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
6494 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
6497 * New 'maintenance' command
6499 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
6500 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
6501 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
6503 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
6504 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
6505 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
6506 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
6507 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
6508 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
6510 The following commands are new:
6512 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
6513 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
6514 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
6516 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
6518 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
6519 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
6520 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
6521 read after argv processing.
6523 * New hosts supported
6525 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
6527 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
6529 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
6530 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
6531 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
6532 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
6533 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
6536 * New targets supported
6538 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6540 * More smarts about finding #include files
6542 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
6543 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
6544 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
6545 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
6546 the one that contains your sources.
6548 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
6549 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
6550 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
6552 * Interesting infernals change
6554 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
6555 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
6556 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
6557 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
6559 * Bug fixes (of course!)
6561 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
6562 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
6563 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
6565 See the ChangeLog for details.
6567 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
6569 * New machines supported (host and target)
6571 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
6573 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
6575 * New malloc package
6577 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
6578 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
6579 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
6580 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
6581 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
6582 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
6586 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
6587 'help info proc' for details.
6589 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
6591 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
6592 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
6595 * File name changes for MS-DOS
6597 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
6598 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
6599 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
6600 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
6601 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
6602 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
6604 * Cross byte order fixes
6606 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
6607 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
6609 * New -mapped and -readnow options
6611 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
6612 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
6613 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
6614 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
6615 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
6616 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
6617 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
6618 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
6619 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
6620 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
6622 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
6623 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
6624 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
6625 slower, but makes future operations faster.
6627 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
6628 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
6629 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
6632 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
6634 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
6635 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
6636 shared across multiple host platforms.
6638 * longjmp() handling
6640 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
6641 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
6642 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
6643 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
6647 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
6648 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
6653 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
6654 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
6655 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
6657 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
6659 * New machines supported (host and target)
6661 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
6663 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
6664 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
6666 * New machines supported (target)
6668 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6672 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
6673 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
6674 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
6676 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
6677 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
6678 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
6679 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
6680 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
6683 * New features for SVR4
6685 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
6686 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
6687 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
6689 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
6690 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
6691 it prints the address mappings of the process.
6693 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
6694 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
6696 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
6698 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
6699 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
6700 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
6701 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
6702 same code linked statically.
6706 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
6707 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
6708 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
6709 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
6710 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
6711 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
6715 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
6716 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
6717 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
6720 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
6722 * New machines supported (host and target)
6724 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
6725 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
6726 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
6728 * Almost SCO Unix support
6730 We had hoped to support:
6731 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
6732 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
6733 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
6734 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
6736 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
6738 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
6739 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
6740 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
6741 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
6746 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
6747 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
6748 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
6752 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
6753 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
6754 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
6756 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
6758 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
6759 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
6760 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
6762 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
6763 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
6764 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
6765 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
6768 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
6769 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
6770 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
6771 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
6774 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
6775 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
6778 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
6779 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
6780 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
6783 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
6785 * Improved configuration
6787 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
6788 Porting BFD is simpler.
6792 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
6793 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
6794 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
6795 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
6799 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
6801 * New host supported (not target)
6803 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
6806 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
6808 * Multiple source language support
6810 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
6811 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
6812 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
6813 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
6814 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
6815 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
6819 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
6820 currently under development at the State University of New York at
6821 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
6822 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
6824 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
6825 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
6826 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
6828 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
6829 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
6833 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
6834 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
6835 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
6836 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
6839 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
6841 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
6842 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
6843 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
6844 examining core files.
6848 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
6851 * New machines supported (host and target)
6853 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
6854 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
6855 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
6857 * New hosts supported (not targets)
6859 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
6861 * New targets supported (not hosts)
6863 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6864 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6865 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
6867 * New remote interfaces
6873 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
6877 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
6879 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
6880 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
6881 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
6882 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
6883 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
6884 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
6885 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
6886 stub on the target system.
6888 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
6890 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
6891 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
6892 object file types such as a.out and coff.
6894 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
6895 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
6898 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
6900 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
6901 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
6903 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
6904 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
6905 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
6907 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
6908 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
6909 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
6910 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
6912 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
6913 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
6914 it is already running. Default is ON.
6916 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
6917 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
6918 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
6919 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
6922 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
6923 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
6924 or the value of the environment variable
6927 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
6928 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
6931 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
6932 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
6933 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
6935 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
6936 history expansion will be performed on
6937 command line input. The default is OFF.
6939 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
6940 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
6941 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
6943 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
6944 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
6945 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
6948 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
6949 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
6950 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
6953 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
6954 ``set width'' instead.
6956 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
6957 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
6958 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
6959 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
6961 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
6964 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
6967 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
6970 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
6973 * Support for Epoch Environment.
6975 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
6976 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
6977 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
6981 * Support for Shared Libraries
6983 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
6984 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
6985 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
6986 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
6987 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
6988 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
6989 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
6990 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
6992 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
6993 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
6994 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
6996 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
7001 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
7002 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
7003 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
7004 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
7005 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
7006 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
7008 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
7010 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
7012 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7013 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7014 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7017 * C++ multiple inheritance
7019 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
7022 * C++ exception handling
7024 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
7025 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
7026 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
7029 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
7030 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
7031 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
7033 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
7034 current stack frame.
7037 * Minor command changes
7039 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7040 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7041 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7043 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7044 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7045 frames without printing.
7047 * New directory command
7049 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7050 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7051 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7052 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7053 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7055 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7057 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7060 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7061 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7062 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
7063 where the program that you are debugging will run.