1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.12
6 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
7 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
8 available in future Intel CPUs.
12 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
14 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
17 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
19 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
21 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
22 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
25 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
27 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
28 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
30 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
32 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
33 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
34 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
35 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
38 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
40 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
41 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
44 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
46 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
47 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
49 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
51 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
56 eval "print $arg%d", $i
61 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
63 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
64 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
66 * New native configurations
68 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
73 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
74 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
79 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
84 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
85 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
87 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
89 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
91 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
92 default. One must now explicitly configure with
93 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
94 option will be removed in a future release.
96 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
99 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
100 memory backward from the given address. For example:
103 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
104 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
105 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
106 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
107 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
108 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
109 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
110 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
111 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
113 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
114 arrays of dynamic types.
116 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
117 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
118 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
119 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
120 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
121 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
123 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
126 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
127 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
128 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
130 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
132 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
133 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
134 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
135 signal received and code location.
139 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
140 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
141 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
142 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
144 * Rust language support.
145 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
146 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
149 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
151 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
152 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
153 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
154 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
155 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
156 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
157 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
158 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
159 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
160 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
163 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
165 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
166 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
171 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
172 skip -function function
173 skip -rfunction regular-expression
174 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
175 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
176 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
178 maint info line-table REGEXP
179 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data struture.
182 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
185 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
186 using the TTY file for input/output.
190 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
191 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
192 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
193 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
194 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
197 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
198 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
199 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
200 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
203 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
204 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
205 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
207 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
210 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
211 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
212 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
213 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
214 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
215 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
217 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
218 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
219 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
220 bytecode into native code.
222 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
223 recording. For example:
225 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
227 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
229 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
233 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
235 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
237 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
239 * Per-inferior thread numbers
241 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
242 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
243 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
247 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
248 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
249 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
250 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
252 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
253 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
254 are no longer unique between inferiors.
256 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
257 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
258 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
260 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
263 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
264 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
267 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
270 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
271 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
272 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
273 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
276 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
279 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
282 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
285 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
286 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
289 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
290 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
292 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
294 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
296 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
297 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
299 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
300 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
303 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
304 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
307 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
308 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
311 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
313 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
314 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
315 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
317 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
318 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
322 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
323 maint show target-non-stop
324 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
325 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
326 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
328 maint set bfd-sharing
329 maint show bfd-sharing
330 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
334 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
338 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
340 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
341 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
342 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
344 set remote thread-events
345 show remote thread-events
346 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
348 set ada print-signatures on|off
349 show ada print-signatures"
350 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
351 selection menus. It is activaled (@code{on}) by default.
355 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
356 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
357 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
359 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
360 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
361 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
362 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
363 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
364 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
366 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
367 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
369 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
370 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
372 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
374 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
375 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
376 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
377 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
378 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
379 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
381 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
382 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
387 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
389 exec-events feature in qSupported
390 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
391 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
392 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
393 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
396 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
399 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
400 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
402 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
403 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
406 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
407 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
408 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
409 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
410 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
411 stop for that same thread.
414 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
415 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
416 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
419 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
420 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
422 syscall_entry stop reason
423 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
425 syscall_return stop reason
426 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
428 * Extended-remote exec events
430 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
431 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
432 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
434 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
435 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
436 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
438 * Thread names in remote protocol
440 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
443 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
445 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
446 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
447 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
448 fork and exec catchpoints.
450 * Remote syscall events
452 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
453 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
455 set remote catch-syscall-packet
456 show remote catch-syscall-packet
457 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
461 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
462 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
467 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
468 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
469 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
470 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
471 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
472 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
474 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
476 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
477 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
478 including advance SIMD instructions.
480 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
482 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
483 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
484 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
485 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
486 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
487 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
488 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
490 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
492 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
494 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
495 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
498 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
499 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
500 and may include things like its command line arguments.
502 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
503 is now available on all platforms.
505 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
506 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
507 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
508 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
509 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
510 backward compatibility.
512 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
513 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
514 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
515 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
517 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
518 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
519 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
520 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
523 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
525 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
527 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
528 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
529 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
530 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
531 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
532 See "New remote packets" below.
534 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
535 available register groups, including target specific groups.
537 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
538 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
539 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
540 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
545 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
549 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
550 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
551 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
552 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
553 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
554 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
555 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
556 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
557 "const" version of the value respectively.
561 maint print symbol-cache
562 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
564 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
565 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
567 maint flush-symbol-cache
568 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
572 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
575 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
579 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
582 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
583 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
587 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
590 Print information about branch tracing internals.
592 maint btrace packet-history
593 Print the raw branch tracing data.
595 maint btrace clear-packet-history
596 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
599 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
600 anew by the next "record" command.
605 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
607 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
610 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
611 show debug dwarf-read
612 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
614 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
615 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
616 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
617 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
619 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
620 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
621 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
622 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
625 show debug dwarf-line
626 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
630 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
631 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
632 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
633 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
635 set history remove-duplicates
636 show history remove-duplicates
637 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
639 maint set symbol-cache-size
640 maint show symbol-cache-size
641 Control the size of the symbol cache.
643 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
644 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
646 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
647 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
649 set debug linux-namespaces
650 show debug linux-namespaces
651 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
653 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
654 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
655 Intel Processor Trace format.
656 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
657 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
659 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
660 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
663 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
664 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
666 * Python/Guile scripting
668 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
669 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
673 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
674 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
676 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
677 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
680 Enable Intel Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
681 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
685 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
689 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
690 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
691 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
695 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
696 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
699 Return information about files on the remote system.
702 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
703 create a process running on the remote system.
706 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
707 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
708 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
709 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
712 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
715 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
717 vforkdone stop reason
718 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
719 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
721 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
722 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
723 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
724 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
725 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
726 whether these features are enabled.
728 * Extended-remote fork events
730 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
731 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
732 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
733 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
735 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
736 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
737 the btrace record target.
738 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
740 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
741 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
743 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
746 * Removed command line options
748 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
750 * Removed targets and native configurations
752 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
753 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
755 * New configure options
758 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
759 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
761 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
762 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
763 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
764 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
766 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
770 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
772 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
774 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
778 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
779 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
780 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
781 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
782 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
783 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
784 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
785 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
786 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
787 selecting a new file to debug.
788 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
789 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
791 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
794 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
795 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
796 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
797 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
799 * New Python-based convenience functions:
801 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
802 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
803 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
804 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
806 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
807 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
808 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
809 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
810 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
811 interface with this new feature are:
813 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
814 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
818 demangle [-l language] [--] name
819 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
820 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
821 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
822 as "maint demangler-warning".
824 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
825 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
827 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
828 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
831 maint print user-registers
832 List all currently available "user" registers.
834 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
835 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
836 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
838 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
839 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
840 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
843 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
844 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
845 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
846 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
849 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
850 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
851 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
852 switched threads meanwhile.
854 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
856 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
857 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
858 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
859 is now the default mode.
863 set debug symbol-lookup
864 show debug symbol-lookup
865 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
869 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
870 inferiors that have exited.
874 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
878 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
880 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
881 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
882 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
883 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
884 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
886 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
887 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
888 its alias "share", instead.
890 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
892 * New command line options
895 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
897 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
898 as specified in ISO C99.
900 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
901 with or without disassembly.
905 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
906 available is determined at configure time.
907 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
908 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
910 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
914 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
918 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
920 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
921 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
923 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
924 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
928 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
929 show print symbol-loading
930 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
931 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
932 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
935 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
936 show guile print-stack
937 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
939 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
940 show auto-load guile-scripts
941 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
943 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
944 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
945 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
946 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
947 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
948 usage of this option.
950 set auto-connect-native-target
952 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
953 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
954 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
956 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
957 show record btrace replay-memory-access
958 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
960 maint set target-async (on|off)
961 maint show target-async
962 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
963 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
964 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
965 occurring only in synchronous mode.
967 set mi-async (on|off)
969 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
970 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
972 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
973 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
975 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
976 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
977 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
978 "set target-async on" command.
980 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
982 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
983 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
984 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
985 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
986 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
988 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
989 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
990 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
992 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
993 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
994 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
995 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
996 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
997 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
998 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
1000 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
1001 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
1003 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
1004 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
1005 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
1007 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
1008 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
1009 memory or registers.
1011 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
1013 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
1014 remote. It now works with all targets.
1016 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
1017 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
1018 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
1019 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
1020 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
1021 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
1022 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
1023 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
1024 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
1027 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
1028 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
1029 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
1031 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
1033 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
1034 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
1035 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
1037 * New remote packets
1039 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
1040 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
1041 branch trace incrementally.
1045 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
1046 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
1048 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
1049 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
1050 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
1051 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
1052 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
1055 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
1057 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1058 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1059 its alias "share", instead.
1061 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
1062 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
1067 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
1068 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
1069 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
1070 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
1071 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
1072 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
1073 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
1074 commands and CLI execution commands.
1076 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
1078 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
1079 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
1080 recording has been added.
1082 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1084 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
1085 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
1087 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
1088 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
1089 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
1090 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
1091 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
1092 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
1095 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
1097 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
1099 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
1100 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
1101 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
1102 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
1107 (gdb) info registers rax
1110 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
1111 "*value not available*".
1113 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
1118 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
1119 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
1120 ** Line tables representation has been added.
1121 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
1122 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
1123 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
1127 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
1128 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
1129 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
1131 * Removed native configurations
1133 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
1134 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
1136 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1137 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1138 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
1139 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
1140 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1141 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1142 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1146 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
1147 maint check-psymtabs
1148 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
1150 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
1151 maint expand-symtabs
1152 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
1155 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1157 maint set|show per-command
1158 maint set|show per-command space
1159 maint set|show per-command time
1160 maint set|show per-command symtab
1161 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
1163 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
1164 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
1165 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
1166 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
1167 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
1170 info exceptions REGEXP
1171 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
1172 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
1177 set debug symfile off|on
1179 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
1180 symbol tables within those files
1182 set print raw frame-arguments
1183 show print raw frame-arguments
1184 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
1185 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
1187 set remote trace-status-packet
1188 show remote trace-status-packet
1189 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
1193 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
1197 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
1199 set startup-with-shell
1200 show startup-with-shell
1201 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
1206 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
1207 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
1209 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
1210 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
1211 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
1212 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
1215 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
1216 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
1217 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
1219 * New command-line options
1221 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1223 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
1224 buffer in Common Trace Format.
1226 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
1229 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
1231 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
1232 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
1234 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
1235 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
1237 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
1238 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
1239 due to an uncaught signal.
1243 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
1244 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
1245 command, which should contain "language-option".
1247 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
1248 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
1250 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
1251 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
1252 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
1253 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
1254 "undefined-command-error-code".
1256 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
1259 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
1261 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
1262 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
1265 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
1266 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
1268 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
1269 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
1270 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
1272 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
1273 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
1274 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
1275 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
1276 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
1277 "exec-run-start-option".
1279 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
1280 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
1282 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
1283 the new "info exceptions" command.
1285 * New system-wide configuration scripts
1286 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
1287 configuration scripts for the following systems:
1291 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
1292 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
1293 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
1296 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
1297 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
1299 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
1300 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
1301 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
1303 * New remote packets
1307 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
1308 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
1309 involvemement at each single-step.
1311 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
1312 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
1313 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
1314 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
1315 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
1316 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
1319 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1321 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
1322 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
1324 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
1325 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
1326 trace state variables.
1328 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
1331 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
1332 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
1334 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
1336 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
1337 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
1338 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
1339 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1341 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
1343 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
1344 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
1345 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
1346 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
1348 set|show record full insn-number-max
1349 set|show record full stop-at-limit
1350 set|show record full memory-query
1352 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
1353 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
1354 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
1355 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
1356 This new recording method can be enabled using:
1360 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
1361 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
1363 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
1364 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
1365 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
1367 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
1368 instruction granularity
1370 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
1371 function granularity
1373 * New native configurations
1375 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
1376 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
1377 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
1378 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
1382 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
1383 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
1384 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
1385 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
1386 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
1388 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
1389 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
1390 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
1391 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
1392 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
1393 --data-directory command-line option.
1395 * New command line options:
1397 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
1398 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
1400 * Removed command line options
1402 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
1405 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
1408 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
1412 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
1414 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
1416 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
1418 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
1420 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
1421 of architecture in the Python API.
1423 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
1424 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
1426 * New Python-based convenience functions:
1428 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
1429 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
1431 ** $_regex(str, regex)
1433 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
1436 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
1437 default for GCC since November 2000.
1439 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
1441 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
1442 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
1444 * New configure options
1446 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
1447 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
1448 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
1449 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
1450 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
1451 options allow the user to override that default.
1452 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
1453 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
1454 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
1456 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1459 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
1460 conditions to be attached.
1463 List the BFDs known to GDB.
1465 python-interactive [command]
1467 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
1468 and print the result of expressions.
1471 "py" is a new alias for "python".
1473 enable type-printer [name]...
1474 disable type-printer [name]...
1475 Enable or disable type printers.
1479 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
1480 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
1485 set print type methods (on|off)
1486 show print type methods
1487 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
1488 The default is to show them.
1490 set print type typedefs (on|off)
1491 show print type typedefs
1492 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
1493 The default is to show them.
1495 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
1496 show filename-display
1497 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
1498 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
1500 set trace-buffer-size
1501 show trace-buffer-size
1502 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
1504 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
1505 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
1506 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
1510 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
1513 set debug coff-pe-read
1514 show debug coff-pe-read
1515 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
1520 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
1523 set debug notification
1524 show debug notification
1525 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
1529 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
1530 "=cmd-param-changed".
1531 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
1532 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
1533 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
1534 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
1535 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
1536 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
1537 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
1538 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
1540 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
1541 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
1542 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
1543 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
1544 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
1545 library load/unload events.
1546 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
1547 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
1548 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
1549 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
1550 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
1551 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
1552 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
1553 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
1555 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
1556 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
1557 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
1558 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
1560 * New remote packets
1563 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
1564 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1567 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
1568 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
1572 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
1573 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1576 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
1577 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1579 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
1581 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
1582 for more x32 ABI info.
1584 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
1586 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
1588 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1589 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
1590 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
1591 "info os files" lists file descriptors
1592 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
1593 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
1594 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
1595 "info os msg" lists message queues
1596 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
1598 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
1599 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
1600 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
1601 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
1602 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
1603 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
1605 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
1606 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
1607 record/replay support.
1609 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
1613 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
1616 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
1618 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
1619 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
1621 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
1623 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
1624 the source at which the symbol was defined.
1626 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
1627 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
1628 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
1631 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
1632 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
1634 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
1635 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
1636 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
1638 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
1639 object associated with a PC value.
1641 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
1642 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
1644 * Go language support.
1645 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
1648 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
1649 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
1651 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
1652 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
1654 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
1655 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
1656 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
1657 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
1658 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
1661 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
1662 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
1663 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
1664 build/libcpp/expr.c.
1666 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
1667 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
1669 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
1670 since December 2007.
1672 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
1673 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
1674 command does. For instance:
1676 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
1678 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
1679 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
1680 created, using the "condition" command.
1682 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
1683 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
1685 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
1687 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
1688 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
1689 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
1690 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
1691 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
1692 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
1693 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
1694 files with older .gdb_index sections.
1696 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
1697 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
1698 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
1699 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
1700 the .gdb_index section.
1702 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
1704 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
1709 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
1711 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
1715 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1716 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1717 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
1719 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
1720 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
1722 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
1725 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
1726 C++ and Java objects.
1728 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
1729 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
1730 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
1731 configured with '--with-python'.
1733 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
1734 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
1735 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
1736 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
1737 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
1738 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
1739 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
1741 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
1742 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
1743 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
1744 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
1746 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
1747 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
1748 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
1749 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
1751 ** "set print symbol"
1753 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
1754 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
1755 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
1757 * Deprecated commands
1759 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
1760 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
1764 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1765 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
1767 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
1768 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
1769 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
1770 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
1775 set mips compression
1776 show mips compression
1777 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
1778 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
1781 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
1783 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
1784 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
1785 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
1786 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
1788 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
1792 Disable auto-loading globally.
1795 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
1797 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
1798 show auto-load gdb-scripts
1799 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
1801 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
1802 show auto-load python-scripts
1803 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
1805 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
1806 show auto-load local-gdbinit
1807 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
1809 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
1810 show auto-load libthread-db
1811 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
1813 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
1814 show auto-load scripts-directory
1815 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
1816 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
1817 of the directories listed by this option.
1818 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1820 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
1821 show auto-load safe-path
1822 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
1823 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1825 set debug auto-load on|off
1826 show debug auto-load
1827 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
1829 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
1831 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
1832 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
1833 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
1834 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
1836 set dprintf-function <expr>
1837 show dprintf-function
1838 set dprintf-channel <expr>
1839 show dprintf-channel
1840 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
1841 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
1843 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
1844 show disconnected-dprintf
1845 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
1846 after GDB disconnects.
1848 * New configure options
1850 --with-auto-load-dir
1851 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
1852 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
1853 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
1854 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
1855 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
1857 --with-auto-load-safe-path
1858 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
1859 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
1861 --without-auto-load-safe-path
1862 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
1865 * New remote packets
1867 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
1869 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
1870 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
1871 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
1872 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
1876 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
1877 program without GDB involvement.
1879 * New command line options
1881 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
1882 before loading inferior.
1883 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
1884 execute it before loading inferior.
1886 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
1888 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
1889 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
1890 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
1891 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
1894 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
1895 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
1897 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
1898 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
1899 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
1900 target hardware watchpoint.
1902 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
1903 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
1904 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
1905 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
1909 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
1910 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
1913 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
1914 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
1915 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
1916 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
1917 now "message", which just prints the error message without
1920 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
1923 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
1924 modules library. This module provides functionality for
1925 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
1926 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
1927 corresponding value.
1929 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
1930 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
1931 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
1934 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
1935 static_block will return the global and static blocks
1936 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
1937 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
1939 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
1941 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
1944 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
1945 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
1946 available in the CLI.
1948 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
1949 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
1950 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
1951 "some_type.items()".
1953 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
1956 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
1957 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
1958 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
1959 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
1960 any anonymous fields.
1964 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
1967 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
1968 "=breakpoint-modified".
1970 ** New command -ada-task-info.
1972 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
1973 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
1974 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
1977 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
1978 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
1979 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
1980 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
1981 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
1983 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
1984 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
1986 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
1987 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
1988 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
1989 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
1990 use this option to specify where to find it.
1992 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1993 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
1994 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
1995 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
1996 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
1997 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1998 section in the user manual for more details.
2000 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
2001 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
2002 become available after that.
2004 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
2006 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
2007 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
2013 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
2014 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
2018 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
2019 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
2020 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
2022 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
2023 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
2024 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
2026 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
2027 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
2028 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
2029 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
2030 name starts with a hyphen.
2032 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
2033 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
2034 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
2035 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
2036 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
2037 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
2038 number of bytes that will be collected.
2041 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
2042 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
2043 setting the variable trace-notes.
2046 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
2047 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
2048 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
2051 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
2052 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
2053 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
2054 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
2055 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
2058 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
2059 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
2060 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
2064 set debug dwarf2-read
2065 show debug dwarf2-read
2066 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
2067 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
2069 set debug symtab-create
2070 show debug symtab-create
2071 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
2072 creation. The default is off.
2075 show extended-prompt
2076 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
2077 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
2078 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
2079 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
2080 prompt is displayed.
2082 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
2083 show print entry-values
2084 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
2085 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
2086 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
2088 set debug entry-values
2089 show debug entry-values
2090 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
2091 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
2093 set basenames-may-differ
2094 show basenames-may-differ
2095 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
2096 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
2097 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
2098 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
2099 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
2100 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
2101 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
2102 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
2108 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
2109 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
2110 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
2111 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
2113 set trace-stop-notes
2114 show trace-stop-notes
2115 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
2116 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
2117 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
2118 started by someone else.
2120 * New remote packets
2124 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2128 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2132 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
2136 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
2140 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
2143 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
2144 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
2148 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
2152 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2154 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
2156 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
2158 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
2160 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
2161 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
2162 matches the given regular expression.
2164 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
2166 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
2167 dumping the instruction opcodes.
2169 * New command line options
2171 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
2172 This is mostly for testing purposes.
2174 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
2175 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
2177 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
2178 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
2179 source path list instead of augmenting it.
2181 * GDB now understands thread names.
2183 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
2184 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
2186 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
2187 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
2190 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
2191 has been integrated into GDB.
2195 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
2196 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
2197 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
2199 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2200 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
2201 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
2202 and allows for more dynamic content.
2204 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
2205 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
2206 have an is_valid method.
2208 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2209 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
2210 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
2212 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
2214 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
2215 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
2216 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
2217 that function like so:
2219 result = some_value (10,20)
2221 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
2222 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
2223 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
2225 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
2226 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
2227 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
2228 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
2229 New function: register_pretty_printer.
2231 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
2232 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
2234 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
2236 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
2239 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
2240 holds the thread's name.
2242 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
2243 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
2244 occurring in the process being debugged.
2245 The following events are currently supported:
2246 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
2247 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
2248 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
2252 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
2253 instantiation. For example, if you have:
2255 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
2257 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
2258 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
2259 was added to GCC 4.5.
2261 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
2262 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
2263 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
2264 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
2265 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
2266 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
2268 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
2269 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
2270 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
2271 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
2272 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
2274 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
2275 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
2276 execution to a label.
2278 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
2279 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
2280 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
2281 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
2283 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
2284 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
2285 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
2288 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
2290 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
2291 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
2292 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
2293 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
2294 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
2295 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
2298 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
2300 While now you see this:
2303 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
2305 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
2308 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
2309 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
2310 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
2311 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
2313 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2314 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
2315 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
2316 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2317 section in the user manual for more details.
2319 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2321 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
2322 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
2324 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
2326 * New native configurations
2328 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
2332 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
2334 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
2335 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
2336 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
2337 in the GDB user manual.
2339 * Guile support was removed.
2341 * New features in the GNU simulator
2343 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
2345 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
2347 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
2349 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
2351 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
2352 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
2353 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
2354 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
2355 was always disabled for such configurations.
2359 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
2361 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
2362 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
2372 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
2373 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
2374 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
2376 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
2378 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
2379 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
2380 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
2381 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
2383 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
2384 mentioned flavors of operators.
2386 ** static const class members
2388 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
2389 class definition has been fixed.
2391 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
2393 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
2394 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
2395 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
2396 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
2397 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
2398 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
2400 * Static tracepoints
2402 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
2403 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
2404 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
2405 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
2406 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
2407 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
2408 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
2409 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
2410 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
2411 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
2412 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
2413 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
2414 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
2415 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
2416 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
2417 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
2418 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
2419 the "New remote packets" section below.
2421 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
2423 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
2424 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
2425 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
2426 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
2430 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
2431 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
2432 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
2433 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
2434 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
2435 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
2436 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
2438 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
2441 * New remote packets
2445 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
2449 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
2450 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
2451 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
2452 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
2453 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
2454 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
2458 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
2462 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
2465 qXfer:statictrace:read
2467 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
2468 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
2469 to gdb's qSupported query.
2473 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
2477 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
2478 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
2480 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
2481 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
2484 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2486 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
2487 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
2488 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
2489 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
2491 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
2492 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
2493 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
2494 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
2495 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
2496 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
2497 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
2499 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
2500 for static tracepoints support.
2502 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
2504 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
2505 it understands register description.
2507 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
2509 * X86 general purpose registers
2511 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
2512 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
2513 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
2514 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
2515 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
2517 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
2518 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
2519 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
2520 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
2521 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
2522 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
2524 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
2525 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
2526 in the specified file.
2528 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
2529 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
2530 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
2531 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
2532 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
2533 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
2534 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
2535 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
2536 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
2537 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
2541 eval template, expressions...
2542 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
2543 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
2545 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
2546 show target-file-system-kind
2547 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
2550 save breakpoints <filename>
2551 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
2552 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
2553 definitions, use the `source' command.
2555 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
2558 info static-tracepoint-markers
2559 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
2561 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
2562 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
2563 function, line, address, or marker ID.
2567 Enable and disable observer mode.
2569 set may-write-registers on|off
2570 set may-write-memory on|off
2571 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
2572 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
2573 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
2574 set may-interrupt on|off
2575 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
2576 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
2577 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
2578 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
2579 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
2580 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
2581 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
2583 set record memory-query on|off
2584 show record memory-query
2585 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
2586 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
2591 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
2595 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
2596 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
2597 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
2598 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
2599 GDB using Python' in the manual.
2601 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
2602 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
2603 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
2604 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
2606 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
2607 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
2609 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
2611 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
2613 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
2615 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
2616 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
2617 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
2619 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
2620 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
2621 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
2622 regular breakpoints.
2626 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
2628 * D language support.
2629 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
2632 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
2633 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
2634 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
2635 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
2636 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
2638 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
2639 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
2640 conditions of the form:
2642 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
2644 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
2645 interface mentioned above.
2647 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
2651 ** Namespace Support
2653 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
2654 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
2655 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
2656 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
2657 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
2661 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
2662 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
2667 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
2668 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
2672 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
2677 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
2680 * Multi-program debugging.
2682 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
2683 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
2684 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
2685 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
2686 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
2687 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
2688 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
2689 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
2691 * New tracing features
2693 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
2695 ** Trace state variables
2697 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
2698 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
2699 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
2700 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
2701 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
2702 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
2703 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
2704 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
2705 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
2706 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
2710 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
2711 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
2712 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
2713 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
2714 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
2715 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
2716 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
2717 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
2718 the regular trace command.
2720 ** Disconnected tracing
2722 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
2723 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
2724 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
2725 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
2726 connection is lost unexpectedly.
2730 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
2731 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
2732 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
2733 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
2734 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
2735 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
2738 ** Circular trace buffer
2740 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
2741 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
2742 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
2743 not be available for all target agents.
2748 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
2749 the arguments to be comma-separated.
2752 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
2753 which only declare a variable are not shown.
2756 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
2757 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
2760 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
2761 "set script-extension" (see below).
2763 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2765 record save [<FILENAME>]
2766 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
2767 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
2769 record restore <FILENAME>
2770 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
2771 earlier time, for replay debugging.
2773 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
2776 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
2777 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
2778 inferior has loaded.
2783 maint info program-spaces
2784 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
2786 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
2787 show remote interrupt-sequence
2788 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
2789 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
2790 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
2791 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
2792 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
2794 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
2795 show remote interrupt-on-connect
2796 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
2797 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
2800 set remotebreak [on | off]
2802 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
2804 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
2805 Create or modify a trace state variable.
2808 List trace state variables and their values.
2810 delete tvariable $NAME ...
2811 Delete one or more trace state variables.
2814 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
2815 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
2817 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
2818 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
2820 * New expression syntax
2822 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
2823 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
2827 set follow-exec-mode new|same
2828 show follow-exec-mode
2829 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
2830 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
2831 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
2833 set default-collect EXPR, ...
2834 show default-collect
2835 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
2836 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
2837 such as registers or a critical global variable.
2839 set disconnected-tracing
2840 show disconnected-tracing
2841 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
2842 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
2845 set circular-trace-buffer
2846 show circular-trace-buffer
2847 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
2848 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
2849 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
2850 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
2852 set script-extension off|soft|strict
2853 show script-extension
2854 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
2855 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
2856 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
2857 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
2859 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
2861 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
2862 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
2863 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
2864 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
2865 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
2866 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
2867 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
2870 * Python API Improvements
2872 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
2873 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
2874 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
2876 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
2877 `is_base_class' attribute.
2879 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
2881 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
2882 evaluate an expression.
2884 * New remote packets
2887 Define a trace state variable.
2890 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
2893 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
2896 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
2899 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
2903 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
2905 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
2906 much more reliable. In particular:
2907 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
2908 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
2909 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
2910 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
2911 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
2912 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
2913 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
2914 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
2915 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
2916 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
2917 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
2918 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
2919 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
2920 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
2921 non-threaded programs.
2923 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
2924 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
2925 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
2928 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
2930 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
2931 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
2932 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
2933 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
2934 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
2936 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
2937 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
2938 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
2939 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
2940 for tracepoint actions.
2942 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
2943 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
2944 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
2946 * Process record and replay
2948 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
2949 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
2950 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
2953 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
2954 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
2955 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
2958 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
2959 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
2962 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
2963 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
2964 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
2965 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
2966 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
2967 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
2968 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
2969 the installation instructions for more information.
2971 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
2972 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
2973 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
2974 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
2976 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
2977 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
2979 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
2980 now complete on file names.
2982 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
2983 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
2984 For instance, consider:
2986 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
2987 # struct example variable;
2990 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
2991 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
2993 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
2994 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
2996 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
2997 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
3000 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
3001 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
3002 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
3004 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
3005 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
3006 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
3007 and simulator targets may also provide them.
3009 * New remote packets
3012 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3015 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
3016 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
3017 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
3020 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
3021 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
3024 Obtains additional operating system information
3028 Read or write additional signal information.
3030 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
3032 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
3033 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
3034 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
3036 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
3037 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
3039 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
3040 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
3041 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
3043 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
3044 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
3046 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
3048 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
3050 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
3051 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
3053 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
3054 list of section offsets.
3056 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
3057 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
3058 have also been fixed.
3060 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
3061 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
3062 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
3064 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
3067 template<typename T> class C { };
3070 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
3072 ptype C<char const *>
3073 ptype C<char const*>
3074 ptype C<const char *>
3075 ptype C<const char*>
3077 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
3079 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
3080 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3082 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
3083 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3084 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
3086 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
3087 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
3089 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
3092 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
3093 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3095 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
3096 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
3101 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
3102 available is determined at configure time.
3104 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
3106 * Ada tasking support
3108 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
3112 Print the list of Ada tasks.
3114 Print detailed information about task number N.
3116 Print the task number of the current task.
3118 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
3120 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
3121 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
3123 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
3125 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
3126 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
3127 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
3128 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
3129 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
3130 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
3133 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
3134 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
3137 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
3138 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
3139 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
3140 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
3143 * Multi-architecture debugging.
3145 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
3146 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
3147 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
3148 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
3149 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
3151 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
3152 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
3153 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
3154 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
3155 --enable-targets configure option.
3157 * Non-stop mode debugging.
3159 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
3160 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
3161 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
3162 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
3163 section in the user manual for more information.
3165 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
3166 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
3167 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
3168 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
3169 extensions on linux targets.
3171 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3173 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
3174 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
3175 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
3176 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
3177 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
3178 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
3179 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
3180 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
3181 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
3183 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
3185 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3187 maint set python print-stack
3188 maint show python print-stack
3189 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
3192 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
3197 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
3201 Show operating system information about processes.
3204 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
3207 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
3210 Detach from inferior number NUM.
3213 Kill inferior number NUM.
3217 set spu stop-on-load
3218 show spu stop-on-load
3219 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3221 set spu auto-flush-cache
3222 show spu auto-flush-cache
3223 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
3224 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3226 set sh calling-convention
3227 show sh calling-convention
3228 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
3231 show debug timestamp
3232 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
3234 set disassemble-next-line
3235 show disassemble-next-line
3236 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
3239 set remote noack-packet
3240 show remote noack-packet
3241 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
3242 under "New remote packets."
3244 set remote query-attached-packet
3245 show remote query-attached-packet
3246 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
3248 set remote read-siginfo-object
3249 show remote read-siginfo-object
3250 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
3253 set remote write-siginfo-object
3254 show remote write-siginfo-object
3255 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
3258 set remote reverse-continue
3259 show remote reverse-continue
3260 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
3262 set remote reverse-step
3263 show remote reverse-step
3264 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
3266 set displaced-stepping
3267 show displaced-stepping
3268 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
3269 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
3270 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
3273 show debug displaced
3274 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
3276 maint set internal-error
3277 maint show internal-error
3278 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
3280 maint set internal-warning
3281 maint show internal-warning
3282 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
3287 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3289 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
3290 show multiple-symbols
3291 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
3292 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
3293 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
3295 set breakpoint always-inserted
3296 show breakpoint always-inserted
3297 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
3298 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
3299 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
3301 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
3302 show arm fallback-mode
3303 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
3305 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
3306 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
3307 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
3308 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
3310 set disable-randomization
3311 show disable-randomization
3312 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
3313 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
3314 multiple debugging sessions.
3318 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
3323 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
3324 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
3325 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
3326 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
3328 set target-wide-charset
3329 show target-wide-charset
3330 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
3331 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
3333 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
3335 set tcp connect-timeout
3336 show tcp connect-timeout
3337 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
3338 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
3339 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
3341 set libthread-db-search-path
3342 show libthread-db-search-path
3343 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
3346 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
3347 show schedule-multiple
3348 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
3349 the current process.
3353 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
3354 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
3355 affecting correctness.
3357 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
3358 show interactive-mode
3359 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
3360 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
3361 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
3362 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
3363 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
3368 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
3369 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
3370 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
3374 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
3375 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
3376 alias for the `fork' command.
3379 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
3380 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
3381 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
3384 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
3385 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
3386 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
3390 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
3391 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
3392 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
3395 * New native configurations
3397 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
3399 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
3403 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
3404 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
3405 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
3408 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
3409 (mingw32ce) debugging.
3415 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
3417 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
3419 * New native configurations
3421 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
3422 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
3426 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
3427 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
3429 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3431 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
3432 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
3433 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
3434 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
3436 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
3437 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
3439 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
3442 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
3443 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
3444 and in inlined functions.
3446 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
3447 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
3448 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
3450 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
3452 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
3453 registers on PowerPC targets.
3455 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
3456 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
3458 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
3459 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
3461 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
3462 extended-remote mode.
3464 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
3465 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
3466 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
3467 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
3469 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
3470 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
3471 target architectures.
3473 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
3474 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
3475 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
3476 stored in two consecutive float registers.
3478 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
3481 * Improved support for debugging Ada
3482 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
3484 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
3485 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
3486 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
3487 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
3489 - Improved command completion in Ada
3492 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
3497 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
3498 show print frame-arguments
3499 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
3500 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
3505 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
3512 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
3514 * New remote packets
3521 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
3524 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
3528 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
3530 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
3532 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
3533 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
3534 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
3536 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
3537 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
3538 -Bsymbolic linker option.
3540 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
3541 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
3544 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
3545 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
3547 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
3548 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
3550 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
3552 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
3553 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
3554 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
3556 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
3557 automatically displayed as character or string data.
3559 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
3560 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
3563 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
3564 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
3565 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
3567 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
3570 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
3571 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
3572 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
3574 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
3576 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
3578 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
3579 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
3580 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
3582 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
3583 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
3585 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
3586 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
3587 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
3588 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
3589 Windows and SymbianOS).
3591 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
3592 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
3594 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
3595 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
3601 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
3602 when debugging using remote targets.
3604 set mem inaccessible-by-default
3605 show mem inaccessible-by-default
3606 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
3607 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
3608 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
3609 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
3610 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
3612 set breakpoint auto-hw
3613 show breakpoint auto-hw
3614 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
3615 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
3616 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
3617 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
3618 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
3619 including "next" and "finish".
3622 catch exception unhandled
3623 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
3626 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
3630 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
3631 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
3632 an alias to "set sysroot".
3635 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
3636 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
3639 * New native configurations
3641 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
3644 unset tdesc filename
3646 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
3647 not query the target for its built-in description.
3651 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
3652 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
3653 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
3655 * New remote packets
3658 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
3659 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
3661 qXfer:features:read:
3662 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
3667 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
3668 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
3670 qXfer:libraries:read:
3671 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
3672 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
3673 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
3674 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
3678 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
3686 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
3687 i[34567]86-*-netware*
3688 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
3689 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
3691 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
3694 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
3695 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
3704 * Other removed features
3711 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
3718 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
3723 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
3724 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
3729 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
3730 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
3732 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
3734 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
3735 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
3736 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
3737 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
3739 MIPS ".pdr" sections
3741 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
3742 in debugging information.
3746 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
3747 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
3749 set mips stack-arg-size
3750 set mips saved-gpreg-size
3752 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
3754 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
3759 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
3761 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
3762 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
3763 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
3765 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
3766 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
3769 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
3770 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
3772 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
3773 stub provides the required support.
3775 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
3776 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
3781 unset substitute-path
3782 show substitute-path
3783 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
3784 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
3785 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
3786 between compilation and debugging.
3790 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
3791 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
3792 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
3796 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
3798 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
3799 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
3801 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
3803 * New remote packets
3806 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
3807 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
3808 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
3809 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
3813 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
3814 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
3816 qXfer:memory-map:read:
3817 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
3818 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
3823 Erase and program a flash memory device.
3825 * Removed remote packets
3828 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
3829 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
3831 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
3835 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
3837 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3841 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
3842 only if it doesn't already have a value.
3844 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
3846 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
3848 restart <n> Return the program state to a
3849 previously saved state.
3851 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
3853 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
3855 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
3856 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
3858 info forks List forks of the user program that
3859 are available to be debugged.
3861 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
3862 forks of the user program that are
3863 available to be debugged.
3865 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3866 that are available to be debugged (and
3867 kill the forked process).
3869 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3870 that are available to be debugged (and
3871 allow the process to continue).
3875 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
3877 * Improved Windows host support
3879 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
3880 native console support, and remote communications using either
3881 network sockets or serial ports.
3883 * Improved Modula-2 language support
3885 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
3886 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
3887 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
3888 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
3889 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
3890 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
3894 The ARM rdi-share module.
3896 The Netware NLM debug server.
3898 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
3900 * New native configurations
3902 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
3903 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
3907 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3909 * New command line options
3911 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
3912 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
3913 the child (debugged) program exited with.
3914 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
3915 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
3916 specified multiple times and in conjunction
3917 with the --command (-x) option.
3919 * Deprecated commands removed
3921 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
3925 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
3926 othernames set arm disassembler
3927 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
3928 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
3929 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
3932 * New BSD user-level threads support
3934 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
3935 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
3938 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3939 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
3940 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
3942 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
3943 are not yet supported.
3945 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
3946 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
3948 * REMOVED configurations and files
3950 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
3951 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3952 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
3954 * New "set print array-indexes" command
3956 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
3957 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
3960 * VAX floating point support
3962 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
3964 * User-defined command support
3966 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
3967 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
3968 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
3970 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
3972 * New command line option
3974 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
3977 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
3979 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
3980 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
3981 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
3982 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
3983 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
3985 * Internationalization
3987 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
3988 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
3989 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
3993 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
3994 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
3995 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
3997 * New native configurations
3999 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
4003 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
4004 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
4006 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
4008 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4009 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
4010 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
4013 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
4014 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
4015 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
4025 powerpc bdm protocol
4027 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4028 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
4030 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4032 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4033 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4034 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4035 permanently REMOVED.
4044 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
4046 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
4048 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
4049 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
4052 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
4054 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
4055 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
4056 IRIX long double values).
4060 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
4061 command. This problem has been fixed.
4063 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
4065 * Fix for ``many threads''
4067 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
4068 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
4071 ptrace: No such process.
4072 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
4074 This problem has been fixed.
4076 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
4078 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
4081 * New ``start'' command.
4083 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
4085 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
4087 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
4088 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
4089 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
4091 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4092 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
4093 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
4094 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
4095 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
4096 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4097 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
4098 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
4099 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4101 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
4103 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
4104 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
4105 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
4106 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
4107 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
4109 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
4110 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
4111 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
4113 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
4115 * New native configurations
4117 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
4118 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
4119 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
4120 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
4121 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
4122 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
4123 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
4125 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
4127 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4128 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
4129 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
4130 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
4131 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
4132 work, was also included.
4134 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
4135 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
4145 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4146 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
4148 * REMOVED configurations and files
4150 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
4151 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
4152 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
4153 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
4154 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
4155 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
4156 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
4157 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
4158 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
4159 sonymips mips-sony-*
4160 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
4162 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
4164 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
4166 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
4167 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
4168 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
4169 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
4172 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
4174 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
4175 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
4176 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
4177 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
4178 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
4179 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
4182 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
4184 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
4186 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
4187 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
4188 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
4190 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
4192 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
4193 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
4195 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
4197 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
4198 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
4199 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
4201 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
4203 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
4204 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
4206 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
4208 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
4209 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
4210 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
4212 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
4214 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
4215 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
4216 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
4218 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
4220 * Removed --with-mmalloc
4222 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
4223 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
4225 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
4227 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
4228 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
4229 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
4230 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
4232 * Revised SPARC target
4234 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
4235 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
4236 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
4237 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
4238 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
4242 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
4243 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
4244 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
4247 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
4249 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
4250 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
4253 * C++ nested types and namespaces
4255 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
4256 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
4257 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
4258 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
4259 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
4260 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
4261 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
4262 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
4263 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
4265 * New native configurations
4267 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
4268 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4269 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
4270 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4271 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
4273 * New debugging protocols
4275 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
4277 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
4279 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
4280 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
4281 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
4283 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4285 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4286 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4287 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4288 permanently REMOVED.
4290 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
4291 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
4292 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
4293 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
4294 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
4295 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
4296 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
4297 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
4298 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
4299 sonymips mips-sony-*
4300 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
4302 * REMOVED configurations and files
4304 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4305 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4306 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4307 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4308 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4309 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
4310 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4311 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
4312 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
4313 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4314 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
4315 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
4316 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
4317 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
4318 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4319 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4320 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4322 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
4326 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
4327 integrated into GDB.
4329 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
4331 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
4332 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
4333 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
4336 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
4337 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
4338 DWARF 2 CFI support.
4342 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
4343 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
4344 remote protocol documentation for details.
4346 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
4348 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
4349 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
4350 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
4353 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
4355 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
4356 per-thread variables.
4358 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
4360 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
4361 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
4363 * Separate debug info.
4365 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
4366 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
4367 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
4368 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
4369 and optional debug files.
4371 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
4373 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
4374 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
4377 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
4378 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
4382 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
4383 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
4384 considered "useable".
4386 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
4388 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
4389 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
4392 * GDB supports logging output to a file
4394 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
4395 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
4397 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
4399 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
4400 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
4403 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
4405 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
4406 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
4410 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
4411 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
4412 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
4413 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
4414 data, for more informative profiling results.
4416 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
4418 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
4419 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
4420 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
4422 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
4425 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
4426 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
4427 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
4428 in a subsequent -var-update.
4430 * New native configurations.
4432 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4434 * Multi-arched targets.
4436 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
4437 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4439 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4441 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4442 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4443 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4444 permanently REMOVED.
4446 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4447 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4448 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4449 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
4450 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4451 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
4452 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
4453 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
4454 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
4455 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
4456 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4457 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4459 * REMOVED configurations and files
4462 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4463 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
4464 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
4465 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
4466 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
4467 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
4469 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4470 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4471 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4472 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4473 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4474 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4476 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
4478 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
4479 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
4480 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
4481 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
4482 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
4484 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
4486 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
4488 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
4489 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
4490 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
4491 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
4492 shared libs like mad''.
4494 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
4496 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
4497 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
4498 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
4499 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
4501 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
4503 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
4504 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
4507 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
4508 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
4510 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
4511 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
4513 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
4514 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
4515 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
4516 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
4518 * Multi-arched targets.
4520 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
4521 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
4523 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
4524 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
4525 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4529 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
4532 * New native configurations
4534 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
4535 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
4536 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
4537 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
4539 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4541 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4542 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4543 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4544 permanently REMOVED.
4546 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4547 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4548 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
4549 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4550 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4551 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4552 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
4553 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
4554 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
4555 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
4557 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4558 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4560 * OBSOLETE languages
4562 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
4564 * REMOVED configurations and files
4566 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
4567 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4568 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4569 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4570 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4572 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
4574 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
4576 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
4577 commands. The default is 1024.
4579 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
4581 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
4583 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
4585 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
4586 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
4587 from a file into memory (restore).
4589 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
4591 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
4592 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
4593 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
4595 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
4603 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
4604 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
4605 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
4607 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
4608 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
4609 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
4611 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
4612 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
4613 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
4615 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
4616 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
4617 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
4619 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
4621 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
4623 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
4624 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
4625 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
4626 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
4627 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
4628 (notably embedded) targets.
4630 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
4632 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
4633 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
4634 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
4635 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
4637 * New command line option
4639 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
4641 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4643 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
4644 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
4645 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
4646 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
4647 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
4648 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
4649 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
4650 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
4651 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
4652 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
4654 * Changes in ARM configurations.
4656 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
4657 configuration is fully multi-arch.
4659 * New native configurations
4661 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
4662 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
4663 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
4664 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
4668 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
4670 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4672 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4673 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4674 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4675 permanently REMOVED.
4677 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
4678 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4679 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4680 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4681 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4683 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
4685 * REMOVED configurations and files
4687 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4689 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4690 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4691 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
4692 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
4693 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4694 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
4695 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
4696 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
4697 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4698 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
4699 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
4701 * Changes to command line processing
4703 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
4704 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
4706 * Changes to key bindings
4708 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
4710 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
4712 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
4714 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
4717 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
4719 Numerous documentation fixes.
4721 Numerous testsuite fixes.
4723 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
4725 * New native configurations
4727 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
4728 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
4729 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
4730 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4731 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
4732 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
4736 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
4738 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
4740 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4742 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
4743 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
4744 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4745 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
4746 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4748 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
4749 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4750 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4751 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
4752 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
4753 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4754 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
4755 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
4757 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
4758 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
4760 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4761 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4762 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4763 permanently REMOVED.
4765 * REMOVED configurations and files
4767 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4768 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4770 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4774 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
4776 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
4777 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
4782 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
4784 * The MI enabled by default.
4786 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
4787 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
4788 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
4789 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
4790 which is now deprecated.
4792 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
4794 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
4795 main features are supported:
4797 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
4799 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
4802 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
4804 - a Pascal expression parser.
4806 However, some important features are not yet supported.
4808 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
4810 - there are some problems with boolean types;
4812 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
4813 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
4815 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
4817 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
4819 * Changes in completion.
4821 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
4822 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
4823 users expect at the shell prompt.
4825 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
4826 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
4827 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
4828 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
4829 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
4830 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
4831 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
4833 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
4835 * New platform-independent commands:
4837 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
4838 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
4839 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
4841 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
4843 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
4844 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
4845 many threads as your system allows you to have.
4847 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
4849 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
4850 multi-threaded programs though.
4852 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
4854 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
4856 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
4857 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
4860 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
4862 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
4863 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
4864 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
4865 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
4866 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
4869 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
4870 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
4871 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
4873 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
4875 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
4876 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
4878 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
4879 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
4882 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
4883 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
4884 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
4885 a given linear address.
4887 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
4888 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
4889 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
4891 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
4893 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
4895 * Changes in documentation.
4897 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
4898 Documentation License.
4900 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4903 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
4905 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4908 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
4909 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
4910 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
4912 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
4914 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
4915 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
4916 contents of this file.
4920 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
4922 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
4924 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
4926 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
4927 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
4928 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
4929 greater level of detail.
4931 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
4933 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
4934 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
4935 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
4938 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
4940 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
4941 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
4942 machines ``out of the box''.
4944 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
4945 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
4946 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
4947 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
4948 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
4950 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
4951 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
4952 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
4953 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
4954 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
4956 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
4957 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
4960 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
4963 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
4964 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
4965 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
4966 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
4968 * New native configurations
4970 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
4971 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4975 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
4976 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
4977 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
4978 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4980 * OBSOLETE configurations
4982 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4983 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4985 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4988 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4989 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4990 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4991 be permanently REMOVED.
4993 * Gould support removed
4995 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
4997 * New features for SVR4
4999 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
5000 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
5001 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
5003 * Many C++ enhancements
5005 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
5006 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
5008 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
5010 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
5011 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
5012 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
5013 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
5015 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
5016 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
5018 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
5020 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
5021 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
5022 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
5024 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
5025 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
5027 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
5029 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
5030 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
5031 include ``set remote P-packet''.
5033 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
5035 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
5036 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
5037 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
5039 * ``apropos'' command added.
5041 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
5042 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
5043 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
5047 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
5048 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
5049 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
5050 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
5051 enabled by configuring with:
5053 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
5055 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
5057 * New native configurations
5059 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
5060 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
5061 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
5065 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5066 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
5067 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5069 * OBSOLETE configurations
5071 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
5073 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5074 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5075 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5076 be permanently REMOVED.
5080 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
5081 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
5082 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
5083 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
5084 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
5085 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
5086 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
5091 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
5093 * set extension-language
5095 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
5096 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
5097 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
5098 set extension-language .c c++
5099 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
5100 and their associated languages.
5102 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
5104 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
5105 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
5106 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
5110 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
5111 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
5113 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
5114 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
5116 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
5117 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
5118 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
5119 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
5120 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
5121 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
5122 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
5123 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
5125 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
5126 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
5127 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
5128 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
5132 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
5133 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
5134 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
5135 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
5136 for xdb and dbx commands.
5140 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
5141 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
5142 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
5144 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
5145 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
5146 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
5148 * Debugging across forks
5150 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
5155 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
5156 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
5157 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
5159 * GDB remote protocol additions
5161 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
5162 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
5163 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
5164 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
5166 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
5167 full 64-bit address. The command
5169 set remoteaddresssize 32
5171 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
5172 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
5175 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
5176 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
5178 maint packet heythere
5180 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
5181 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
5184 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
5185 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
5186 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
5188 * Tracing can collect general expressions
5190 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
5191 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
5192 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
5194 * mask-address variable for Mips
5196 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
5197 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
5198 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
5200 * Higher serial baud rates
5202 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
5203 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
5204 to achieve all of these rates.)
5208 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
5209 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
5212 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
5214 * New native configurations
5216 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
5217 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
5218 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5219 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5220 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5221 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
5222 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
5226 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5227 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
5228 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5229 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
5230 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
5231 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
5232 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
5233 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
5234 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5235 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5236 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
5238 * New debugging protocols
5240 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
5241 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
5242 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
5243 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5244 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5245 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5249 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
5250 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
5255 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
5256 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
5258 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
5260 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
5261 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
5262 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
5264 * Live range splitting
5266 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
5267 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
5268 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
5272 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
5273 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
5277 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
5278 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
5279 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
5284 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
5289 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
5290 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
5291 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
5292 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
5293 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
5294 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
5298 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
5299 the symbol at the specified address.
5303 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
5304 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
5305 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
5306 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
5307 file tracepoint.c for more details.
5311 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
5312 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
5313 of most MIPS variants.
5317 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
5318 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
5319 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
5323 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
5324 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
5325 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
5326 the possible architectures.
5328 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
5330 * New native configurations
5332 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
5333 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
5334 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
5335 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
5336 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5337 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
5341 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
5342 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5343 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
5344 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
5345 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
5347 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5351 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
5352 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
5353 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
5354 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
5355 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
5359 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
5361 * Windows 95/NT native
5363 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
5364 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
5365 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
5366 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
5367 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
5369 * dont-repeat command
5371 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
5372 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
5373 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
5374 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
5376 * Send break instead of ^C
5378 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
5379 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
5380 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
5382 * Remote protocol timeout
5384 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
5385 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
5386 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
5388 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
5390 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
5391 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
5392 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
5393 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
5394 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
5396 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
5397 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
5398 automatically on hpux10.
5400 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
5402 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
5404 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
5406 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
5407 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
5408 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
5409 every character. The default value is 1050.
5411 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
5413 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
5414 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
5415 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
5416 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
5417 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
5418 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
5420 * Speedups for remote debugging
5422 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
5423 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
5424 and more efficient S-record downloading.
5426 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
5428 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
5429 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
5431 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
5433 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
5435 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
5436 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
5438 * Remote targets use caching
5440 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
5441 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
5442 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
5443 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
5444 off' turns the the data cache off.
5446 * Remote targets may have threads
5448 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
5449 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
5450 gdb/remote.c for details.
5454 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
5455 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
5456 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
5457 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
5458 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
5459 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
5460 sequence is something like
5462 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
5464 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
5468 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
5469 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
5470 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
5471 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
5472 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
5473 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
5474 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
5475 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
5479 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
5480 but does simplify configuration and building.
5484 GDB now supports hpux10.
5486 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
5488 * New native configurations
5490 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
5491 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
5492 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
5493 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
5497 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5498 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
5499 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
5500 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
5503 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
5505 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
5506 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
5507 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
5508 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
5509 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
5511 * Arguments to user-defined commands
5513 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
5514 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
5517 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
5519 To execute the command use:
5522 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
5523 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
5524 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
5526 * New `if' and `while' commands
5528 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
5529 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
5530 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
5531 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
5532 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
5533 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
5534 if the expression is zero.
5536 * Fortran source language mode
5538 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
5539 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
5540 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
5541 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
5544 * Better HPUX support
5546 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
5547 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
5548 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
5549 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
5550 that behavior do the following before running the program:
5556 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
5557 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
5563 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
5564 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
5567 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
5568 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
5570 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
5572 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
5573 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
5574 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
5575 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
5576 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
5577 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
5579 * New DOS host serial code
5581 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
5582 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
5585 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
5587 * New "complete" command
5589 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
5590 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
5592 * Trailing space optional in prompt
5594 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
5595 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
5597 * Breakpoint hit counts
5599 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
5600 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
5601 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
5602 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
5603 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
5606 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
5608 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
5609 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
5610 arrays actually contain only short strings.
5612 * Shared library breakpoints
5614 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
5615 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
5617 * Hardware watchpoints
5619 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
5620 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
5622 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
5626 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
5627 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
5629 * Improved Irix 5 support
5631 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
5633 * Improved HPPA support
5635 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
5637 * New native configurations
5639 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
5640 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5641 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
5642 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
5646 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5647 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
5650 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
5652 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
5653 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
5657 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
5658 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
5660 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
5662 * Irix 5 is now supported
5666 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
5667 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
5668 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
5669 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
5670 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
5673 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
5675 * User visible changes:
5679 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
5680 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
5681 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
5682 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
5683 debugging info for the mips target).
5685 * DEC Alpha native support
5687 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
5688 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
5689 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
5690 Alpha-specific notes.
5692 * Preliminary thread implementation
5694 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
5696 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
5698 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
5699 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
5702 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
5704 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
5705 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
5706 call methods, ...etc.
5708 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
5710 * User visible changes:
5712 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
5713 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
5714 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
5715 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
5717 Filename completion now works.
5719 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
5720 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
5721 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
5723 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
5724 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
5725 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
5726 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
5727 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
5731 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
5732 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
5735 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
5739 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
5740 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
5741 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
5745 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
5746 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
5747 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
5748 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
5749 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
5753 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
5754 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
5755 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
5757 * New targets supported
5759 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5760 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5761 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
5762 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5763 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
5765 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
5766 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
5767 GO32 memory extender.
5769 * New remote protocols
5771 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
5773 * New source languages supported
5775 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
5776 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
5777 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
5780 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
5782 * HP Precision Architecture supported
5784 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
5785 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
5786 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
5787 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
5788 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
5789 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
5791 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
5793 * Faster and better demangling
5795 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
5796 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
5797 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
5798 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
5799 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
5800 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
5803 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
5804 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
5805 compiler does not actually implement.
5807 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
5809 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
5810 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
5811 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
5812 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
5813 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
5814 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
5817 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
5818 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
5820 * Improved configure script
5822 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
5823 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
5824 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
5825 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
5827 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
5828 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
5829 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
5830 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
5831 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
5832 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
5834 * Documentation improvements
5836 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
5837 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
5838 before submitting changes.
5840 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
5841 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
5842 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
5843 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
5844 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
5846 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
5847 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
5848 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
5849 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
5850 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
5851 around this problem.
5855 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
5856 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
5857 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
5860 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
5861 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
5863 * New native hosts supported
5865 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
5866 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
5868 * New targets supported
5870 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
5872 * New file formats supported
5874 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
5875 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
5879 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
5881 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
5882 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
5884 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
5885 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
5886 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
5888 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
5889 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
5891 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
5892 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
5893 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
5896 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
5897 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
5898 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
5899 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
5900 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
5902 * Internal improvements
5904 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
5905 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
5907 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
5908 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
5909 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
5910 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
5911 shared code that handles any of them.
5913 * New command line options
5915 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
5919 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
5920 General Public License.
5922 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
5924 * Host/native/target split
5926 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
5927 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
5928 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
5929 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
5930 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
5932 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
5933 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
5934 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
5935 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
5936 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
5937 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
5938 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
5940 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
5941 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
5942 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
5944 * New hosts supported
5946 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
5947 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5948 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
5950 * New targets supported
5952 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5953 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
5955 * New native hosts supported
5957 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5958 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
5959 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
5961 * New file formats supported
5963 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
5964 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
5965 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
5969 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
5970 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
5971 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
5973 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
5975 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
5976 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
5977 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
5978 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
5982 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
5983 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
5984 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
5986 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
5990 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
5991 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
5994 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
5995 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
5997 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
5998 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
5999 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
6000 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
6001 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
6002 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
6004 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
6005 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
6006 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
6007 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
6011 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
6012 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
6013 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
6014 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
6015 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
6017 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
6018 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
6019 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
6020 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
6024 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
6025 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
6026 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
6027 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
6028 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
6029 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
6030 each instruction being stepped through.
6032 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
6033 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
6035 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
6036 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
6037 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
6038 processor with a serial port.
6042 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
6043 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
6044 supported, and what files each one uses.
6048 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
6049 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
6050 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
6051 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
6053 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
6054 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
6055 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
6056 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
6060 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
6061 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
6062 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
6063 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
6064 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
6065 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
6067 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
6070 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
6072 * Better support for C++ function names
6074 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
6075 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
6076 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
6077 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
6078 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
6080 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
6081 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
6082 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
6083 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
6084 for the list of formats.
6086 * G++ symbol mangling problem
6088 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
6089 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
6090 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
6091 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
6092 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
6093 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
6096 * New 'maintenance' command
6098 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
6099 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
6100 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
6102 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
6103 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
6104 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
6105 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
6106 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
6107 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
6109 The following commands are new:
6111 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
6112 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
6113 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
6115 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
6117 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
6118 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
6119 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
6120 read after argv processing.
6122 * New hosts supported
6124 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
6126 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
6128 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
6129 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
6130 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
6131 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
6132 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
6135 * New targets supported
6137 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6139 * More smarts about finding #include files
6141 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
6142 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
6143 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
6144 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
6145 the one that contains your sources.
6147 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
6148 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
6149 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
6151 * Interesting infernals change
6153 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
6154 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
6155 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
6156 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
6158 * Bug fixes (of course!)
6160 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
6161 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
6162 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
6164 See the ChangeLog for details.
6166 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
6168 * New machines supported (host and target)
6170 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
6172 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
6174 * New malloc package
6176 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
6177 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
6178 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
6179 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
6180 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
6181 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
6185 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
6186 'help info proc' for details.
6188 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
6190 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
6191 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
6194 * File name changes for MS-DOS
6196 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
6197 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
6198 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
6199 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
6200 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
6201 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
6203 * Cross byte order fixes
6205 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
6206 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
6208 * New -mapped and -readnow options
6210 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
6211 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
6212 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
6213 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
6214 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
6215 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
6216 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
6217 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
6218 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
6219 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
6221 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
6222 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
6223 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
6224 slower, but makes future operations faster.
6226 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
6227 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
6228 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
6231 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
6233 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
6234 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
6235 shared across multiple host platforms.
6237 * longjmp() handling
6239 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
6240 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
6241 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
6242 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
6246 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
6247 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
6252 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
6253 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
6254 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
6256 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
6258 * New machines supported (host and target)
6260 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
6262 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
6263 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
6265 * New machines supported (target)
6267 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6271 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
6272 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
6273 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
6275 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
6276 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
6277 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
6278 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
6279 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
6282 * New features for SVR4
6284 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
6285 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
6286 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
6288 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
6289 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
6290 it prints the address mappings of the process.
6292 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
6293 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
6295 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
6297 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
6298 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
6299 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
6300 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
6301 same code linked statically.
6305 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
6306 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
6307 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
6308 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
6309 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
6310 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
6314 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
6315 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
6316 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
6319 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
6321 * New machines supported (host and target)
6323 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
6324 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
6325 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
6327 * Almost SCO Unix support
6329 We had hoped to support:
6330 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
6331 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
6332 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
6333 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
6335 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
6337 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
6338 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
6339 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
6340 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
6345 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
6346 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
6347 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
6351 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
6352 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
6353 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
6355 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
6357 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
6358 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
6359 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
6361 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
6362 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
6363 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
6364 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
6367 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
6368 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
6369 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
6370 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
6373 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
6374 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
6377 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
6378 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
6379 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
6382 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
6384 * Improved configuration
6386 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
6387 Porting BFD is simpler.
6391 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
6392 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
6393 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
6394 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
6398 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
6400 * New host supported (not target)
6402 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
6405 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
6407 * Multiple source language support
6409 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
6410 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
6411 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
6412 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
6413 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
6414 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
6418 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
6419 currently under development at the State University of New York at
6420 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
6421 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
6423 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
6424 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
6425 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
6427 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
6428 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
6432 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
6433 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
6434 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
6435 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
6438 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
6440 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
6441 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
6442 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
6443 examining core files.
6447 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
6450 * New machines supported (host and target)
6452 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
6453 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
6454 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
6456 * New hosts supported (not targets)
6458 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
6460 * New targets supported (not hosts)
6462 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6463 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6464 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
6466 * New remote interfaces
6472 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
6476 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
6478 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
6479 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
6480 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
6481 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
6482 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
6483 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
6484 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
6485 stub on the target system.
6487 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
6489 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
6490 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
6491 object file types such as a.out and coff.
6493 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
6494 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
6497 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
6499 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
6500 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
6502 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
6503 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
6504 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
6506 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
6507 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
6508 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
6509 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
6511 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
6512 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
6513 it is already running. Default is ON.
6515 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
6516 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
6517 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
6518 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
6521 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
6522 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
6523 or the value of the environment variable
6526 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
6527 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
6530 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
6531 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
6532 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
6534 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
6535 history expansion will be performed on
6536 command line input. The default is OFF.
6538 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
6539 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
6540 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
6542 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
6543 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
6544 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
6547 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
6548 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
6549 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
6552 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
6553 ``set width'' instead.
6555 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
6556 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
6557 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
6558 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
6560 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
6563 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
6566 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
6569 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
6572 * Support for Epoch Environment.
6574 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
6575 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
6576 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
6580 * Support for Shared Libraries
6582 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
6583 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
6584 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
6585 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
6586 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
6587 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
6588 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
6589 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
6591 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
6592 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
6593 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
6595 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
6600 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
6601 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
6602 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
6603 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
6604 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
6605 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
6607 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
6609 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
6611 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6612 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6613 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6616 * C++ multiple inheritance
6618 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
6621 * C++ exception handling
6623 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
6624 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
6625 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
6628 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
6629 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
6630 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
6632 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
6633 current stack frame.
6636 * Minor command changes
6638 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
6639 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
6640 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
6642 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
6643 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
6644 frames without printing.
6646 * New directory command
6648 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
6649 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
6650 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
6651 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
6652 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
6654 * Configuring GDB for compilation
6656 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
6659 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
6660 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
6661 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
6662 where the program that you are debugging will run.