1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.3
6 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
7 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
8 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
9 target hardware watchpoint.
11 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
12 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
13 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
14 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
18 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
19 deprecated, and a new command: "set python print-stack on|off" has
20 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is now
23 ** A prompt subsitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
26 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
27 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
28 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
31 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
33 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
34 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
35 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
38 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
39 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
40 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
41 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
42 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
44 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
45 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
47 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
48 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
49 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
50 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
51 use this option to specify where to find it.
53 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
54 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
55 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
56 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
57 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
58 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
59 section in the user manual for more details.
61 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
62 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
63 become available after that.
65 * New commands "info macros", and "info definitions" have been added.
69 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
70 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
71 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
73 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
74 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
75 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
77 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
78 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
79 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
80 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
81 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
88 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
92 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
94 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
95 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
97 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
99 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
100 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
101 matches the given regular expression.
103 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
105 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
106 dumping the instruction opcodes.
108 * New command line options
110 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
111 This is mostly for testing purposes.
113 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
114 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
116 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
117 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
118 source path list instead of augmenting it.
120 * GDB now understands thread names.
122 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
123 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
125 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
126 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
129 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
130 has been integrated into GDB.
134 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
135 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
136 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
138 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
139 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
140 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
141 and allows for more dynamic content.
143 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
144 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
145 have an is_valid method.
147 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
148 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
149 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
151 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
153 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
154 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
155 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
156 that function like so:
158 result = some_value (10,20)
160 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
161 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
162 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
164 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
165 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
166 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
167 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
168 New function: register_pretty_printer.
170 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
171 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
173 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
175 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
178 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
179 holds the thread's name.
181 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
182 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
183 occurring in the process being debugged.
184 The following events are currently supported:
185 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
186 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
187 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
191 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
192 instantiation. For example, if you have:
194 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
196 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
197 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
198 was added to GCC 4.5.
200 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
201 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
202 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
203 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
204 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
205 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
207 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
208 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
209 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
210 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
211 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
213 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
214 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
215 execution to a label.
217 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
218 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
219 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
220 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
222 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
223 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
224 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
227 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
229 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
230 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
231 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
232 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
233 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
234 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
237 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
239 While now you see this:
242 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
244 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
247 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
248 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
249 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
250 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
252 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
253 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
254 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
255 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
256 section in the user manual for more details.
258 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
260 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
261 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
263 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
265 * New native configurations
267 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
271 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
273 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
274 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
275 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
276 in the GDB user manual.
278 * Guile support was removed.
280 * New features in the GNU simulator
282 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
284 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
286 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
288 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
290 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
291 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
292 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
293 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
294 was always disabled for such configurations.
298 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
300 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
301 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
311 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
312 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
313 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
315 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
317 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
318 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
319 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
320 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
322 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
323 mentioned flavors of operators.
325 ** static const class members
327 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
328 class definition has been fixed.
330 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
332 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
333 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
334 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
335 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
336 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
337 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
341 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
342 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
343 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
344 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
345 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
346 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
347 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
348 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
349 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
350 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
351 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
352 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
353 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
354 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
355 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
356 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
357 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
358 the "New remote packets" section below.
360 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
362 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
363 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
364 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
365 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
369 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
370 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
371 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
372 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
373 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
374 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
375 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
377 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
384 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
388 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
389 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
390 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
391 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
392 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
393 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
397 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
401 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
404 qXfer:statictrace:read
406 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
407 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
408 to gdb's qSupported query.
412 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
416 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
417 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
419 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
420 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
423 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
425 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
426 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
427 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
428 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
430 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
431 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
432 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
433 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
434 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
435 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
436 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
438 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
439 for static tracepoints support.
441 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
443 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
444 it understands register description.
446 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
448 * X86 general purpose registers
450 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
451 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
452 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
453 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
454 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
456 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
457 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
458 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
459 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
460 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
461 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
463 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
464 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
465 in the specified file.
467 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
468 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
469 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
470 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
471 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
472 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
473 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
474 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
475 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
476 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
480 eval template, expressions...
481 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
482 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
484 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
485 show target-file-system-kind
486 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
489 save breakpoints <filename>
490 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
491 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
492 definitions, use the `source' command.
494 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
497 info static-tracepoint-markers
498 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
500 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
501 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
502 function, line, address, or marker ID.
506 Enable and disable observer mode.
508 set may-write-registers on|off
509 set may-write-memory on|off
510 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
511 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
512 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
513 set may-interrupt on|off
514 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
515 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
516 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
517 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
518 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
519 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
520 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
522 set record memory-query on|off
523 show record memory-query
524 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
525 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
530 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
534 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
535 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
536 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
537 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
538 GDB using Python' in the manual.
540 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
541 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
542 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
543 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
545 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
546 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
548 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
550 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
552 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
554 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
555 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
556 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
558 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
559 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
560 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
565 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
567 * D language support.
568 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
571 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
572 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
573 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
574 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
575 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
577 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
578 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
579 conditions of the form:
581 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
583 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
584 interface mentioned above.
586 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
592 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
593 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
594 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
595 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
596 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
600 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
601 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
606 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
607 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
611 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
616 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
619 * Multi-program debugging.
621 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
622 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
623 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
624 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
625 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
626 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
627 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
628 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
630 * New tracing features
632 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
634 ** Trace state variables
636 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
637 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
638 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
639 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
640 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
641 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
642 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
643 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
644 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
645 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
649 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
650 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
651 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
652 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
653 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
654 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
655 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
656 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
657 the regular trace command.
659 ** Disconnected tracing
661 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
662 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
663 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
664 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
665 connection is lost unexpectedly.
669 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
670 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
671 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
672 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
673 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
674 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
677 ** Circular trace buffer
679 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
680 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
681 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
682 not be available for all target agents.
687 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
688 the arguments to be comma-separated.
691 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
692 which only declare a variable are not shown.
695 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
696 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
699 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
700 "set script-extension" (see below).
702 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
704 record save [<FILENAME>]
705 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
706 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
708 record restore <FILENAME>
709 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
710 earlier time, for replay debugging.
712 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
715 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
716 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
722 maint info program-spaces
723 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
725 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
726 show remote interrupt-sequence
727 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
728 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
729 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
730 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
731 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
733 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
734 show remote interrupt-on-connect
735 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
736 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
739 set remotebreak [on | off]
741 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
743 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
744 Create or modify a trace state variable.
747 List trace state variables and their values.
749 delete tvariable $NAME ...
750 Delete one or more trace state variables.
753 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
754 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
756 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
757 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
759 * New expression syntax
761 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
762 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
766 set follow-exec-mode new|same
767 show follow-exec-mode
768 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
769 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
770 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
772 set default-collect EXPR, ...
774 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
775 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
776 such as registers or a critical global variable.
778 set disconnected-tracing
779 show disconnected-tracing
780 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
781 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
784 set circular-trace-buffer
785 show circular-trace-buffer
786 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
787 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
788 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
789 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
791 set script-extension off|soft|strict
792 show script-extension
793 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
794 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
795 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
796 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
798 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
800 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
801 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
802 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
803 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
804 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
805 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
806 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
809 * Python API Improvements
811 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
812 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
813 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
815 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
816 `is_base_class' attribute.
818 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
820 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
821 evaluate an expression.
826 Define a trace state variable.
829 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
832 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
835 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
838 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
842 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
844 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
845 much more reliable. In particular:
846 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
847 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
848 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
849 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
850 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
851 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
852 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
853 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
854 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
855 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
856 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
857 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
858 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
859 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
860 non-threaded programs.
862 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
863 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
864 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
867 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
869 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
870 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
871 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
872 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
873 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
875 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
876 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
877 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
878 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
879 for tracepoint actions.
881 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
882 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
883 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
885 * Process record and replay
887 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
888 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
889 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
892 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
893 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
894 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
897 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
898 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
901 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
902 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
903 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
904 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
905 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
906 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
907 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
908 the installation instructions for more information.
910 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
911 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
912 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
913 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
915 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
916 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
918 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
919 now complete on file names.
921 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
922 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
923 For instance, consider:
925 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
926 # struct example variable;
929 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
930 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
932 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
933 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
935 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
936 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
939 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
940 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
941 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
943 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
944 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
945 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
946 and simulator targets may also provide them.
951 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
954 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
955 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
956 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
959 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
960 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
963 Obtains additional operating system information
967 Read or write additional signal information.
969 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
971 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
972 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
973 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
975 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
976 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
978 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
979 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
980 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
982 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
983 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
985 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
987 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
989 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
990 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
992 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
993 list of section offsets.
995 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
996 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
997 have also been fixed.
999 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1000 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1001 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1003 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1006 template<typename T> class C { };
1009 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1011 ptype C<char const *>
1012 ptype C<char const*>
1013 ptype C<const char *>
1014 ptype C<const char*>
1016 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1018 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1019 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1021 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1022 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1023 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1025 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1026 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1028 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1031 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1032 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1034 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1035 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1040 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1041 available is determined at configure time.
1043 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1045 * Ada tasking support
1047 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1051 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1053 Print detailed information about task number N.
1055 Print the task number of the current task.
1057 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1059 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1060 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1062 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1064 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1065 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1066 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1067 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1068 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1069 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1072 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1073 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1076 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1077 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1078 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1079 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1082 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1084 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1085 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1086 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1087 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1088 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1090 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1091 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1092 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1093 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1094 --enable-targets configure option.
1096 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1098 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1099 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1100 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1101 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1102 section in the user manual for more information.
1104 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1105 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1106 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1107 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1108 extensions on linux targets.
1110 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1112 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1113 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1114 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1115 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1116 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1117 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1118 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1119 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1120 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1122 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1124 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1126 maint set python print-stack
1127 maint show python print-stack
1128 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1131 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1136 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1140 Show operating system information about processes.
1143 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1146 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1149 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1152 Kill inferior number NUM.
1156 set spu stop-on-load
1157 show spu stop-on-load
1158 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1160 set spu auto-flush-cache
1161 show spu auto-flush-cache
1162 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1163 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1165 set sh calling-convention
1166 show sh calling-convention
1167 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1170 show debug timestamp
1171 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1173 set disassemble-next-line
1174 show disassemble-next-line
1175 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1178 set remote noack-packet
1179 show remote noack-packet
1180 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1181 under "New remote packets."
1183 set remote query-attached-packet
1184 show remote query-attached-packet
1185 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1187 set remote read-siginfo-object
1188 show remote read-siginfo-object
1189 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1192 set remote write-siginfo-object
1193 show remote write-siginfo-object
1194 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1197 set remote reverse-continue
1198 show remote reverse-continue
1199 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1201 set remote reverse-step
1202 show remote reverse-step
1203 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1205 set displaced-stepping
1206 show displaced-stepping
1207 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1208 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1209 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1212 show debug displaced
1213 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1215 maint set internal-error
1216 maint show internal-error
1217 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1219 maint set internal-warning
1220 maint show internal-warning
1221 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1226 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1228 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1229 show multiple-symbols
1230 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1231 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1232 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1234 set breakpoint always-inserted
1235 show breakpoint always-inserted
1236 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1237 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1238 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1240 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1241 show arm fallback-mode
1242 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1244 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1245 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1246 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1247 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1249 set disable-randomization
1250 show disable-randomization
1251 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1252 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1253 multiple debugging sessions.
1257 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1262 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1263 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1264 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1265 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1267 set target-wide-charset
1268 show target-wide-charset
1269 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1270 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1272 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1274 set tcp connect-timeout
1275 show tcp connect-timeout
1276 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1277 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1278 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1280 set libthread-db-search-path
1281 show libthread-db-search-path
1282 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1285 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1286 show schedule-multiple
1287 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1288 the current process.
1292 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1293 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1294 affecting correctness.
1296 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1297 show interactive-mode
1298 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1299 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1300 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1301 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1302 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1307 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1308 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1309 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1313 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1314 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1315 alias for the `fork' command.
1318 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1319 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1320 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1323 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1324 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1325 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1329 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1330 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1331 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1334 * New native configurations
1336 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1338 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1342 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
1343 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
1344 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
1347 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1348 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1354 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1356 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
1358 * New native configurations
1360 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
1361 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
1365 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
1366 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
1368 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1370 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1371 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1372 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1373 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1375 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1376 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1378 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
1381 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
1382 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1383 and in inlined functions.
1385 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1386 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1387 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1389 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1391 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1392 registers on PowerPC targets.
1394 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1395 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1397 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1398 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1400 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1401 extended-remote mode.
1403 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
1404 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1405 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1406 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
1408 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1409 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1410 target architectures.
1412 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1413 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1414 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1415 stored in two consecutive float registers.
1417 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1420 * Improved support for debugging Ada
1421 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1423 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1424 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1425 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1426 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1428 - Improved command completion in Ada
1431 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1436 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1437 show print frame-arguments
1438 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1439 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1444 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1451 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1453 * New remote packets
1460 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
1463 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1467 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1469 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
1471 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1472 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1473 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1475 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1476 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1477 -Bsymbolic linker option.
1479 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1480 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1483 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1484 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1486 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1487 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
1489 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1491 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1492 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1493 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1495 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1496 automatically displayed as character or string data.
1498 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1499 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1502 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1503 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
1504 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
1506 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1509 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1510 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1511 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1513 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1515 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1517 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1518 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1519 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1521 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1522 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1524 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1525 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1526 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1527 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1528 Windows and SymbianOS).
1530 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1531 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
1533 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1534 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1540 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1541 when debugging using remote targets.
1543 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1544 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1545 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1546 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1547 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1548 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1549 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1551 set breakpoint auto-hw
1552 show breakpoint auto-hw
1553 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1554 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1555 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1556 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1557 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1558 including "next" and "finish".
1561 catch exception unhandled
1562 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1565 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1569 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1570 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1571 an alias to "set sysroot".
1574 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1575 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1578 * New native configurations
1580 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1583 unset tdesc filename
1585 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1586 not query the target for its built-in description.
1590 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1591 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1592 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1594 * New remote packets
1597 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1598 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1600 qXfer:features:read:
1601 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1606 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1607 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1609 qXfer:libraries:read:
1610 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1611 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1612 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1613 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1617 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1625 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1626 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1627 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1628 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1630 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1633 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1634 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1643 * Other removed features
1650 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1657 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1662 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1663 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1668 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1669 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1671 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1673 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1674 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1675 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1676 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1678 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1680 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1681 in debugging information.
1685 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1686 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1688 set mips stack-arg-size
1689 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1691 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1693 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1698 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1700 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1701 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1702 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1704 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1705 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1708 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1709 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1711 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1712 stub provides the required support.
1714 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1715 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1720 unset substitute-path
1721 show substitute-path
1722 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1723 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1724 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1725 between compilation and debugging.
1729 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1730 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1731 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1735 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1737 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1738 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1740 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1742 * New remote packets
1745 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1746 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1747 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1748 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1752 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1753 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1755 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1756 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1757 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1762 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1764 * Removed remote packets
1767 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1768 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1770 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1774 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1776 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1780 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1781 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1783 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1785 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1787 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1788 previously saved state.
1790 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1792 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1794 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1795 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1797 info forks List forks of the user program that
1798 are available to be debugged.
1800 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1801 forks of the user program that are
1802 available to be debugged.
1804 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1805 that are available to be debugged (and
1806 kill the forked process).
1808 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1809 that are available to be debugged (and
1810 allow the process to continue).
1814 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1816 * Improved Windows host support
1818 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1819 native console support, and remote communications using either
1820 network sockets or serial ports.
1822 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1824 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1825 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1826 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1827 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1828 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1829 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1833 The ARM rdi-share module.
1835 The Netware NLM debug server.
1837 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1839 * New native configurations
1841 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1842 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1846 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1848 * New command line options
1850 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1851 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1852 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1853 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1854 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1855 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1856 with the --command (-x) option.
1858 * Deprecated commands removed
1860 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1864 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1865 othernames set arm disassembler
1866 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1867 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1868 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1871 * New BSD user-level threads support
1873 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1874 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1877 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1878 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1879 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1881 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1882 are not yet supported.
1884 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1885 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1887 * REMOVED configurations and files
1889 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1890 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1891 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
1893 * New "set print array-indexes" command
1895 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1896 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1899 * VAX floating point support
1901 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1903 * User-defined command support
1905 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1906 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1907 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1909 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1911 * New command line option
1913 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1916 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1918 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1919 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1920 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1921 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1922 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1924 * Internationalization
1926 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1927 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1928 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1932 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1933 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1934 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1936 * New native configurations
1938 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1942 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1943 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1945 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1947 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1948 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1949 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1952 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1953 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1954 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1964 powerpc bdm protocol
1966 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1967 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1969 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1971 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1972 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1973 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1974 permanently REMOVED.
1983 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1985 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1987 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1988 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1991 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1993 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1994 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1995 IRIX long double values).
1999 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2000 command. This problem has been fixed.
2002 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2004 * Fix for ``many threads''
2006 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2007 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2010 ptrace: No such process.
2011 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2013 This problem has been fixed.
2015 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2017 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2020 * New ``start'' command.
2022 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2024 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2026 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2027 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2028 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2030 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2031 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2032 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2033 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2034 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2035 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2036 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2037 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2038 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2040 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2042 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2043 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2044 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2045 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2046 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2048 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2049 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2050 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2052 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2054 * New native configurations
2056 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2057 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2058 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2059 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2060 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2061 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2062 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2064 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2066 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2067 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2068 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2069 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2070 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2071 work, was also included.
2073 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2074 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2084 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2085 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2087 * REMOVED configurations and files
2089 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2090 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2091 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2092 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2093 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2094 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2095 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2096 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2097 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2098 sonymips mips-sony-*
2099 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2101 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2103 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2105 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2106 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2107 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2108 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2111 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2113 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2114 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2115 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2116 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2117 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2118 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2121 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2123 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2125 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2126 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2127 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2129 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2131 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2132 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2134 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2136 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2137 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2138 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2140 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2142 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2143 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2145 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2147 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2148 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2149 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2151 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2153 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2154 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2155 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2157 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2159 * Removed --with-mmalloc
2161 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2162 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2164 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
2166 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2167 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2168 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2169 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2171 * Revised SPARC target
2173 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2174 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2175 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2176 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2177 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2181 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2182 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2183 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2186 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2188 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2189 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2192 * C++ nested types and namespaces
2194 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2195 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2196 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2197 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2198 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2199 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2200 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2201 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2202 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2204 * New native configurations
2206 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2207 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2208 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2209 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2210 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2212 * New debugging protocols
2214 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2216 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2218 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2219 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2220 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2222 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2224 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2225 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2226 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2227 permanently REMOVED.
2229 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2230 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2231 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2232 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2233 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2234 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2235 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2236 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2237 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2238 sonymips mips-sony-*
2239 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2241 * REMOVED configurations and files
2243 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2244 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2245 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2246 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2247 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2248 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2249 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2250 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2251 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2252 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2253 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2254 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2255 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2256 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2257 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2258 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2259 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2261 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2265 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2266 integrated into GDB.
2268 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2270 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2271 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2272 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2275 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2276 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2277 DWARF 2 CFI support.
2281 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2282 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2283 remote protocol documentation for details.
2285 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
2287 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2288 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2289 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2292 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2294 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2295 per-thread variables.
2297 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2299 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2300 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2302 * Separate debug info.
2304 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2305 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2306 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2307 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2308 and optional debug files.
2310 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2312 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2313 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2316 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2317 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2321 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2322 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2323 considered "useable".
2325 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2327 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2328 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2331 * GDB supports logging output to a file
2333 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2334 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
2336 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2338 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2339 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2342 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
2344 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2345 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2349 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2350 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2351 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2352 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2353 data, for more informative profiling results.
2355 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2357 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2358 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
2359 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
2361 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2364 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2365 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2366 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2367 in a subsequent -var-update.
2369 * New native configurations.
2371 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2373 * Multi-arched targets.
2375 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
2376 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2378 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2380 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2381 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2382 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2383 permanently REMOVED.
2385 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2386 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2387 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2388 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2389 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2390 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2391 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2392 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2393 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2394 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2395 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2396 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2398 * REMOVED configurations and files
2401 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2402 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2403 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2404 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2405 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2406 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2408 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2409 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2410 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2411 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2412 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2413 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2415 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
2417 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2418 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2419 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2420 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2421 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2423 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
2425 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2427 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2428 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2429 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2430 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2431 shared libs like mad''.
2433 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
2435 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2436 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2437 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2438 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
2440 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2442 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2443 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2446 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2447 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2449 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2450 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2452 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2453 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2454 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2455 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2457 * Multi-arched targets.
2459 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2460 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2462 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
2463 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2464 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2468 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2471 * New native configurations
2473 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
2474 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
2475 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
2476 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
2478 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2480 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2481 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2482 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2483 permanently REMOVED.
2485 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2486 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2487 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2488 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2489 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2490 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2491 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2492 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2493 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2494 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2496 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2497 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2499 * OBSOLETE languages
2501 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2503 * REMOVED configurations and files
2505 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2506 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2507 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2508 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2509 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2511 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2513 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2515 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2516 commands. The default is 1024.
2518 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2520 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2522 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2524 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2525 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2526 from a file into memory (restore).
2528 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2530 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2531 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2532 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2534 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2542 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2543 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2544 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2546 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2547 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2548 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2550 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2551 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2552 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2554 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2555 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2556 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2558 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2560 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2562 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2563 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2564 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2565 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2566 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2567 (notably embedded) targets.
2569 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2571 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2572 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2573 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2574 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2576 * New command line option
2578 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2580 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2582 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2583 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2584 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2585 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2586 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2587 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2588 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2589 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2590 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2591 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2593 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2595 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2596 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2598 * New native configurations
2600 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2601 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2602 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2603 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2607 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2609 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2611 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2612 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2613 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2614 permanently REMOVED.
2616 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2617 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2618 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2619 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2620 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2622 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2624 * REMOVED configurations and files
2626 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2628 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2629 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2630 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2631 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2632 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2633 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2634 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2635 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2636 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2637 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2638 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2640 * Changes to command line processing
2642 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2643 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2645 * Changes to key bindings
2647 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2649 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2651 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2653 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2656 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2658 Numerous documentation fixes.
2660 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2662 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2664 * New native configurations
2666 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2667 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2668 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2669 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2670 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2671 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2675 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2677 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2679 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2681 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2682 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2683 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2684 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2685 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2687 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2688 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2689 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2690 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2691 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2692 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2693 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2694 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2696 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2697 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2699 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2700 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2701 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2702 permanently REMOVED.
2704 * REMOVED configurations and files
2706 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2707 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2709 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2713 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2715 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2716 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2721 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2723 * The MI enabled by default.
2725 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2726 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2727 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2728 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2729 which is now deprecated.
2731 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2733 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2734 main features are supported:
2736 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2738 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2741 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2743 - a Pascal expression parser.
2745 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2747 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2749 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2751 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2752 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2754 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2756 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2758 * Changes in completion.
2760 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2761 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2762 users expect at the shell prompt.
2764 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2765 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2766 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2767 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2768 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2769 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2770 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2772 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2774 * New platform-independent commands:
2776 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2777 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2778 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2780 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2782 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2783 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2784 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2786 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2788 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2789 multi-threaded programs though.
2791 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2793 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2795 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2796 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2799 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2801 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2802 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2803 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2804 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2805 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2808 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2809 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2810 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2812 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2814 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2815 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2817 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2818 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2821 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2822 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2823 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2824 a given linear address.
2826 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2827 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2828 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2830 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2832 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2834 * Changes in documentation.
2836 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2837 Documentation License.
2839 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2842 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2844 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2847 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2848 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2849 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2851 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2853 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2854 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2855 contents of this file.
2859 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2861 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2863 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2865 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2866 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2867 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2868 greater level of detail.
2870 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2872 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2873 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2874 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2877 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2879 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2880 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2881 machines ``out of the box''.
2883 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2884 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2885 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2886 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2887 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2889 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2890 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2891 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2892 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2893 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2895 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2896 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2899 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2902 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2903 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2904 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2905 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2907 * New native configurations
2909 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
2910 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2914 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2915 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2916 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2917 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2919 * OBSOLETE configurations
2921 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2922 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2924 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2927 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2928 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2929 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2930 be permanently REMOVED.
2932 * Gould support removed
2934 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2936 * New features for SVR4
2938 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2939 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2940 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2942 * Many C++ enhancements
2944 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2945 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2947 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2949 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2950 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2951 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2952 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2954 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2955 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2957 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2959 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2960 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2961 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2963 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2964 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2966 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2968 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2969 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2970 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2972 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2974 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2975 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2976 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2978 * ``apropos'' command added.
2980 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2981 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2982 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2986 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2987 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2988 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2989 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2990 enabled by configuring with:
2992 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2994 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2996 * New native configurations
2998 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2999 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3000 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3004 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3005 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3006 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3008 * OBSOLETE configurations
3010 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3012 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3013 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3014 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3015 be permanently REMOVED.
3019 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3020 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3021 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3022 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3023 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3024 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3025 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3030 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3032 * set extension-language
3034 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3035 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3036 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3037 set extension-language .c c++
3038 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3039 and their associated languages.
3041 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3043 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3044 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3045 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3049 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3050 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3052 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3053 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3055 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3056 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3057 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3058 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3059 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3060 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3061 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3062 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3064 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3065 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3066 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3067 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3071 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3072 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3073 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3074 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3075 for xdb and dbx commands.
3079 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3080 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3081 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3083 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3084 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3085 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3087 * Debugging across forks
3089 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3094 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3095 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3096 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3098 * GDB remote protocol additions
3100 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3101 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3102 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3103 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3105 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3106 full 64-bit address. The command
3108 set remoteaddresssize 32
3110 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3111 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3114 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3115 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3117 maint packet heythere
3119 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3120 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3123 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3124 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3125 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3127 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3129 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3130 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3131 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3133 * mask-address variable for Mips
3135 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3136 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3137 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3139 * Higher serial baud rates
3141 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3142 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3143 to achieve all of these rates.)
3147 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3148 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3151 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3153 * New native configurations
3155 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3156 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3157 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3158 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3159 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3160 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3161 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3165 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3166 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3167 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3168 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3169 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3170 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3171 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3172 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3173 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3174 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3175 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3177 * New debugging protocols
3179 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3180 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3181 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3182 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3183 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3184 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3188 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3189 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3194 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3195 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3197 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3199 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3200 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3201 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3203 * Live range splitting
3205 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3206 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3207 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3211 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3212 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3216 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3217 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3218 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3223 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3228 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3229 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3230 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3231 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3232 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3233 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3237 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3238 the symbol at the specified address.
3242 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3243 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3244 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3245 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3246 file tracepoint.c for more details.
3250 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3251 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3252 of most MIPS variants.
3256 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3257 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3258 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3262 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3263 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3264 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3265 the possible architectures.
3267 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3269 * New native configurations
3271 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3272 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3273 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3274 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3275 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3276 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3280 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3281 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3282 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3283 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3284 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3286 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3290 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3291 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3292 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3293 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3294 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3298 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3300 * Windows 95/NT native
3302 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3303 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3304 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3305 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3306 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3308 * dont-repeat command
3310 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3311 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3312 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3313 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3315 * Send break instead of ^C
3317 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3318 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3319 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3321 * Remote protocol timeout
3323 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3324 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3325 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3327 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3329 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3330 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3331 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3332 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3333 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3335 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3336 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3337 automatically on hpux10.
3339 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3341 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3343 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3345 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3346 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3347 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3348 every character. The default value is 1050.
3350 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3352 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3353 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3354 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3355 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3356 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3357 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3359 * Speedups for remote debugging
3361 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3362 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3363 and more efficient S-record downloading.
3365 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3367 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3368 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3370 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3372 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
3374 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3375 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3377 * Remote targets use caching
3379 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3380 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3381 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3382 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3383 off' turns the the data cache off.
3385 * Remote targets may have threads
3387 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3388 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3389 gdb/remote.c for details.
3393 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3394 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3395 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3396 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3397 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3398 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3399 sequence is something like
3401 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3403 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3407 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3408 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3409 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3410 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3411 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3412 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3413 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3414 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3418 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3419 but does simplify configuration and building.
3423 GDB now supports hpux10.
3425 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3427 * New native configurations
3429 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3430 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3431 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3432 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3436 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3437 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3438 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3439 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3442 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3444 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3445 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3446 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3447 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3448 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3450 * Arguments to user-defined commands
3452 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3453 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3456 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3458 To execute the command use:
3461 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3462 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3463 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3465 * New `if' and `while' commands
3467 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3468 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3469 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3470 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3471 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3472 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3473 if the expression is zero.
3475 * Fortran source language mode
3477 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3478 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3479 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3480 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3483 * Better HPUX support
3485 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3486 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3487 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3488 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3489 that behavior do the following before running the program:
3495 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3496 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3502 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3503 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3506 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3507 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3509 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3511 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3512 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3513 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3514 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3515 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3516 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3518 * New DOS host serial code
3520 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3521 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3524 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3526 * New "complete" command
3528 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3529 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3531 * Trailing space optional in prompt
3533 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3534 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3536 * Breakpoint hit counts
3538 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3539 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3540 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3541 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3542 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3545 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3547 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3548 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3549 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3551 * Shared library breakpoints
3553 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3554 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3556 * Hardware watchpoints
3558 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3559 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3561 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3565 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3566 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3568 * Improved Irix 5 support
3570 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3572 * Improved HPPA support
3574 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3576 * New native configurations
3578 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3579 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3580 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3581 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3585 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3586 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3589 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3591 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3592 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3596 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3597 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3599 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3601 * Irix 5 is now supported
3605 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3606 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3607 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3608 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3609 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3612 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3614 * User visible changes:
3618 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3619 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3620 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3621 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3622 debugging info for the mips target).
3624 * DEC Alpha native support
3626 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3627 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3628 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3629 Alpha-specific notes.
3631 * Preliminary thread implementation
3633 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3635 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3637 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3638 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3641 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3643 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3644 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3645 call methods, ...etc.
3647 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3649 * User visible changes:
3651 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3652 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3653 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3654 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3656 Filename completion now works.
3658 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3659 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3660 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3662 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3663 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3664 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3665 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3666 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3670 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3671 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3674 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3678 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3679 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3680 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3684 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3685 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3686 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3687 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3688 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3692 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3693 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3694 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3696 * New targets supported
3698 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3699 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3700 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3701 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3702 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3704 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3705 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3706 GO32 memory extender.
3708 * New remote protocols
3710 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3712 * New source languages supported
3714 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3715 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3716 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3719 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3721 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3723 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3724 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3725 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3726 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3727 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3728 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3730 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3732 * Faster and better demangling
3734 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3735 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3736 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3737 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3738 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3739 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3742 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3743 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3744 compiler does not actually implement.
3746 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3748 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3749 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3750 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3751 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3752 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3753 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3756 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3757 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3759 * Improved configure script
3761 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3762 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3763 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3764 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3766 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3767 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3768 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3769 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3770 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3771 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3773 * Documentation improvements
3775 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3776 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3777 before submitting changes.
3779 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3780 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3781 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3782 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3783 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3785 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3786 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3787 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3788 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3789 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3790 around this problem.
3794 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3795 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3796 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3799 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3800 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3802 * New native hosts supported
3804 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3805 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3807 * New targets supported
3809 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3811 * New file formats supported
3813 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3814 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3818 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3820 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3821 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3823 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3824 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3825 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3827 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3828 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3830 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3831 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3832 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3835 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3836 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3837 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3838 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3839 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3841 * Internal improvements
3843 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3844 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3846 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3847 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3848 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3849 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3850 shared code that handles any of them.
3852 * New command line options
3854 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3858 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3859 General Public License.
3861 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3863 * Host/native/target split
3865 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3866 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3867 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3868 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3869 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3871 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3872 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3873 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3874 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3875 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3876 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3877 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3879 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3880 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3881 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3883 * New hosts supported
3885 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3886 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3887 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3889 * New targets supported
3891 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3892 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3894 * New native hosts supported
3896 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3897 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3898 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3900 * New file formats supported
3902 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3903 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3904 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3908 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3909 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3910 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3912 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3914 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3915 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3916 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3917 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3921 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3922 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3923 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3925 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3929 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3930 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3933 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3934 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3936 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3937 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3938 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3939 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3940 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3941 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3943 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3944 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3945 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3946 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3950 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3951 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3952 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3953 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3954 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3956 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3957 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3958 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3959 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3963 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3964 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3965 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3966 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3967 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3968 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3969 each instruction being stepped through.
3971 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3972 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3974 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3975 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3976 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3977 processor with a serial port.
3981 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3982 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3983 supported, and what files each one uses.
3987 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3988 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3989 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3990 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3992 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3993 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3994 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3995 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3999 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4000 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4001 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4002 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4003 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4004 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4006 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4009 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4011 * Better support for C++ function names
4013 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4014 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4015 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4016 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4017 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4019 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4020 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4021 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4022 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4023 for the list of formats.
4025 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4027 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4028 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4029 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4030 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4031 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4032 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4035 * New 'maintenance' command
4037 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4038 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4039 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4041 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4042 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4043 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4044 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4045 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4046 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4048 The following commands are new:
4050 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4051 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4052 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4054 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4056 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4057 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4058 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4059 read after argv processing.
4061 * New hosts supported
4063 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4065 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4067 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4068 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4069 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4070 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4071 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4074 * New targets supported
4076 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4078 * More smarts about finding #include files
4080 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4081 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4082 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4083 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4084 the one that contains your sources.
4086 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4087 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4088 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4090 * Interesting infernals change
4092 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4093 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4094 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4095 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4097 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4099 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4100 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4101 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4103 See the ChangeLog for details.
4105 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4107 * New machines supported (host and target)
4109 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4111 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4113 * New malloc package
4115 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4116 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4117 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4118 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4119 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4120 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4124 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4125 'help info proc' for details.
4127 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4129 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4130 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4133 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4135 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4136 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4137 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4138 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4139 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4140 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4142 * Cross byte order fixes
4144 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4145 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4147 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4149 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4150 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4151 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4152 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4153 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4154 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4155 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4156 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4157 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4158 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4160 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4161 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4162 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4163 slower, but makes future operations faster.
4165 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4166 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4167 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4170 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4172 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4173 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4174 shared across multiple host platforms.
4176 * longjmp() handling
4178 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4179 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4180 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4181 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4185 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4186 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4191 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4192 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4193 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4195 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4197 * New machines supported (host and target)
4199 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4201 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4202 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4204 * New machines supported (target)
4206 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4210 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4211 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4212 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4214 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4215 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4216 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4217 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4218 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4221 * New features for SVR4
4223 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4224 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4225 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4227 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4228 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4229 it prints the address mappings of the process.
4231 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4232 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4234 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4236 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4237 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4238 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4239 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4240 same code linked statically.
4244 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4245 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4246 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4247 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4248 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4249 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4253 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4254 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4255 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4258 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4260 * New machines supported (host and target)
4262 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4263 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4264 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4266 * Almost SCO Unix support
4268 We had hoped to support:
4269 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4270 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4271 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4272 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4274 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4276 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4277 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4278 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4279 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4284 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4285 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4286 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4290 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4291 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4292 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4294 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4296 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4297 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4298 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4300 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4301 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4302 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4303 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4306 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4307 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4308 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4309 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4312 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4313 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4316 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4317 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4318 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4321 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4323 * Improved configuration
4325 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4326 Porting BFD is simpler.
4330 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4331 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4332 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4333 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4337 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4339 * New host supported (not target)
4341 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4344 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4346 * Multiple source language support
4348 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4349 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4350 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4351 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4352 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4353 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4357 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4358 currently under development at the State University of New York at
4359 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4360 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4362 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4363 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4364 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4366 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4367 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4371 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4372 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4373 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4374 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4377 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4379 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4380 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4381 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4382 examining core files.
4386 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4389 * New machines supported (host and target)
4391 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4392 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4393 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4395 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4397 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4399 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4401 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4402 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4403 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4405 * New remote interfaces
4411 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4415 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4417 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4418 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4419 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4420 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4421 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4422 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4423 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4424 stub on the target system.
4426 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4428 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4429 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4430 object file types such as a.out and coff.
4432 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4433 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4436 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4438 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4439 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4441 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4442 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4443 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4445 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4446 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4447 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4448 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4450 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4451 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4452 it is already running. Default is ON.
4454 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4455 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4456 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4457 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4460 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4461 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4462 or the value of the environment variable
4465 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4466 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4469 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4470 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4471 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4473 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4474 history expansion will be performed on
4475 command line input. The default is OFF.
4477 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4478 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4479 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4481 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4482 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4483 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4486 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4487 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4488 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4491 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4492 ``set width'' instead.
4494 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4495 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4496 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4497 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4499 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4502 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4505 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4508 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4511 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4513 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4514 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4515 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4519 * Support for Shared Libraries
4521 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4522 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4523 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4524 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4525 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4526 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4527 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4528 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4530 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4531 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4532 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4534 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4539 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4540 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4541 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4542 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4543 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4544 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4546 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4548 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4550 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4551 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4552 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4555 * C++ multiple inheritance
4557 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4560 * C++ exception handling
4562 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4563 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4564 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4567 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4568 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4569 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4571 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4572 current stack frame.
4575 * Minor command changes
4577 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4578 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4579 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4581 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4582 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4583 frames without printing.
4585 * New directory command
4587 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4588 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4589 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4590 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4591 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4593 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4595 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4598 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4599 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4600 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4601 where the program that you are debugging will run.