1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 8.2
6 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
7 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
10 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
11 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
12 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
15 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
18 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
19 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
20 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
22 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
23 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
25 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
26 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
27 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
28 in the GDB user manual.
30 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
33 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
35 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
36 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
37 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
38 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
39 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
40 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
41 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
42 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
43 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
44 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
45 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
46 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
48 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
49 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
50 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
53 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
59 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
63 set debug compile-cplus-types
64 show debug compile-cplus-types
65 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
66 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiliong
71 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
74 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
75 Apply a command to some frames.
76 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
77 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
80 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
81 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
84 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
85 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
88 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
90 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
92 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
93 maint show dwarf unwinders
94 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
97 Display a list of open files for a process.
101 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
102 These commands all now take a frame specification which
103 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
104 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
105 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
106 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
107 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
109 target remote FILENAME
110 target extended-remote FILENAME
111 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
112 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
114 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
115 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
116 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
117 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
118 These commands can now print only the searched entities
119 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
120 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
121 printing headers or informations messages.
127 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
128 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
129 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
132 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
133 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
134 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
135 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
137 set tui tab-width NCHARS
138 show tui tab-width NCHARS
139 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
141 set style enabled [on|off]
143 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
144 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
146 set style filename foreground COLOR
147 set style filename background COLOR
148 set style filename intensity VALUE
149 Control the styling of file names.
151 set style function foreground COLOR
152 set style function background COLOR
153 set style function intensity VALUE
154 Control the styling of function names.
156 set style variable foreground COLOR
157 set style variable background COLOR
158 set style variable intensity VALUE
159 Control the styling of variable names.
161 set style address foreground COLOR
162 set style address background COLOR
163 set style address intensity VALUE
164 Control the styling of addresses.
168 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
169 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
170 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
171 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
172 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
174 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
175 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
177 * New native configurations
179 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
180 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
184 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
186 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
187 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
191 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
192 space associated to that inferior.
194 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
195 of objfiles associated to that program space.
197 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
198 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
201 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
202 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
203 correct and did not work properly.
209 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
210 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
211 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
212 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
213 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
215 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
217 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
220 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
221 offset to all sections.
223 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
224 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
225 address of individual sections using '-s'.
227 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
228 (address of the text section).
230 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
231 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
232 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
233 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
236 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
237 for the rest of the current command.
239 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
240 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
242 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
243 files created on FreeBSD systems.
245 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
248 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
249 the vector length while the process is running.
255 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
257 set|show varsize-limit
258 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
259 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
260 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
262 set|show record btrace cpu
263 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
266 maint check libthread-db
267 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
270 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
271 maint show check-libthread-db
272 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
273 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
278 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
280 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
281 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
283 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
285 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
286 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
287 of convenience variables.
289 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
290 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
291 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
295 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
297 * Removed targets and native configurations
299 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
300 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
301 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
302 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
304 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
306 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
307 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
308 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
309 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
310 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
311 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
316 --enable-codesign=CERT
317 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
318 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
319 gdb to work properly.
321 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
322 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
324 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
326 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
327 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
328 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
330 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
331 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
333 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
334 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
335 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
336 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
337 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
339 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
340 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
341 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
342 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
344 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
345 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
347 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
348 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
349 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
351 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
352 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
353 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
355 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
356 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
357 environment" command.
359 * Completion improvements
361 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
362 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
363 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
364 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
367 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
368 (gdb) b function(int)
370 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
371 C++ anonymous namespaces:
374 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
375 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
376 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
378 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
379 completion support, that better understands what you're
380 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
381 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
382 setting a breakpoint.
384 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
386 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
388 * New command line options (gcore)
391 Dump all memory mappings.
393 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
395 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
396 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
397 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
399 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
404 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
407 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
408 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
409 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
410 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
411 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
412 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
413 a breakpoint from Python.
415 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
417 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
418 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
419 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
421 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
423 function[abi:cxx11](int)
426 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
429 (gdb) b function(int)
431 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
433 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
435 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
439 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
440 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
441 description of these.
443 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
444 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
445 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
447 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
448 manual for a further description of this feature.
451 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
453 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
454 specified initial working directory.
456 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
457 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
459 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
460 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
462 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
463 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
465 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
466 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
467 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
468 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
469 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
471 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
472 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
473 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
475 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
476 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
477 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
478 in the *stopped notification.
480 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
481 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
485 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
486 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
487 the inferior when starting it.
490 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
491 before starting the remote inferior.
494 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
495 user-set environment variables should be unset).
498 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
501 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
504 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
505 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
507 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
508 filter the tests to be run.
510 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
511 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
516 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
519 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
520 with the 'compile' commands.
522 set debug separate-debug-file
523 show debug separate-debug-file
524 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
526 set dump-excluded-mappings
527 show dump-excluded-mappings
528 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
529 dumped when generating a core file.
532 List the registered selftests.
535 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
538 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
540 set|show print type nested-type-limit
541 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
542 type printer will show.
544 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
547 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
549 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
552 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
553 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
554 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
555 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
557 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
558 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
559 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
560 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
561 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
562 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
564 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
565 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
566 unless you tell it the variable's type:
569 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
573 * New native configurations
575 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
576 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
580 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
581 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
582 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
584 * Removed targets and native configurations
586 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
588 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
590 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
591 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
592 available in future Intel CPUs.
594 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
598 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
599 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
601 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
604 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
606 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
608 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
609 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
612 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
614 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
615 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
617 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
619 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
620 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
621 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
622 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
625 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
627 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
628 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
631 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
633 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
634 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
636 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
638 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
643 eval "print $arg%d", $i
648 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
650 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
651 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
653 * New native configurations
655 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
659 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
660 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
662 * Removed targets and native configurations
664 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
665 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
670 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
672 maint print arc arc-instruction address
673 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
677 set disassembler-options
678 show disassembler-options
679 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
680 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
681 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
682 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
683 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
688 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
689 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
691 -file-list-shared-libraries
692 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
693 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
696 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
697 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
699 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
701 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
703 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
704 default. One must now explicitly configure with
705 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
706 option will be removed in a future release.
708 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
711 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
712 memory backward from the given address. For example:
715 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
716 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
717 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
718 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
719 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
720 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
721 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
722 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
723 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
725 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
726 arrays of dynamic types.
728 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
729 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
730 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
731 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
732 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
733 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
735 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
738 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
739 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
740 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
742 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
744 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
745 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
746 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
747 signal received and code location.
751 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
752 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
753 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
754 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
756 * Rust language support.
757 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
758 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
761 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
763 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
764 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
765 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
766 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
767 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
768 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
769 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
770 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
771 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
772 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
775 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
777 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
778 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
783 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
784 skip -function function
785 skip -rfunction regular-expression
786 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
787 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
788 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
790 maint info line-table REGEXP
791 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data struture.
794 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
797 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
798 using the TTY file for input/output.
802 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
803 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
804 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
805 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
806 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
809 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
810 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
811 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
812 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
815 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
816 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
817 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
819 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
822 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
823 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
824 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
825 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
826 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
827 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
829 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
830 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
831 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
832 bytecode into native code.
834 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
835 recording. For example:
837 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
839 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
841 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
845 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
847 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
849 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
851 * Per-inferior thread numbers
853 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
854 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
855 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
859 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
860 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
861 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
862 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
864 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
865 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
866 are no longer unique between inferiors.
868 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
869 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
870 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
872 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
875 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
876 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
879 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
882 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
883 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
884 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
885 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
888 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
891 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
894 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
897 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
898 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
901 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
902 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
904 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
906 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
908 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
909 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
911 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
912 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
915 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
916 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
919 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
920 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
923 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
925 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
926 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
927 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
929 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
930 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
934 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
935 maint show target-non-stop
936 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
937 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
938 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
940 maint set bfd-sharing
941 maint show bfd-sharing
942 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
946 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
950 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
952 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
953 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
954 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
956 set remote thread-events
957 show remote thread-events
958 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
960 set ada print-signatures on|off
961 show ada print-signatures"
962 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
963 selection menus. It is activaled (@code{on}) by default.
967 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
968 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
969 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
971 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
972 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
973 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
974 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
975 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
976 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
978 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
979 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
981 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
982 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
984 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
986 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
987 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
988 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
989 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
990 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
991 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
993 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
994 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
997 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1002 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1004 exec-events feature in qSupported
1005 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1006 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1007 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1008 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1011 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1014 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1015 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1017 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1018 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1021 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1022 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1023 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1024 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1025 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1026 stop for that same thread.
1029 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1030 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1031 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1034 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1035 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1037 syscall_entry stop reason
1038 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1040 syscall_return stop reason
1041 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1043 * Extended-remote exec events
1045 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1046 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1047 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1049 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1050 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1051 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1053 * Thread names in remote protocol
1055 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1058 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1060 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1061 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1062 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1063 fork and exec catchpoints.
1065 * Remote syscall events
1067 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1068 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1070 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1071 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1072 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1076 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1077 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1082 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1083 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1084 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1085 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1086 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1087 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1089 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1091 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1092 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1093 including advance SIMD instructions.
1095 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1097 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1098 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1099 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1100 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1101 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1102 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1103 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1105 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1107 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1109 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1110 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1113 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1114 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
1115 and may include things like its command line arguments.
1117 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
1118 is now available on all platforms.
1120 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
1121 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
1122 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
1123 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
1124 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
1125 backward compatibility.
1127 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
1128 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
1129 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
1130 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
1132 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
1133 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
1134 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
1135 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
1138 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
1140 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
1142 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
1143 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
1144 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
1145 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
1146 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
1147 See "New remote packets" below.
1149 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
1150 available register groups, including target specific groups.
1152 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
1153 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
1154 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
1155 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
1160 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
1164 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
1165 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
1166 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
1167 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
1168 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
1169 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
1170 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
1171 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
1172 "const" version of the value respectively.
1176 maint print symbol-cache
1177 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
1179 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
1180 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
1182 maint flush-symbol-cache
1183 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
1187 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
1190 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
1194 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
1197 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
1198 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
1202 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
1205 Print information about branch tracing internals.
1207 maint btrace packet-history
1208 Print the raw branch tracing data.
1210 maint btrace clear-packet-history
1211 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
1214 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
1215 anew by the next "record" command.
1220 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
1221 show debug dwarf-die
1222 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
1224 set debug dwarf-read
1225 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
1226 show debug dwarf-read
1227 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
1229 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
1230 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1231 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
1232 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1234 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
1235 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1236 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
1237 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1239 set debug dwarf-line
1240 show debug dwarf-line
1241 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
1244 show max-completions
1245 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
1246 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
1247 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
1248 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
1250 set history remove-duplicates
1251 show history remove-duplicates
1252 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1254 maint set symbol-cache-size
1255 maint show symbol-cache-size
1256 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1258 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1259 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1261 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1262 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1264 set debug linux-namespaces
1265 show debug linux-namespaces
1266 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1268 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1269 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1270 Intel Processor Trace format.
1271 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1272 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1274 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1275 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1278 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
1279 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
1281 * Python/Guile scripting
1283 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
1284 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
1286 * New remote packets
1288 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
1289 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
1291 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
1292 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
1295 Enable Intel Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
1296 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
1299 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
1300 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
1304 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
1305 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
1306 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
1310 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
1311 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
1314 Return information about files on the remote system.
1316 qXfer:exec-file:read
1317 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
1318 create a process running on the remote system.
1321 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
1322 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
1323 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
1324 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
1327 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
1330 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
1332 vforkdone stop reason
1333 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
1334 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
1336 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
1337 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
1338 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
1339 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
1340 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
1341 whether these features are enabled.
1343 * Extended-remote fork events
1345 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
1346 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
1347 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
1348 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
1350 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
1351 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
1352 the btrace record target.
1353 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
1355 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
1356 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
1358 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
1361 * Removed command line options
1363 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
1365 * Removed targets and native configurations
1367 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
1368 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1370 * New configure options
1373 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
1374 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
1376 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
1377 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
1378 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
1379 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
1381 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
1385 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
1387 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
1389 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
1393 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
1394 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
1395 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
1396 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
1397 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
1398 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
1399 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
1400 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
1401 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
1402 selecting a new file to debug.
1403 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
1404 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
1406 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
1409 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
1410 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
1411 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
1412 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
1414 * New Python-based convenience functions:
1416 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1417 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1418 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1419 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1421 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
1422 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
1423 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
1424 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
1425 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
1426 interface with this new feature are:
1428 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
1429 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
1433 demangle [-l language] [--] name
1434 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
1435 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
1436 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
1437 as "maint demangler-warning".
1439 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
1440 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
1442 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
1443 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
1446 maint print user-registers
1447 List all currently available "user" registers.
1449 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
1450 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
1451 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
1453 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
1454 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
1455 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
1458 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
1459 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
1460 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
1461 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
1464 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
1465 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
1466 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
1467 switched threads meanwhile.
1469 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
1471 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
1472 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
1473 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
1474 is now the default mode.
1478 set debug symbol-lookup
1479 show debug symbol-lookup
1480 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
1484 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
1485 inferiors that have exited.
1489 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
1493 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1495 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
1496 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
1497 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
1498 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
1499 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
1501 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1502 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1503 its alias "share", instead.
1505 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
1507 * New command line options
1510 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
1512 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
1513 as specified in ISO C99.
1515 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
1516 with or without disassembly.
1520 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
1521 available is determined at configure time.
1522 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
1523 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
1525 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1529 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
1533 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
1535 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
1536 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
1538 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
1539 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
1543 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
1544 show print symbol-loading
1545 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
1546 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
1547 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
1548 becomes less useful.
1550 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
1551 show guile print-stack
1552 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
1554 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
1555 show auto-load guile-scripts
1556 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
1558 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
1559 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
1560 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
1561 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
1562 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
1563 usage of this option.
1565 set auto-connect-native-target
1567 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
1568 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
1569 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
1571 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
1572 show record btrace replay-memory-access
1573 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
1575 maint set target-async (on|off)
1576 maint show target-async
1577 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
1578 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
1579 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
1580 occurring only in synchronous mode.
1582 set mi-async (on|off)
1584 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
1585 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
1587 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
1588 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
1590 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
1591 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
1592 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
1593 "set target-async on" command.
1595 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1597 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
1598 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
1599 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
1600 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
1601 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
1603 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
1604 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
1605 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
1607 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
1608 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
1609 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
1610 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
1611 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
1612 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
1613 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
1615 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
1616 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
1618 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
1619 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
1620 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
1622 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
1623 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
1624 memory or registers.
1626 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
1628 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
1629 remote. It now works with all targets.
1631 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
1632 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
1633 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
1634 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
1635 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
1636 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
1637 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
1638 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
1639 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
1642 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
1643 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
1644 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
1646 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
1648 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
1649 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
1650 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
1652 * New remote packets
1654 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
1655 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
1656 branch trace incrementally.
1660 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
1661 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
1663 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
1664 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
1665 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
1666 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
1667 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
1670 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
1672 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1673 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1674 its alias "share", instead.
1676 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
1677 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
1682 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
1683 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
1684 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
1685 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
1686 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
1687 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
1688 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
1689 commands and CLI execution commands.
1691 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
1693 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
1694 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
1695 recording has been added.
1697 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1699 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
1700 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
1702 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
1703 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
1704 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
1705 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
1706 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
1707 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
1710 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
1712 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
1714 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
1715 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
1716 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
1717 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
1722 (gdb) info registers rax
1725 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
1726 "*value not available*".
1728 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
1733 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
1734 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
1735 ** Line tables representation has been added.
1736 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
1737 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
1738 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
1742 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
1743 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
1744 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
1746 * Removed native configurations
1748 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
1749 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
1751 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1752 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1753 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
1754 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
1755 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1756 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1757 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1761 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
1762 maint check-psymtabs
1763 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
1765 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
1766 maint expand-symtabs
1767 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
1770 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1772 maint set|show per-command
1773 maint set|show per-command space
1774 maint set|show per-command time
1775 maint set|show per-command symtab
1776 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
1778 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
1779 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
1780 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
1781 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
1782 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
1785 info exceptions REGEXP
1786 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
1787 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
1792 set debug symfile off|on
1794 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
1795 symbol tables within those files
1797 set print raw frame-arguments
1798 show print raw frame-arguments
1799 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
1800 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
1802 set remote trace-status-packet
1803 show remote trace-status-packet
1804 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
1808 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
1812 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
1814 set startup-with-shell
1815 show startup-with-shell
1816 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
1821 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
1822 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
1824 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
1825 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
1826 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
1827 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
1830 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
1831 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
1832 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
1834 * New command-line options
1836 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1838 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
1839 buffer in Common Trace Format.
1841 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
1844 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
1846 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
1847 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
1849 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
1850 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
1852 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
1853 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
1854 due to an uncaught signal.
1858 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
1859 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
1860 command, which should contain "language-option".
1862 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
1863 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
1865 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
1866 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
1867 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
1868 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
1869 "undefined-command-error-code".
1871 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
1874 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
1876 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
1877 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
1880 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
1881 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
1883 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
1884 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
1885 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
1887 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
1888 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
1889 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
1890 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
1891 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
1892 "exec-run-start-option".
1894 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
1895 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
1897 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
1898 the new "info exceptions" command.
1900 * New system-wide configuration scripts
1901 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
1902 configuration scripts for the following systems:
1906 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
1907 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
1908 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
1911 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
1912 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
1914 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
1915 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
1916 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
1918 * New remote packets
1922 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
1923 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
1924 involvemement at each single-step.
1926 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
1927 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
1928 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
1929 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
1930 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
1931 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
1934 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1936 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
1937 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
1939 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
1940 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
1941 trace state variables.
1943 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
1946 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
1947 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
1949 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
1951 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
1952 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
1953 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
1954 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1956 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
1958 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
1959 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
1960 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
1961 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
1963 set|show record full insn-number-max
1964 set|show record full stop-at-limit
1965 set|show record full memory-query
1967 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
1968 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
1969 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
1970 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
1971 This new recording method can be enabled using:
1975 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
1976 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
1978 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
1979 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
1980 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
1982 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
1983 instruction granularity
1985 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
1986 function granularity
1988 * New native configurations
1990 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
1991 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
1992 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
1993 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
1997 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
1998 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
1999 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2000 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2001 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2003 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2004 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2005 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2006 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2007 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2008 --data-directory command-line option.
2010 * New command line options:
2012 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2013 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2015 * Removed command line options
2017 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2020 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2023 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2027 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2029 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2031 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2033 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2035 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2036 of architecture in the Python API.
2038 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2039 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2041 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2043 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2044 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2046 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2048 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2051 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2052 default for GCC since November 2000.
2054 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2056 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2057 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2059 * New configure options
2061 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2062 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2063 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2064 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2065 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2066 options allow the user to override that default.
2067 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2068 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2069 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2071 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2074 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2075 conditions to be attached.
2078 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2080 python-interactive [command]
2082 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2083 and print the result of expressions.
2086 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2088 enable type-printer [name]...
2089 disable type-printer [name]...
2090 Enable or disable type printers.
2094 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2095 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2100 set print type methods (on|off)
2101 show print type methods
2102 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2103 The default is to show them.
2105 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2106 show print type typedefs
2107 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2108 The default is to show them.
2110 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2111 show filename-display
2112 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2113 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
2115 set trace-buffer-size
2116 show trace-buffer-size
2117 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
2119 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
2120 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
2121 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
2125 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
2128 set debug coff-pe-read
2129 show debug coff-pe-read
2130 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
2135 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
2138 set debug notification
2139 show debug notification
2140 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
2144 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
2145 "=cmd-param-changed".
2146 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
2147 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
2148 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
2149 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
2150 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
2151 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
2152 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
2153 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
2155 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
2156 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
2157 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
2158 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
2159 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
2160 library load/unload events.
2161 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
2162 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
2163 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
2164 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
2165 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
2166 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
2167 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
2168 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
2170 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
2171 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
2172 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
2173 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
2175 * New remote packets
2178 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
2179 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2182 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
2183 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
2187 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
2188 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2191 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
2192 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2194 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
2196 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
2197 for more x32 ABI info.
2199 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
2201 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
2203 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2204 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
2205 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
2206 "info os files" lists file descriptors
2207 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
2208 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
2209 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
2210 "info os msg" lists message queues
2211 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
2213 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
2214 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
2215 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
2216 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
2217 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
2218 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
2220 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
2221 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
2222 record/replay support.
2224 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
2228 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
2231 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
2233 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
2234 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
2236 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
2238 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
2239 the source at which the symbol was defined.
2241 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
2242 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
2243 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
2246 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
2247 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
2249 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2250 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2251 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2253 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2254 object associated with a PC value.
2256 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2257 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2259 * Go language support.
2260 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2263 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2264 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2266 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2267 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2269 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2270 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2271 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2272 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2273 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2276 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
2277 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
2278 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
2279 build/libcpp/expr.c.
2281 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
2282 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
2284 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
2285 since December 2007.
2287 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
2288 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
2289 command does. For instance:
2291 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
2293 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
2294 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
2295 created, using the "condition" command.
2297 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
2298 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
2300 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
2302 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
2303 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
2304 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
2305 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
2306 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
2307 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
2308 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
2309 files with older .gdb_index sections.
2311 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
2312 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
2313 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
2314 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
2315 the .gdb_index section.
2317 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
2319 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
2324 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
2326 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
2330 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2331 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2332 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
2334 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
2335 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
2337 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
2340 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
2341 C++ and Java objects.
2343 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
2344 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
2345 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
2346 configured with '--with-python'.
2348 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
2349 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
2350 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
2351 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
2352 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
2353 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
2354 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
2356 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
2357 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
2358 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
2359 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
2361 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
2362 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
2363 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
2364 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
2366 ** "set print symbol"
2368 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
2369 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
2370 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
2372 * Deprecated commands
2374 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
2375 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
2379 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2380 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
2382 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
2383 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
2384 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
2385 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
2390 set mips compression
2391 show mips compression
2392 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
2393 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
2396 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
2398 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
2399 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
2400 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
2401 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
2403 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
2407 Disable auto-loading globally.
2410 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
2412 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
2413 show auto-load gdb-scripts
2414 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
2416 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
2417 show auto-load python-scripts
2418 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
2420 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
2421 show auto-load local-gdbinit
2422 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
2424 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
2425 show auto-load libthread-db
2426 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
2428 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2429 show auto-load scripts-directory
2430 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
2431 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
2432 of the directories listed by this option.
2433 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2435 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2436 show auto-load safe-path
2437 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
2438 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2440 set debug auto-load on|off
2441 show debug auto-load
2442 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
2444 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
2446 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
2447 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
2448 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
2449 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
2451 set dprintf-function <expr>
2452 show dprintf-function
2453 set dprintf-channel <expr>
2454 show dprintf-channel
2455 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
2456 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
2458 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
2459 show disconnected-dprintf
2460 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
2461 after GDB disconnects.
2463 * New configure options
2465 --with-auto-load-dir
2466 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
2467 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
2468 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
2469 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
2470 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
2472 --with-auto-load-safe-path
2473 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
2474 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
2476 --without-auto-load-safe-path
2477 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
2480 * New remote packets
2482 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
2484 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
2485 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
2486 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
2487 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
2491 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
2492 program without GDB involvement.
2494 * New command line options
2496 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
2497 before loading inferior.
2498 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
2499 execute it before loading inferior.
2501 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
2503 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
2504 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
2505 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
2506 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
2509 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
2510 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
2512 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
2513 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
2514 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
2515 target hardware watchpoint.
2517 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
2518 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
2519 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
2520 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
2524 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
2525 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
2528 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
2529 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
2530 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
2531 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
2532 now "message", which just prints the error message without
2535 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
2538 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
2539 modules library. This module provides functionality for
2540 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
2541 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
2542 corresponding value.
2544 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
2545 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
2546 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
2549 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
2550 static_block will return the global and static blocks
2551 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
2552 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
2554 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
2556 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
2559 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
2560 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
2561 available in the CLI.
2563 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
2564 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
2565 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
2566 "some_type.items()".
2568 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
2571 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
2572 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
2573 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
2574 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
2575 any anonymous fields.
2579 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
2582 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
2583 "=breakpoint-modified".
2585 ** New command -ada-task-info.
2587 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
2588 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
2589 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
2592 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
2593 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
2594 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
2595 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
2596 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
2598 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
2599 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
2601 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
2602 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
2603 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
2604 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
2605 use this option to specify where to find it.
2607 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2608 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
2609 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
2610 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
2611 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
2612 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2613 section in the user manual for more details.
2615 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
2616 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
2617 become available after that.
2619 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
2621 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
2622 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
2628 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
2629 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
2633 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
2634 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
2635 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
2637 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
2638 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
2639 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
2641 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
2642 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
2643 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
2644 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
2645 name starts with a hyphen.
2647 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
2648 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
2649 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
2650 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
2651 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
2652 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
2653 number of bytes that will be collected.
2656 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
2657 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
2658 setting the variable trace-notes.
2661 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
2662 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
2663 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
2666 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
2667 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
2668 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
2669 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
2670 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
2673 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
2674 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
2675 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
2679 set debug dwarf2-read
2680 show debug dwarf2-read
2681 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
2682 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
2684 set debug symtab-create
2685 show debug symtab-create
2686 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
2687 creation. The default is off.
2690 show extended-prompt
2691 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
2692 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
2693 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
2694 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
2695 prompt is displayed.
2697 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
2698 show print entry-values
2699 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
2700 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
2701 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
2703 set debug entry-values
2704 show debug entry-values
2705 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
2706 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
2708 set basenames-may-differ
2709 show basenames-may-differ
2710 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
2711 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
2712 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
2713 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
2714 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
2715 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
2716 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
2717 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
2723 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
2724 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
2725 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
2726 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
2728 set trace-stop-notes
2729 show trace-stop-notes
2730 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
2731 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
2732 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
2733 started by someone else.
2735 * New remote packets
2739 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2743 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2747 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
2751 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
2755 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
2758 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
2759 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
2763 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
2767 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2769 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
2771 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
2773 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
2775 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
2776 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
2777 matches the given regular expression.
2779 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
2781 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
2782 dumping the instruction opcodes.
2784 * New command line options
2786 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
2787 This is mostly for testing purposes.
2789 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
2790 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
2792 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
2793 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
2794 source path list instead of augmenting it.
2796 * GDB now understands thread names.
2798 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
2799 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
2801 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
2802 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
2805 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
2806 has been integrated into GDB.
2810 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
2811 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
2812 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
2814 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2815 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
2816 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
2817 and allows for more dynamic content.
2819 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
2820 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
2821 have an is_valid method.
2823 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2824 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
2825 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
2827 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
2829 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
2830 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
2831 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
2832 that function like so:
2834 result = some_value (10,20)
2836 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
2837 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
2838 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
2840 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
2841 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
2842 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
2843 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
2844 New function: register_pretty_printer.
2846 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
2847 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
2849 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
2851 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
2854 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
2855 holds the thread's name.
2857 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
2858 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
2859 occurring in the process being debugged.
2860 The following events are currently supported:
2861 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
2862 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
2863 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
2867 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
2868 instantiation. For example, if you have:
2870 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
2872 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
2873 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
2874 was added to GCC 4.5.
2876 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
2877 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
2878 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
2879 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
2880 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
2881 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
2883 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
2884 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
2885 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
2886 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
2887 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
2889 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
2890 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
2891 execution to a label.
2893 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
2894 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
2895 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
2896 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
2898 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
2899 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
2900 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
2903 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
2905 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
2906 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
2907 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
2908 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
2909 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
2910 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
2913 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
2915 While now you see this:
2918 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
2920 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
2923 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
2924 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
2925 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
2926 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
2928 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2929 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
2930 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
2931 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2932 section in the user manual for more details.
2934 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2936 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
2937 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
2939 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
2941 * New native configurations
2943 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
2947 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
2949 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
2950 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
2951 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
2952 in the GDB user manual.
2954 * Guile support was removed.
2956 * New features in the GNU simulator
2958 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
2960 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
2962 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
2964 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
2966 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
2967 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
2968 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
2969 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
2970 was always disabled for such configurations.
2974 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
2976 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
2977 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
2987 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
2988 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
2989 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
2991 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
2993 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
2994 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
2995 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
2996 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
2998 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
2999 mentioned flavors of operators.
3001 ** static const class members
3003 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3004 class definition has been fixed.
3006 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3008 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3009 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3010 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3011 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3012 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3013 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3015 * Static tracepoints
3017 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3018 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3019 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3020 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3021 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3022 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3023 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3024 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3025 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3026 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3027 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3028 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3029 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3030 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3031 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3032 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3033 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3034 the "New remote packets" section below.
3036 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3038 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3039 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3040 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3041 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3045 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3046 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3047 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3048 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3049 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3050 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3051 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3053 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3056 * New remote packets
3060 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3064 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3065 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3066 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3067 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3068 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3069 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3073 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3077 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3080 qXfer:statictrace:read
3082 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3083 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3084 to gdb's qSupported query.
3088 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3092 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3093 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3095 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3096 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3099 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3101 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3102 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3103 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3104 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3106 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3107 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3108 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3109 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3110 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3111 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3112 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3114 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
3115 for static tracepoints support.
3117 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
3119 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
3120 it understands register description.
3122 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
3124 * X86 general purpose registers
3126 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
3127 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
3128 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
3129 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
3130 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
3132 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
3133 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
3134 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
3135 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
3136 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
3137 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
3139 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
3140 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
3141 in the specified file.
3143 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
3144 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
3145 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
3146 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
3147 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
3148 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
3149 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
3150 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
3151 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
3152 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
3156 eval template, expressions...
3157 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
3158 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
3160 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
3161 show target-file-system-kind
3162 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
3165 save breakpoints <filename>
3166 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
3167 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
3168 definitions, use the `source' command.
3170 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
3173 info static-tracepoint-markers
3174 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
3176 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
3177 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
3178 function, line, address, or marker ID.
3182 Enable and disable observer mode.
3184 set may-write-registers on|off
3185 set may-write-memory on|off
3186 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
3187 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
3188 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
3189 set may-interrupt on|off
3190 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
3191 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
3192 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
3193 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
3194 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
3195 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
3196 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
3198 set record memory-query on|off
3199 show record memory-query
3200 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
3201 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
3206 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
3210 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
3211 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
3212 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
3213 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
3214 GDB using Python' in the manual.
3216 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
3217 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
3218 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
3219 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
3221 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
3222 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
3224 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
3226 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
3228 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
3230 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
3231 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
3232 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
3234 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
3235 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
3236 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
3237 regular breakpoints.
3241 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
3243 * D language support.
3244 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
3247 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
3248 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
3249 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3250 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3251 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3253 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3254 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3255 conditions of the form:
3257 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3259 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3260 interface mentioned above.
3262 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
3266 ** Namespace Support
3268 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3269 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3270 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3271 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3272 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3276 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
3277 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
3282 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
3283 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
3287 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
3292 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
3295 * Multi-program debugging.
3297 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
3298 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
3299 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
3300 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
3301 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
3302 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
3303 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
3304 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
3306 * New tracing features
3308 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
3310 ** Trace state variables
3312 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
3313 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
3314 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
3315 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
3316 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
3317 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
3318 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
3319 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
3320 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
3321 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
3325 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
3326 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
3327 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
3328 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
3329 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
3330 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
3331 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
3332 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
3333 the regular trace command.
3335 ** Disconnected tracing
3337 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
3338 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
3339 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
3340 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
3341 connection is lost unexpectedly.
3345 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
3346 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
3347 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
3348 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
3349 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
3350 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
3353 ** Circular trace buffer
3355 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
3356 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
3357 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
3358 not be available for all target agents.
3363 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
3364 the arguments to be comma-separated.
3367 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
3368 which only declare a variable are not shown.
3371 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
3372 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
3375 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
3376 "set script-extension" (see below).
3378 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3380 record save [<FILENAME>]
3381 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
3382 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
3384 record restore <FILENAME>
3385 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
3386 earlier time, for replay debugging.
3388 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
3391 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
3392 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
3393 inferior has loaded.
3398 maint info program-spaces
3399 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
3401 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
3402 show remote interrupt-sequence
3403 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
3404 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
3405 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
3406 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
3407 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
3409 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
3410 show remote interrupt-on-connect
3411 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
3412 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
3415 set remotebreak [on | off]
3417 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
3419 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
3420 Create or modify a trace state variable.
3423 List trace state variables and their values.
3425 delete tvariable $NAME ...
3426 Delete one or more trace state variables.
3429 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
3430 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
3432 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
3433 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
3435 * New expression syntax
3437 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
3438 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
3442 set follow-exec-mode new|same
3443 show follow-exec-mode
3444 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
3445 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
3446 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
3448 set default-collect EXPR, ...
3449 show default-collect
3450 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
3451 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
3452 such as registers or a critical global variable.
3454 set disconnected-tracing
3455 show disconnected-tracing
3456 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
3457 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
3460 set circular-trace-buffer
3461 show circular-trace-buffer
3462 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
3463 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
3464 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
3465 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
3467 set script-extension off|soft|strict
3468 show script-extension
3469 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
3470 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
3471 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
3472 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
3474 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
3476 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
3477 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
3478 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
3479 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
3480 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
3481 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
3482 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
3485 * Python API Improvements
3487 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
3488 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
3489 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
3491 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
3492 `is_base_class' attribute.
3494 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
3496 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
3497 evaluate an expression.
3499 * New remote packets
3502 Define a trace state variable.
3505 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
3508 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
3511 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
3514 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
3518 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
3520 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
3521 much more reliable. In particular:
3522 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
3523 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
3524 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
3525 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
3526 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
3527 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
3528 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
3529 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
3530 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
3531 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
3532 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
3533 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
3534 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
3535 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
3536 non-threaded programs.
3538 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
3539 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
3540 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
3543 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
3545 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
3546 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
3547 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
3548 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
3549 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
3551 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
3552 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
3553 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
3554 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
3555 for tracepoint actions.
3557 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
3558 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
3559 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
3561 * Process record and replay
3563 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
3564 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
3565 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
3568 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
3569 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
3570 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
3573 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
3574 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
3577 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
3578 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
3579 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
3580 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
3581 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
3582 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
3583 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
3584 the installation instructions for more information.
3586 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
3587 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
3588 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
3589 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
3591 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
3592 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
3594 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
3595 now complete on file names.
3597 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
3598 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
3599 For instance, consider:
3601 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
3602 # struct example variable;
3605 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
3606 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
3608 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
3609 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
3611 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
3612 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
3615 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
3616 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
3617 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
3619 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
3620 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
3621 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
3622 and simulator targets may also provide them.
3624 * New remote packets
3627 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3630 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
3631 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
3632 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
3635 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
3636 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
3639 Obtains additional operating system information
3643 Read or write additional signal information.
3645 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
3647 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
3648 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
3649 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
3651 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
3652 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
3654 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
3655 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
3656 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
3658 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
3659 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
3661 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
3663 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
3665 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
3666 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
3668 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
3669 list of section offsets.
3671 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
3672 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
3673 have also been fixed.
3675 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
3676 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
3677 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
3679 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
3682 template<typename T> class C { };
3685 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
3687 ptype C<char const *>
3688 ptype C<char const*>
3689 ptype C<const char *>
3690 ptype C<const char*>
3692 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
3694 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
3695 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3697 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
3698 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3699 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
3701 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
3702 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
3704 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
3707 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
3708 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3710 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
3711 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
3716 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
3717 available is determined at configure time.
3719 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
3721 * Ada tasking support
3723 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
3727 Print the list of Ada tasks.
3729 Print detailed information about task number N.
3731 Print the task number of the current task.
3733 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
3735 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
3736 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
3738 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
3740 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
3741 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
3742 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
3743 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
3744 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
3745 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
3748 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
3749 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
3752 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
3753 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
3754 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
3755 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
3758 * Multi-architecture debugging.
3760 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
3761 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
3762 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
3763 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
3764 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
3766 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
3767 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
3768 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
3769 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
3770 --enable-targets configure option.
3772 * Non-stop mode debugging.
3774 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
3775 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
3776 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
3777 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
3778 section in the user manual for more information.
3780 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
3781 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
3782 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
3783 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
3784 extensions on linux targets.
3786 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3788 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
3789 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
3790 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
3791 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
3792 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
3793 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
3794 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
3795 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
3796 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
3798 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
3800 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3802 maint set python print-stack
3803 maint show python print-stack
3804 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
3807 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
3812 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
3816 Show operating system information about processes.
3819 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
3822 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
3825 Detach from inferior number NUM.
3828 Kill inferior number NUM.
3832 set spu stop-on-load
3833 show spu stop-on-load
3834 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3836 set spu auto-flush-cache
3837 show spu auto-flush-cache
3838 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
3839 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3841 set sh calling-convention
3842 show sh calling-convention
3843 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
3846 show debug timestamp
3847 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
3849 set disassemble-next-line
3850 show disassemble-next-line
3851 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
3854 set remote noack-packet
3855 show remote noack-packet
3856 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
3857 under "New remote packets."
3859 set remote query-attached-packet
3860 show remote query-attached-packet
3861 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
3863 set remote read-siginfo-object
3864 show remote read-siginfo-object
3865 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
3868 set remote write-siginfo-object
3869 show remote write-siginfo-object
3870 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
3873 set remote reverse-continue
3874 show remote reverse-continue
3875 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
3877 set remote reverse-step
3878 show remote reverse-step
3879 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
3881 set displaced-stepping
3882 show displaced-stepping
3883 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
3884 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
3885 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
3888 show debug displaced
3889 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
3891 maint set internal-error
3892 maint show internal-error
3893 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
3895 maint set internal-warning
3896 maint show internal-warning
3897 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
3902 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3904 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
3905 show multiple-symbols
3906 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
3907 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
3908 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
3910 set breakpoint always-inserted
3911 show breakpoint always-inserted
3912 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
3913 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
3914 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
3916 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
3917 show arm fallback-mode
3918 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
3920 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
3921 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
3922 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
3923 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
3925 set disable-randomization
3926 show disable-randomization
3927 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
3928 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
3929 multiple debugging sessions.
3933 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
3938 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
3939 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
3940 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
3941 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
3943 set target-wide-charset
3944 show target-wide-charset
3945 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
3946 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
3948 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
3950 set tcp connect-timeout
3951 show tcp connect-timeout
3952 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
3953 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
3954 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
3956 set libthread-db-search-path
3957 show libthread-db-search-path
3958 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
3961 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
3962 show schedule-multiple
3963 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
3964 the current process.
3968 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
3969 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
3970 affecting correctness.
3972 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
3973 show interactive-mode
3974 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
3975 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
3976 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
3977 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
3978 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
3983 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
3984 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
3985 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
3989 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
3990 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
3991 alias for the `fork' command.
3994 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
3995 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
3996 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
3999 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4000 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4001 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4005 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4006 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4007 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4010 * New native configurations
4012 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4014 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4018 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4019 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4020 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4023 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4024 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4030 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4032 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4034 * New native configurations
4036 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4037 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4041 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4042 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
4044 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4046 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4047 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4048 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4049 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4051 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4052 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4054 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4057 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4058 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4059 and in inlined functions.
4061 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4062 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4063 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4065 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4067 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4068 registers on PowerPC targets.
4070 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4071 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4073 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4074 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4076 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4077 extended-remote mode.
4079 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4080 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4081 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4082 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4084 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4085 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4086 target architectures.
4088 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4089 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4090 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4091 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4093 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4096 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4097 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4099 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4100 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4101 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4102 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4104 - Improved command completion in Ada
4107 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4112 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4113 show print frame-arguments
4114 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
4115 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
4120 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4127 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4129 * New remote packets
4136 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
4139 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
4143 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
4145 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
4147 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
4148 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
4149 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
4151 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
4152 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
4153 -Bsymbolic linker option.
4155 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
4156 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
4159 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
4160 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
4162 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
4163 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
4165 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
4167 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
4168 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
4169 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
4171 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
4172 automatically displayed as character or string data.
4174 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
4175 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
4178 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
4179 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
4180 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
4182 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
4185 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
4186 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
4187 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
4189 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
4191 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
4193 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
4194 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
4195 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
4197 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
4198 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
4200 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
4201 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
4202 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
4203 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
4204 Windows and SymbianOS).
4206 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
4207 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
4209 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
4210 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
4216 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
4217 when debugging using remote targets.
4219 set mem inaccessible-by-default
4220 show mem inaccessible-by-default
4221 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4222 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4223 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
4224 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
4225 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
4227 set breakpoint auto-hw
4228 show breakpoint auto-hw
4229 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4230 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4231 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
4232 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
4233 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
4234 including "next" and "finish".
4237 catch exception unhandled
4238 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
4241 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
4245 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
4246 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
4247 an alias to "set sysroot".
4250 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4251 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4254 * New native configurations
4256 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4259 unset tdesc filename
4261 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4262 not query the target for its built-in description.
4266 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4267 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4268 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4270 * New remote packets
4273 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4274 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4276 qXfer:features:read:
4277 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
4282 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
4283 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
4285 qXfer:libraries:read:
4286 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
4287 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
4288 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
4289 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
4293 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
4301 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
4302 i[34567]86-*-netware*
4303 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
4304 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
4306 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
4309 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
4310 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
4319 * Other removed features
4326 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
4333 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
4338 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
4339 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
4344 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
4345 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
4347 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
4349 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
4350 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
4351 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
4352 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
4354 MIPS ".pdr" sections
4356 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
4357 in debugging information.
4361 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
4362 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
4364 set mips stack-arg-size
4365 set mips saved-gpreg-size
4367 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
4369 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
4374 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
4376 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
4377 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
4378 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
4380 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
4381 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
4384 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
4385 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
4387 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
4388 stub provides the required support.
4390 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
4391 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
4396 unset substitute-path
4397 show substitute-path
4398 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
4399 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
4400 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
4401 between compilation and debugging.
4405 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
4406 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
4407 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
4411 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
4413 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
4414 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
4416 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
4418 * New remote packets
4421 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
4422 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
4423 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
4424 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
4428 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
4429 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
4431 qXfer:memory-map:read:
4432 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
4433 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
4438 Erase and program a flash memory device.
4440 * Removed remote packets
4443 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
4444 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
4446 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
4450 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
4452 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4456 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
4457 only if it doesn't already have a value.
4459 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
4461 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
4463 restart <n> Return the program state to a
4464 previously saved state.
4466 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
4468 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
4470 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
4471 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
4473 info forks List forks of the user program that
4474 are available to be debugged.
4476 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
4477 forks of the user program that are
4478 available to be debugged.
4480 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4481 that are available to be debugged (and
4482 kill the forked process).
4484 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4485 that are available to be debugged (and
4486 allow the process to continue).
4490 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
4492 * Improved Windows host support
4494 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
4495 native console support, and remote communications using either
4496 network sockets or serial ports.
4498 * Improved Modula-2 language support
4500 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
4501 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
4502 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
4503 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
4504 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
4505 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
4509 The ARM rdi-share module.
4511 The Netware NLM debug server.
4513 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
4515 * New native configurations
4517 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
4518 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
4522 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4524 * New command line options
4526 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
4527 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
4528 the child (debugged) program exited with.
4529 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
4530 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
4531 specified multiple times and in conjunction
4532 with the --command (-x) option.
4534 * Deprecated commands removed
4536 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
4540 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
4541 othernames set arm disassembler
4542 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
4543 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
4544 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
4547 * New BSD user-level threads support
4549 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
4550 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
4553 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4554 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
4555 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
4557 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
4558 are not yet supported.
4560 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
4561 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
4563 * REMOVED configurations and files
4565 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
4566 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4567 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
4569 * New "set print array-indexes" command
4571 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
4572 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
4575 * VAX floating point support
4577 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
4579 * User-defined command support
4581 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
4582 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
4583 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
4585 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
4587 * New command line option
4589 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
4592 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
4594 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
4595 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
4596 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
4597 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
4598 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
4600 * Internationalization
4602 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
4603 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
4604 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
4608 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
4609 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
4610 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
4612 * New native configurations
4614 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
4618 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
4619 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
4621 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
4623 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4624 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
4625 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
4628 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
4629 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
4630 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
4640 powerpc bdm protocol
4642 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4643 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
4645 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4647 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4648 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4649 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4650 permanently REMOVED.
4659 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
4661 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
4663 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
4664 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
4667 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
4669 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
4670 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
4671 IRIX long double values).
4675 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
4676 command. This problem has been fixed.
4678 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
4680 * Fix for ``many threads''
4682 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
4683 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
4686 ptrace: No such process.
4687 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
4689 This problem has been fixed.
4691 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
4693 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
4696 * New ``start'' command.
4698 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
4700 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
4702 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
4703 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
4704 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
4706 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4707 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
4708 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
4709 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
4710 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
4711 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4712 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
4713 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
4714 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4716 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
4718 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
4719 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
4720 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
4721 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
4722 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
4724 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
4725 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
4726 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
4728 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
4730 * New native configurations
4732 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
4733 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
4734 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
4735 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
4736 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
4737 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
4738 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
4740 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
4742 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4743 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
4744 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
4745 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
4746 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
4747 work, was also included.
4749 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
4750 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
4760 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4761 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
4763 * REMOVED configurations and files
4765 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
4766 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
4767 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
4768 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
4769 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
4770 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
4771 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
4772 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
4773 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
4774 sonymips mips-sony-*
4775 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
4777 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
4779 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
4781 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
4782 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
4783 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
4784 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
4787 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
4789 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
4790 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
4791 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
4792 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
4793 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
4794 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
4797 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
4799 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
4801 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
4802 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
4803 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
4805 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
4807 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
4808 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
4810 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
4812 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
4813 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
4814 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
4816 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
4818 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
4819 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
4821 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
4823 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
4824 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
4825 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
4827 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
4829 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
4830 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
4831 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
4833 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
4835 * Removed --with-mmalloc
4837 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
4838 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
4840 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
4842 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
4843 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
4844 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
4845 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
4847 * Revised SPARC target
4849 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
4850 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
4851 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
4852 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
4853 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
4857 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
4858 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
4859 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
4862 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
4864 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
4865 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
4868 * C++ nested types and namespaces
4870 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
4871 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
4872 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
4873 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
4874 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
4875 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
4876 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
4877 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
4878 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
4880 * New native configurations
4882 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
4883 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4884 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
4885 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4886 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
4888 * New debugging protocols
4890 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
4892 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
4894 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
4895 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
4896 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
4898 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4900 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4901 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4902 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4903 permanently REMOVED.
4905 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
4906 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
4907 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
4908 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
4909 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
4910 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
4911 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
4912 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
4913 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
4914 sonymips mips-sony-*
4915 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
4917 * REMOVED configurations and files
4919 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4920 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4921 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4922 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4923 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4924 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
4925 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4926 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
4927 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
4928 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4929 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
4930 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
4931 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
4932 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
4933 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4934 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4935 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4937 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
4941 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
4942 integrated into GDB.
4944 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
4946 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
4947 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
4948 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
4951 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
4952 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
4953 DWARF 2 CFI support.
4957 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
4958 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
4959 remote protocol documentation for details.
4961 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
4963 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
4964 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
4965 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
4968 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
4970 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
4971 per-thread variables.
4973 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
4975 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
4976 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
4978 * Separate debug info.
4980 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
4981 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
4982 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
4983 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
4984 and optional debug files.
4986 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
4988 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
4989 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
4992 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
4993 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
4997 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
4998 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
4999 considered "useable".
5001 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5003 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5004 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5007 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5009 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5010 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5012 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5014 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5015 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5018 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5020 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5021 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5025 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5026 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5027 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5028 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5029 data, for more informative profiling results.
5031 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5033 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5034 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5035 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5037 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5040 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5041 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5042 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5043 in a subsequent -var-update.
5045 * New native configurations.
5047 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5049 * Multi-arched targets.
5051 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5052 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5054 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5056 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5057 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5058 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5059 permanently REMOVED.
5061 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5062 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5063 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5064 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5065 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5066 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5067 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5068 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5069 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5070 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5071 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5072 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5074 * REMOVED configurations and files
5077 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5078 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5079 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5080 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5081 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5082 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5084 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5085 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5086 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5087 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5088 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5089 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5091 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5093 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5094 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5095 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5096 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5097 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5099 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5101 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5103 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5104 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5105 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5106 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5107 shared libs like mad''.
5109 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5111 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5112 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5113 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5114 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
5116 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
5118 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
5119 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
5122 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
5123 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
5125 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
5126 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
5128 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
5129 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
5130 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
5131 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
5133 * Multi-arched targets.
5135 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
5136 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
5138 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
5139 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
5140 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5144 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
5147 * New native configurations
5149 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
5150 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
5151 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
5152 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
5154 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5156 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5157 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5158 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5159 permanently REMOVED.
5161 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5162 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5163 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5164 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5165 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5166 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5167 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5168 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5169 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5170 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5172 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5173 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5175 * OBSOLETE languages
5177 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
5179 * REMOVED configurations and files
5181 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5182 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5183 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5184 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5185 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5187 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5189 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
5191 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
5192 commands. The default is 1024.
5194 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
5196 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
5198 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
5200 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
5201 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
5202 from a file into memory (restore).
5204 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
5206 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
5207 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
5208 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
5210 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
5218 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
5219 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
5220 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
5222 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
5223 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
5224 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
5226 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
5227 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
5228 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
5230 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
5231 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
5232 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
5234 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
5236 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
5238 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
5239 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
5240 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
5241 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
5242 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
5243 (notably embedded) targets.
5245 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
5247 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
5248 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
5249 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5250 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5252 * New command line option
5254 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5256 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5258 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5259 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5260 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5261 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5262 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5263 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5264 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5265 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5266 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5267 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5269 * Changes in ARM configurations.
5271 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5272 configuration is fully multi-arch.
5274 * New native configurations
5276 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
5277 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
5278 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
5279 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
5283 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
5285 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5287 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5288 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5289 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5290 permanently REMOVED.
5292 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5293 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5294 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5295 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5296 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5298 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5300 * REMOVED configurations and files
5302 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5304 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5305 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5306 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5307 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5308 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5309 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5310 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5311 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5312 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5313 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5314 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
5316 * Changes to command line processing
5318 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
5319 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
5321 * Changes to key bindings
5323 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
5325 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
5327 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
5329 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
5332 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
5334 Numerous documentation fixes.
5336 Numerous testsuite fixes.
5338 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
5340 * New native configurations
5342 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
5343 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
5344 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
5345 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5346 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
5347 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
5351 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
5353 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
5355 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5357 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
5358 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5359 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5360 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5361 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5363 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5364 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5365 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5366 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5367 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5368 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5369 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5370 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
5372 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
5373 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
5375 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5376 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5377 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5378 permanently REMOVED.
5380 * REMOVED configurations and files
5382 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5383 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5385 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5389 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
5391 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
5392 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
5397 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
5399 * The MI enabled by default.
5401 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
5402 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
5403 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
5404 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
5405 which is now deprecated.
5407 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
5409 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
5410 main features are supported:
5412 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
5414 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
5417 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
5419 - a Pascal expression parser.
5421 However, some important features are not yet supported.
5423 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
5425 - there are some problems with boolean types;
5427 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
5428 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
5430 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
5432 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
5434 * Changes in completion.
5436 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
5437 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
5438 users expect at the shell prompt.
5440 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
5441 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
5442 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
5443 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
5444 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
5445 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
5446 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
5448 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
5450 * New platform-independent commands:
5452 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
5453 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
5454 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
5456 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
5458 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
5459 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
5460 many threads as your system allows you to have.
5462 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
5464 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
5465 multi-threaded programs though.
5467 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
5469 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
5471 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
5472 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
5475 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
5477 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
5478 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
5479 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
5480 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
5481 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
5484 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
5485 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
5486 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
5488 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
5490 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
5491 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
5493 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
5494 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
5497 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
5498 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
5499 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
5500 a given linear address.
5502 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
5503 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
5504 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
5506 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
5508 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
5510 * Changes in documentation.
5512 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
5513 Documentation License.
5515 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5518 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
5520 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5523 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
5524 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
5525 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
5527 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
5529 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
5530 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
5531 contents of this file.
5535 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
5537 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
5539 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
5541 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
5542 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
5543 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
5544 greater level of detail.
5546 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
5548 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
5549 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
5550 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
5553 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
5555 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
5556 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
5557 machines ``out of the box''.
5559 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
5560 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
5561 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
5562 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
5563 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
5565 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
5566 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
5567 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
5568 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
5569 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
5571 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
5572 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
5575 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
5578 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
5579 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
5580 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
5581 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
5583 * New native configurations
5585 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
5586 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5590 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
5591 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
5592 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
5593 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5595 * OBSOLETE configurations
5597 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5598 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5600 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5603 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5604 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5605 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5606 be permanently REMOVED.
5608 * Gould support removed
5610 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
5612 * New features for SVR4
5614 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
5615 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
5616 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
5618 * Many C++ enhancements
5620 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
5621 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
5623 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
5625 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
5626 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
5627 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
5628 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
5630 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
5631 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
5633 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
5635 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
5636 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
5637 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
5639 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
5640 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
5642 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
5644 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
5645 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
5646 include ``set remote P-packet''.
5648 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
5650 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
5651 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
5652 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
5654 * ``apropos'' command added.
5656 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
5657 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
5658 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
5662 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
5663 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
5664 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
5665 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
5666 enabled by configuring with:
5668 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
5670 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
5672 * New native configurations
5674 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
5675 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
5676 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
5680 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5681 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
5682 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5684 * OBSOLETE configurations
5686 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
5688 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5689 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5690 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5691 be permanently REMOVED.
5695 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
5696 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
5697 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
5698 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
5699 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
5700 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
5701 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
5706 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
5708 * set extension-language
5710 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
5711 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
5712 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
5713 set extension-language .c c++
5714 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
5715 and their associated languages.
5717 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
5719 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
5720 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
5721 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
5725 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
5726 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
5728 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
5729 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
5731 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
5732 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
5733 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
5734 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
5735 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
5736 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
5737 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
5738 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
5740 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
5741 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
5742 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
5743 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
5747 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
5748 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
5749 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
5750 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
5751 for xdb and dbx commands.
5755 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
5756 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
5757 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
5759 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
5760 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
5761 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
5763 * Debugging across forks
5765 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
5770 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
5771 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
5772 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
5774 * GDB remote protocol additions
5776 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
5777 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
5778 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
5779 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
5781 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
5782 full 64-bit address. The command
5784 set remoteaddresssize 32
5786 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
5787 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
5790 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
5791 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
5793 maint packet heythere
5795 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
5796 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
5799 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
5800 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
5801 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
5803 * Tracing can collect general expressions
5805 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
5806 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
5807 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
5809 * mask-address variable for Mips
5811 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
5812 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
5813 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
5815 * Higher serial baud rates
5817 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
5818 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
5819 to achieve all of these rates.)
5823 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
5824 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
5827 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
5829 * New native configurations
5831 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
5832 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
5833 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5834 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5835 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5836 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
5837 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
5841 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5842 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
5843 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5844 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
5845 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
5846 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
5847 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
5848 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
5849 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5850 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5851 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
5853 * New debugging protocols
5855 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
5856 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
5857 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
5858 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5859 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5860 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5864 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
5865 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
5870 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
5871 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
5873 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
5875 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
5876 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
5877 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
5879 * Live range splitting
5881 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
5882 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
5883 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
5887 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
5888 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
5892 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
5893 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
5894 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
5899 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
5904 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
5905 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
5906 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
5907 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
5908 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
5909 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
5913 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
5914 the symbol at the specified address.
5918 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
5919 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
5920 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
5921 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
5922 file tracepoint.c for more details.
5926 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
5927 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
5928 of most MIPS variants.
5932 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
5933 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
5934 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
5938 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
5939 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
5940 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
5941 the possible architectures.
5943 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
5945 * New native configurations
5947 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
5948 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
5949 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
5950 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
5951 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5952 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
5956 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
5957 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5958 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
5959 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
5960 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
5962 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5966 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
5967 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
5968 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
5969 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
5970 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
5974 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
5976 * Windows 95/NT native
5978 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
5979 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
5980 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
5981 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
5982 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
5984 * dont-repeat command
5986 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
5987 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
5988 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
5989 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
5991 * Send break instead of ^C
5993 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
5994 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
5995 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
5997 * Remote protocol timeout
5999 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6000 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6001 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6003 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6005 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6006 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6007 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6008 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6009 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6011 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6012 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6013 automatically on hpux10.
6015 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6017 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6019 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6021 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6022 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6023 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6024 every character. The default value is 1050.
6026 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6028 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6029 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6030 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6031 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6032 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6033 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6035 * Speedups for remote debugging
6037 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6038 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6039 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6041 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6043 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6044 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6046 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6048 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6050 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6051 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6053 * Remote targets use caching
6055 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6056 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6057 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6058 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6059 off' turns the the data cache off.
6061 * Remote targets may have threads
6063 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6064 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6065 gdb/remote.c for details.
6069 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6070 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6071 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6072 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6073 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6074 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6075 sequence is something like
6077 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6079 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6083 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6084 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6085 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6086 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6087 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6088 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6089 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6090 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6094 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6095 but does simplify configuration and building.
6099 GDB now supports hpux10.
6101 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6103 * New native configurations
6105 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6106 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6107 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6108 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6112 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6113 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6114 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
6115 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
6118 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
6120 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
6121 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
6122 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
6123 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
6124 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
6126 * Arguments to user-defined commands
6128 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
6129 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
6132 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
6134 To execute the command use:
6137 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
6138 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
6139 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
6141 * New `if' and `while' commands
6143 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
6144 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
6145 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
6146 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
6147 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
6148 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
6149 if the expression is zero.
6151 * Fortran source language mode
6153 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
6154 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
6155 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
6156 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
6159 * Better HPUX support
6161 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
6162 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
6163 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
6164 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
6165 that behavior do the following before running the program:
6171 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
6172 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
6178 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
6179 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
6182 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
6183 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
6185 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
6187 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
6188 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
6189 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
6190 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
6191 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
6192 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
6194 * New DOS host serial code
6196 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
6197 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
6200 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
6202 * New "complete" command
6204 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
6205 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
6207 * Trailing space optional in prompt
6209 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
6210 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
6212 * Breakpoint hit counts
6214 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
6215 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
6216 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
6217 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
6218 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
6221 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
6223 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
6224 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
6225 arrays actually contain only short strings.
6227 * Shared library breakpoints
6229 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
6230 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
6232 * Hardware watchpoints
6234 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
6235 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
6237 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
6241 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
6242 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
6244 * Improved Irix 5 support
6246 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
6248 * Improved HPPA support
6250 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6252 * New native configurations
6254 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6255 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6256 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6257 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6261 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6262 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6265 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6267 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6268 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6272 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6273 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6275 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6277 * Irix 5 is now supported
6281 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
6282 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
6283 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
6284 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
6285 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
6288 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
6290 * User visible changes:
6294 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
6295 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
6296 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
6297 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
6298 debugging info for the mips target).
6300 * DEC Alpha native support
6302 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
6303 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
6304 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
6305 Alpha-specific notes.
6307 * Preliminary thread implementation
6309 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
6311 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
6313 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
6314 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
6317 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
6319 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
6320 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
6321 call methods, ...etc.
6323 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
6325 * User visible changes:
6327 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
6328 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
6329 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
6330 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
6332 Filename completion now works.
6334 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
6335 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
6336 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
6338 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
6339 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
6340 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
6341 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
6342 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
6346 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
6347 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
6350 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
6354 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
6355 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
6356 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
6360 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
6361 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
6362 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
6363 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
6364 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
6368 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
6369 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
6370 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
6372 * New targets supported
6374 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6375 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6376 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
6377 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6378 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
6380 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
6381 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
6382 GO32 memory extender.
6384 * New remote protocols
6386 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
6388 * New source languages supported
6390 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
6391 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
6392 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
6395 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
6397 * HP Precision Architecture supported
6399 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
6400 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
6401 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
6402 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
6403 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
6404 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
6406 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
6408 * Faster and better demangling
6410 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
6411 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
6412 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
6413 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
6414 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
6415 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
6418 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
6419 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
6420 compiler does not actually implement.
6422 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
6424 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
6425 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
6426 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
6427 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
6428 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
6429 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
6432 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
6433 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
6435 * Improved configure script
6437 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
6438 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
6439 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
6440 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
6442 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
6443 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
6444 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
6445 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
6446 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
6447 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
6449 * Documentation improvements
6451 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
6452 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
6453 before submitting changes.
6455 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
6456 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
6457 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
6458 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
6459 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
6461 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
6462 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
6463 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
6464 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
6465 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
6466 around this problem.
6470 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
6471 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
6472 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
6475 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
6476 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
6478 * New native hosts supported
6480 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
6481 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
6483 * New targets supported
6485 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
6487 * New file formats supported
6489 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
6490 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
6494 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
6496 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
6497 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
6499 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
6500 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
6501 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
6503 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
6504 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
6506 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
6507 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
6508 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
6511 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
6512 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
6513 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
6514 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
6515 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
6517 * Internal improvements
6519 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
6520 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
6522 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
6523 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
6524 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
6525 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
6526 shared code that handles any of them.
6528 * New command line options
6530 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
6534 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
6535 General Public License.
6537 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
6539 * Host/native/target split
6541 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
6542 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
6543 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
6544 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
6545 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
6547 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
6548 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
6549 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
6550 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
6551 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
6552 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
6553 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
6555 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
6556 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
6557 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
6559 * New hosts supported
6561 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
6562 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6563 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
6565 * New targets supported
6567 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6568 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
6570 * New native hosts supported
6572 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6573 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
6574 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
6576 * New file formats supported
6578 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
6579 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
6580 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
6584 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
6585 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
6586 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
6588 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
6590 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
6591 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
6592 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
6593 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
6597 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
6598 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
6599 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
6601 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
6605 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
6606 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
6609 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
6610 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
6612 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
6613 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
6614 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
6615 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
6616 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
6617 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
6619 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
6620 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
6621 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
6622 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
6626 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
6627 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
6628 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
6629 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
6630 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
6632 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
6633 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
6634 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
6635 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
6639 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
6640 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
6641 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
6642 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
6643 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
6644 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
6645 each instruction being stepped through.
6647 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
6648 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
6650 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
6651 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
6652 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
6653 processor with a serial port.
6657 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
6658 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
6659 supported, and what files each one uses.
6663 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
6664 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
6665 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
6666 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
6668 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
6669 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
6670 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
6671 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
6675 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
6676 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
6677 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
6678 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
6679 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
6680 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
6682 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
6685 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
6687 * Better support for C++ function names
6689 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
6690 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
6691 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
6692 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
6693 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
6695 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
6696 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
6697 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
6698 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
6699 for the list of formats.
6701 * G++ symbol mangling problem
6703 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
6704 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
6705 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
6706 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
6707 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
6708 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
6711 * New 'maintenance' command
6713 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
6714 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
6715 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
6717 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
6718 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
6719 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
6720 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
6721 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
6722 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
6724 The following commands are new:
6726 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
6727 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
6728 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
6730 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
6732 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
6733 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
6734 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
6735 read after argv processing.
6737 * New hosts supported
6739 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
6741 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
6743 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
6744 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
6745 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
6746 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
6747 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
6750 * New targets supported
6752 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6754 * More smarts about finding #include files
6756 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
6757 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
6758 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
6759 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
6760 the one that contains your sources.
6762 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
6763 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
6764 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
6766 * Interesting infernals change
6768 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
6769 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
6770 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
6771 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
6773 * Bug fixes (of course!)
6775 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
6776 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
6777 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
6779 See the ChangeLog for details.
6781 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
6783 * New machines supported (host and target)
6785 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
6787 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
6789 * New malloc package
6791 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
6792 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
6793 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
6794 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
6795 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
6796 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
6800 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
6801 'help info proc' for details.
6803 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
6805 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
6806 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
6809 * File name changes for MS-DOS
6811 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
6812 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
6813 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
6814 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
6815 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
6816 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
6818 * Cross byte order fixes
6820 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
6821 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
6823 * New -mapped and -readnow options
6825 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
6826 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
6827 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
6828 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
6829 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
6830 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
6831 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
6832 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
6833 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
6834 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
6836 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
6837 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
6838 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
6839 slower, but makes future operations faster.
6841 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
6842 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
6843 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
6846 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
6848 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
6849 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
6850 shared across multiple host platforms.
6852 * longjmp() handling
6854 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
6855 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
6856 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
6857 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
6861 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
6862 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
6867 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
6868 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
6869 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
6871 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
6873 * New machines supported (host and target)
6875 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
6877 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
6878 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
6880 * New machines supported (target)
6882 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6886 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
6887 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
6888 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
6890 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
6891 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
6892 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
6893 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
6894 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
6897 * New features for SVR4
6899 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
6900 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
6901 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
6903 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
6904 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
6905 it prints the address mappings of the process.
6907 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
6908 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
6910 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
6912 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
6913 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
6914 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
6915 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
6916 same code linked statically.
6920 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
6921 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
6922 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
6923 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
6924 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
6925 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
6929 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
6930 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
6931 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
6934 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
6936 * New machines supported (host and target)
6938 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
6939 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
6940 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
6942 * Almost SCO Unix support
6944 We had hoped to support:
6945 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
6946 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
6947 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
6948 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
6950 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
6952 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
6953 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
6954 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
6955 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
6960 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
6961 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
6962 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
6966 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
6967 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
6968 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
6970 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
6972 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
6973 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
6974 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
6976 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
6977 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
6978 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
6979 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
6982 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
6983 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
6984 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
6985 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
6988 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
6989 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
6992 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
6993 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
6994 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
6997 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
6999 * Improved configuration
7001 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7002 Porting BFD is simpler.
7006 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7007 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7008 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7009 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7013 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7015 * New host supported (not target)
7017 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7020 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7022 * Multiple source language support
7024 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7025 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7026 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7027 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7028 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7029 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7033 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7034 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7035 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7036 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7038 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7039 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7040 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7042 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7043 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7047 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7048 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7049 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7050 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7053 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7055 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7056 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7057 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7058 examining core files.
7062 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7065 * New machines supported (host and target)
7067 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7068 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7069 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7071 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7073 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7075 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7077 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7078 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7079 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7081 * New remote interfaces
7087 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7091 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7093 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7094 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7095 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7096 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7097 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7098 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7099 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7100 stub on the target system.
7102 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7104 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7105 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7106 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7108 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7109 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7112 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7114 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
7115 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
7117 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
7118 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
7119 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
7121 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
7122 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
7123 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
7124 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
7126 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
7127 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
7128 it is already running. Default is ON.
7130 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
7131 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
7132 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
7133 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
7136 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
7137 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
7138 or the value of the environment variable
7141 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
7142 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
7145 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
7146 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
7147 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
7149 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
7150 history expansion will be performed on
7151 command line input. The default is OFF.
7153 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
7154 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
7155 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
7157 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
7158 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
7159 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7162 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
7163 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
7164 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7167 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
7168 ``set width'' instead.
7170 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
7171 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
7172 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
7173 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
7175 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
7178 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
7181 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
7184 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
7187 * Support for Epoch Environment.
7189 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
7190 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
7191 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
7195 * Support for Shared Libraries
7197 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
7198 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
7199 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
7200 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
7201 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
7202 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
7203 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
7204 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
7206 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
7207 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
7208 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
7210 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
7215 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
7216 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
7217 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
7218 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
7219 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
7220 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
7222 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
7224 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
7226 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7227 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7228 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7231 * C++ multiple inheritance
7233 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
7236 * C++ exception handling
7238 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
7239 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
7240 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
7243 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
7244 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
7245 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
7247 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
7248 current stack frame.
7251 * Minor command changes
7253 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7254 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7255 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7257 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7258 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7259 frames without printing.
7261 * New directory command
7263 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7264 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7265 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7266 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7267 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7269 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7271 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7274 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7275 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7276 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
7277 where the program that you are debugging will run.