1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.4
6 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
7 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
10 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
14 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
17 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
19 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
20 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
22 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
24 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
25 the source at which the symbol was defined.
27 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
28 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
29 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
32 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
33 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
35 * Go language support.
36 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
39 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
40 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
42 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
43 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
45 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
46 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
47 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
48 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
49 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
52 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
53 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
54 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
57 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
58 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
60 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
63 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
64 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
65 command does. For instance:
67 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
69 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
70 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
71 created, using the "condition" command.
73 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
74 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
76 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
78 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
79 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
80 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
81 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new option
82 --use-deprecated-index-sections will cause GDB to use any older
83 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but
84 the ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost
85 in symbol files with older .gdb_index sections.
87 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
89 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
94 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
95 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
97 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
100 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
101 C++ and Java objects.
103 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
104 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
105 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
106 configured with '--with-python'.
108 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
109 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
110 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
111 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
112 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
113 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
114 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
116 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
117 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
118 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
119 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
123 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
124 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
126 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
127 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
128 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
129 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
134 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
135 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
136 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
137 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
139 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
143 Disable auto-loading globally.
146 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
148 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
149 show auto-load gdb-scripts
150 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
152 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
153 show auto-load python-scripts
154 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
156 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
157 show auto-load local-gdbinit
158 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
160 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
161 show auto-load libthread-db
162 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
164 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
165 show auto-load safe-path
166 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
167 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
169 set debug auto-load on|off
171 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
175 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
177 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
178 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
179 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
180 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
184 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
185 program without GDB involvement.
187 * New command line options
189 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
190 before loading inferior.
191 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
192 execute it before loading inferior.
194 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
196 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
197 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
198 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
199 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
202 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
203 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
205 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
206 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
207 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
208 target hardware watchpoint.
210 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
211 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
212 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
213 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
217 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
218 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
221 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
222 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
223 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
224 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
225 now "message", which just prints the error message without
228 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
231 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
232 modules library. This module provides functionality for
233 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
234 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
237 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
238 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
239 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
242 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
243 static_block will return the global and static blocks
244 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
245 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
247 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
249 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
252 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
253 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
254 available in the CLI.
256 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
257 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
258 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
261 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
264 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
265 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
266 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
267 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
268 any anonymous fields.
272 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
275 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
276 "=breakpoint-modified".
278 ** New command -ada-task-info.
280 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
281 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
282 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
285 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
286 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
287 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
288 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
289 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
291 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
292 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
294 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
295 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
296 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
297 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
298 use this option to specify where to find it.
300 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
301 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
302 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
303 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
304 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
305 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
306 section in the user manual for more details.
308 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
309 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
310 become available after that.
312 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
314 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
315 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
321 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
322 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
326 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
327 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
328 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
330 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
331 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
332 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
334 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
335 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
336 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
337 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
338 name starts with a hyphen.
340 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
341 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
342 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
343 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
344 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
345 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
346 number of bytes that will be collected.
349 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
350 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
351 setting the variable trace-notes.
354 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
355 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
356 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
359 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
360 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
361 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
362 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
363 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
366 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
367 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
368 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
374 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
375 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
376 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
377 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
380 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
381 show print entry-values
382 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
383 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
384 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
386 set debug entry-values
387 show debug entry-values
388 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
389 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
391 set basenames-may-differ
392 show basenames-may-differ
393 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
394 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
395 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
396 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
397 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
398 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
399 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
400 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
406 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
407 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
408 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
409 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
412 show trace-stop-notes
413 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
414 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
415 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
416 started by someone else.
422 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
426 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
430 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
434 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
438 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
441 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
442 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
446 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
450 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
452 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
454 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
456 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
458 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
459 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
460 matches the given regular expression.
462 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
464 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
465 dumping the instruction opcodes.
467 * New command line options
469 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
470 This is mostly for testing purposes.
472 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
473 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
475 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
476 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
477 source path list instead of augmenting it.
479 * GDB now understands thread names.
481 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
482 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
484 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
485 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
488 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
489 has been integrated into GDB.
493 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
494 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
495 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
497 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
498 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
499 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
500 and allows for more dynamic content.
502 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
503 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
504 have an is_valid method.
506 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
507 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
508 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
510 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
512 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
513 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
514 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
515 that function like so:
517 result = some_value (10,20)
519 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
520 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
521 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
523 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
524 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
525 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
526 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
527 New function: register_pretty_printer.
529 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
530 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
532 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
534 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
537 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
538 holds the thread's name.
540 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
541 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
542 occurring in the process being debugged.
543 The following events are currently supported:
544 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
545 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
546 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
550 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
551 instantiation. For example, if you have:
553 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
555 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
556 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
557 was added to GCC 4.5.
559 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
560 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
561 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
562 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
563 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
564 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
566 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
567 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
568 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
569 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
570 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
572 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
573 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
574 execution to a label.
576 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
577 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
578 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
579 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
581 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
582 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
583 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
586 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
588 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
589 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
590 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
591 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
592 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
593 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
596 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
598 While now you see this:
601 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
603 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
606 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
607 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
608 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
609 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
611 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
612 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
613 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
614 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
615 section in the user manual for more details.
617 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
619 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
620 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
622 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
624 * New native configurations
626 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
630 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
632 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
633 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
634 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
635 in the GDB user manual.
637 * Guile support was removed.
639 * New features in the GNU simulator
641 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
643 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
645 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
647 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
649 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
650 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
651 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
652 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
653 was always disabled for such configurations.
657 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
659 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
660 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
670 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
671 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
672 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
674 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
676 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
677 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
678 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
679 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
681 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
682 mentioned flavors of operators.
684 ** static const class members
686 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
687 class definition has been fixed.
689 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
691 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
692 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
693 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
694 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
695 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
696 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
700 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
701 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
702 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
703 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
704 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
705 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
706 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
707 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
708 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
709 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
710 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
711 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
712 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
713 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
714 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
715 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
716 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
717 the "New remote packets" section below.
719 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
721 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
722 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
723 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
724 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
728 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
729 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
730 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
731 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
732 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
733 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
734 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
736 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
743 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
747 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
748 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
749 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
750 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
751 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
752 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
756 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
760 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
763 qXfer:statictrace:read
765 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
766 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
767 to gdb's qSupported query.
771 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
775 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
776 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
778 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
779 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
782 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
784 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
785 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
786 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
787 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
789 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
790 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
791 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
792 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
793 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
794 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
795 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
797 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
798 for static tracepoints support.
800 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
802 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
803 it understands register description.
805 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
807 * X86 general purpose registers
809 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
810 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
811 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
812 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
813 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
815 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
816 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
817 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
818 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
819 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
820 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
822 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
823 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
824 in the specified file.
826 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
827 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
828 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
829 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
830 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
831 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
832 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
833 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
834 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
835 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
839 eval template, expressions...
840 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
841 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
843 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
844 show target-file-system-kind
845 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
848 save breakpoints <filename>
849 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
850 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
851 definitions, use the `source' command.
853 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
856 info static-tracepoint-markers
857 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
859 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
860 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
861 function, line, address, or marker ID.
865 Enable and disable observer mode.
867 set may-write-registers on|off
868 set may-write-memory on|off
869 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
870 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
871 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
872 set may-interrupt on|off
873 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
874 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
875 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
876 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
877 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
878 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
879 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
881 set record memory-query on|off
882 show record memory-query
883 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
884 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
889 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
893 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
894 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
895 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
896 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
897 GDB using Python' in the manual.
899 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
900 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
901 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
902 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
904 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
905 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
907 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
909 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
911 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
913 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
914 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
915 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
917 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
918 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
919 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
924 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
926 * D language support.
927 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
930 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
931 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
932 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
933 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
934 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
936 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
937 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
938 conditions of the form:
940 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
942 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
943 interface mentioned above.
945 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
951 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
952 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
953 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
954 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
955 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
959 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
960 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
965 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
966 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
970 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
975 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
978 * Multi-program debugging.
980 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
981 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
982 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
983 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
984 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
985 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
986 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
987 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
989 * New tracing features
991 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
993 ** Trace state variables
995 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
996 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
997 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
998 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
999 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1000 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1001 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1002 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1003 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1004 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
1008 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1009 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1010 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1011 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1012 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1013 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1014 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1015 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1016 the regular trace command.
1018 ** Disconnected tracing
1020 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1021 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1022 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1023 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1024 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1028 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1029 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1030 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1031 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1032 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1033 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1036 ** Circular trace buffer
1038 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1039 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1040 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1041 not be available for all target agents.
1046 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1047 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1050 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1051 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1054 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1055 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1058 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1059 "set script-extension" (see below).
1061 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1063 record save [<FILENAME>]
1064 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1065 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1067 record restore <FILENAME>
1068 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1069 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1071 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1074 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1075 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1076 inferior has loaded.
1081 maint info program-spaces
1082 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1084 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1085 show remote interrupt-sequence
1086 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1087 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1088 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1089 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1090 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1092 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1093 show remote interrupt-on-connect
1094 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1095 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1098 set remotebreak [on | off]
1100 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1102 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1103 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1106 List trace state variables and their values.
1108 delete tvariable $NAME ...
1109 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1112 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1113 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1115 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1116 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1118 * New expression syntax
1120 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1121 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1125 set follow-exec-mode new|same
1126 show follow-exec-mode
1127 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1128 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1129 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1131 set default-collect EXPR, ...
1132 show default-collect
1133 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1134 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1135 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1137 set disconnected-tracing
1138 show disconnected-tracing
1139 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1140 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1143 set circular-trace-buffer
1144 show circular-trace-buffer
1145 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1146 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1147 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1148 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1150 set script-extension off|soft|strict
1151 show script-extension
1152 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1153 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1154 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1155 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1157 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1159 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1160 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1161 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1162 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1163 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1164 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1165 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1168 * Python API Improvements
1170 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1171 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1172 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1174 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1175 `is_base_class' attribute.
1177 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1179 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1180 evaluate an expression.
1182 * New remote packets
1185 Define a trace state variable.
1188 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1191 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1194 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1197 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1201 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1203 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1204 much more reliable. In particular:
1205 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1206 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1207 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1208 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1209 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1210 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1211 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1212 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1213 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1214 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1215 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1216 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1217 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1218 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1219 non-threaded programs.
1221 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1222 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1223 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1226 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1228 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1229 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1230 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1231 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1232 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1234 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1235 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1236 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1237 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1238 for tracepoint actions.
1240 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1241 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1242 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1244 * Process record and replay
1246 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1247 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1248 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1251 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1252 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1253 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1256 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1257 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1260 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1261 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1262 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1263 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1264 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1265 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1266 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1267 the installation instructions for more information.
1269 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1270 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1271 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1272 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1274 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1275 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1277 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1278 now complete on file names.
1280 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1281 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1282 For instance, consider:
1284 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1285 # struct example variable;
1288 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1289 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1291 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1292 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1294 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1295 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1298 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1299 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1300 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1302 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1303 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1304 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1305 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1307 * New remote packets
1310 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1313 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1314 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1315 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1318 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1319 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1322 Obtains additional operating system information
1326 Read or write additional signal information.
1328 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1330 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1331 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1332 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1334 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1335 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1337 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1338 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1339 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1341 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1342 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1344 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1346 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1348 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1349 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1351 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1352 list of section offsets.
1354 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1355 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1356 have also been fixed.
1358 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1359 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1360 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1362 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1365 template<typename T> class C { };
1368 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1370 ptype C<char const *>
1371 ptype C<char const*>
1372 ptype C<const char *>
1373 ptype C<const char*>
1375 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1377 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1378 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1380 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1381 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1382 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1384 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1385 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1387 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1390 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1391 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1393 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1394 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1399 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1400 available is determined at configure time.
1402 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1404 * Ada tasking support
1406 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1410 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1412 Print detailed information about task number N.
1414 Print the task number of the current task.
1416 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1418 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1419 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1421 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1423 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1424 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1425 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1426 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1427 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1428 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1431 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1432 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1435 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1436 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1437 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1438 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1441 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1443 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1444 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1445 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1446 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1447 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1449 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1450 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1451 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1452 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1453 --enable-targets configure option.
1455 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1457 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1458 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1459 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1460 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1461 section in the user manual for more information.
1463 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1464 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1465 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1466 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1467 extensions on linux targets.
1469 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1471 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1472 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1473 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1474 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1475 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1476 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1477 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1478 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1479 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1481 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1483 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1485 maint set python print-stack
1486 maint show python print-stack
1487 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1490 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1495 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1499 Show operating system information about processes.
1502 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1505 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1508 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1511 Kill inferior number NUM.
1515 set spu stop-on-load
1516 show spu stop-on-load
1517 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1519 set spu auto-flush-cache
1520 show spu auto-flush-cache
1521 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1522 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1524 set sh calling-convention
1525 show sh calling-convention
1526 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1529 show debug timestamp
1530 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1532 set disassemble-next-line
1533 show disassemble-next-line
1534 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1537 set remote noack-packet
1538 show remote noack-packet
1539 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1540 under "New remote packets."
1542 set remote query-attached-packet
1543 show remote query-attached-packet
1544 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1546 set remote read-siginfo-object
1547 show remote read-siginfo-object
1548 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1551 set remote write-siginfo-object
1552 show remote write-siginfo-object
1553 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1556 set remote reverse-continue
1557 show remote reverse-continue
1558 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1560 set remote reverse-step
1561 show remote reverse-step
1562 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1564 set displaced-stepping
1565 show displaced-stepping
1566 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1567 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1568 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1571 show debug displaced
1572 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1574 maint set internal-error
1575 maint show internal-error
1576 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1578 maint set internal-warning
1579 maint show internal-warning
1580 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1585 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1587 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1588 show multiple-symbols
1589 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1590 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1591 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1593 set breakpoint always-inserted
1594 show breakpoint always-inserted
1595 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1596 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1597 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1599 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1600 show arm fallback-mode
1601 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1603 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1604 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1605 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1606 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1608 set disable-randomization
1609 show disable-randomization
1610 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1611 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1612 multiple debugging sessions.
1616 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1621 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1622 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1623 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1624 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1626 set target-wide-charset
1627 show target-wide-charset
1628 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1629 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1631 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1633 set tcp connect-timeout
1634 show tcp connect-timeout
1635 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1636 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1637 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1639 set libthread-db-search-path
1640 show libthread-db-search-path
1641 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1644 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1645 show schedule-multiple
1646 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1647 the current process.
1651 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1652 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1653 affecting correctness.
1655 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1656 show interactive-mode
1657 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1658 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1659 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1660 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1661 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1666 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1667 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1668 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1672 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1673 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1674 alias for the `fork' command.
1677 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1678 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1679 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1682 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1683 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1684 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1688 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1689 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1690 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1693 * New native configurations
1695 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1697 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1701 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
1702 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
1703 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
1706 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1707 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1713 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1715 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
1717 * New native configurations
1719 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
1720 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
1724 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
1725 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
1727 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1729 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1730 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1731 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1732 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1734 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1735 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1737 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
1740 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
1741 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1742 and in inlined functions.
1744 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1745 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1746 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1748 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1750 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1751 registers on PowerPC targets.
1753 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1754 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1756 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1757 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1759 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1760 extended-remote mode.
1762 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
1763 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1764 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1765 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
1767 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1768 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1769 target architectures.
1771 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1772 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1773 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1774 stored in two consecutive float registers.
1776 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1779 * Improved support for debugging Ada
1780 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1782 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1783 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1784 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1785 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1787 - Improved command completion in Ada
1790 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1795 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1796 show print frame-arguments
1797 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1798 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1803 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1810 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1812 * New remote packets
1819 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
1822 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1826 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1828 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
1830 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1831 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1832 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1834 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1835 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1836 -Bsymbolic linker option.
1838 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1839 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1842 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1843 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1845 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1846 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
1848 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1850 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1851 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1852 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1854 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1855 automatically displayed as character or string data.
1857 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1858 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1861 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1862 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
1863 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
1865 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1868 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1869 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1870 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1872 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1874 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1876 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1877 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1878 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1880 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1881 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1883 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1884 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1885 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1886 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1887 Windows and SymbianOS).
1889 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1890 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
1892 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1893 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1899 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1900 when debugging using remote targets.
1902 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1903 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1904 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1905 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1906 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1907 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1908 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1910 set breakpoint auto-hw
1911 show breakpoint auto-hw
1912 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1913 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1914 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1915 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1916 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1917 including "next" and "finish".
1920 catch exception unhandled
1921 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1924 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1928 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1929 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1930 an alias to "set sysroot".
1933 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1934 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1937 * New native configurations
1939 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1942 unset tdesc filename
1944 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1945 not query the target for its built-in description.
1949 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1950 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1951 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1953 * New remote packets
1956 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1957 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1959 qXfer:features:read:
1960 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1965 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1966 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1968 qXfer:libraries:read:
1969 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1970 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1971 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1972 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1976 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1984 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1985 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1986 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1987 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1989 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1992 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1993 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2002 * Other removed features
2009 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2016 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2021 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2022 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2027 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2028 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2030 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2032 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2033 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2034 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2035 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2037 MIPS ".pdr" sections
2039 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2040 in debugging information.
2044 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2045 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2047 set mips stack-arg-size
2048 set mips saved-gpreg-size
2050 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2052 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
2057 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
2059 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2060 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2061 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2063 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2064 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2067 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2068 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2070 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2071 stub provides the required support.
2073 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2074 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2079 unset substitute-path
2080 show substitute-path
2081 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2082 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2083 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2084 between compilation and debugging.
2088 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2089 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2090 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2094 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2096 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2097 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2099 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2101 * New remote packets
2104 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2105 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2106 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2107 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2111 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2112 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2114 qXfer:memory-map:read:
2115 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2116 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2121 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2123 * Removed remote packets
2126 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2127 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2129 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
2133 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2135 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2139 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2140 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2142 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2144 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2146 restart <n> Return the program state to a
2147 previously saved state.
2149 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2151 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2153 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2154 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2156 info forks List forks of the user program that
2157 are available to be debugged.
2159 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2160 forks of the user program that are
2161 available to be debugged.
2163 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2164 that are available to be debugged (and
2165 kill the forked process).
2167 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2168 that are available to be debugged (and
2169 allow the process to continue).
2173 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2175 * Improved Windows host support
2177 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2178 native console support, and remote communications using either
2179 network sockets or serial ports.
2181 * Improved Modula-2 language support
2183 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2184 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2185 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2186 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2187 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2188 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2192 The ARM rdi-share module.
2194 The Netware NLM debug server.
2196 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2198 * New native configurations
2200 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2201 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2205 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2207 * New command line options
2209 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2210 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2211 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2212 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2213 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2214 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2215 with the --command (-x) option.
2217 * Deprecated commands removed
2219 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2223 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2224 othernames set arm disassembler
2225 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2226 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2227 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2230 * New BSD user-level threads support
2232 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2233 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2236 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2237 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2238 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2240 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2241 are not yet supported.
2243 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2244 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2246 * REMOVED configurations and files
2248 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2249 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2252 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2254 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2255 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2258 * VAX floating point support
2260 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2262 * User-defined command support
2264 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2265 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2266 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2268 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2270 * New command line option
2272 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2275 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2277 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2278 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2279 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2280 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2281 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
2283 * Internationalization
2285 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2286 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2287 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2291 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2292 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2293 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2295 * New native configurations
2297 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2301 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2302 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2304 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2306 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2307 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2308 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2311 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2312 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2313 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2323 powerpc bdm protocol
2325 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2326 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2328 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2330 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2331 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2332 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2333 permanently REMOVED.
2342 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2344 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2346 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2347 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2350 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2352 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2353 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2354 IRIX long double values).
2358 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2359 command. This problem has been fixed.
2361 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2363 * Fix for ``many threads''
2365 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2366 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2369 ptrace: No such process.
2370 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2372 This problem has been fixed.
2374 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2376 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2379 * New ``start'' command.
2381 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2383 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2385 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2386 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2387 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2389 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2390 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2391 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2392 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2393 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2394 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2395 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2396 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2397 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2399 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2401 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2402 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2403 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2404 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2405 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2407 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2408 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2409 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2411 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2413 * New native configurations
2415 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2416 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2417 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2418 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2419 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2420 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2421 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2423 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2425 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2426 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2427 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2428 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2429 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2430 work, was also included.
2432 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2433 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2443 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2444 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2446 * REMOVED configurations and files
2448 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2449 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2450 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2451 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2452 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2453 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2454 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2455 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2456 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2457 sonymips mips-sony-*
2458 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2460 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2462 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2464 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2465 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2466 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2467 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2470 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2472 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2473 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2474 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2475 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2476 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2477 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2480 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2482 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2484 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2485 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2486 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2488 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2490 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2491 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2493 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2495 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2496 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2497 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2499 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2501 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2502 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2504 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2506 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2507 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2508 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2510 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2512 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2513 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2514 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2516 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2518 * Removed --with-mmalloc
2520 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2521 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2523 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
2525 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2526 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2527 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2528 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2530 * Revised SPARC target
2532 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2533 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2534 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2535 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2536 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2540 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2541 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2542 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2545 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2547 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2548 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2551 * C++ nested types and namespaces
2553 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2554 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2555 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2556 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2557 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2558 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2559 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2560 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2561 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2563 * New native configurations
2565 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2566 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2567 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2568 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2569 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2571 * New debugging protocols
2573 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2575 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2577 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2578 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2579 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2581 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2583 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2584 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2585 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2586 permanently REMOVED.
2588 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2589 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2590 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2591 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2592 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2593 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2594 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2595 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2596 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2597 sonymips mips-sony-*
2598 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2600 * REMOVED configurations and files
2602 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2603 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2604 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2605 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2606 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2607 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2608 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2609 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2610 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2611 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2612 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2613 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2614 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2615 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2616 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2617 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2618 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2620 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2624 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2625 integrated into GDB.
2627 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2629 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2630 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2631 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2634 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2635 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2636 DWARF 2 CFI support.
2640 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2641 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2642 remote protocol documentation for details.
2644 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
2646 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2647 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2648 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2651 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2653 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2654 per-thread variables.
2656 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2658 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2659 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2661 * Separate debug info.
2663 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2664 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2665 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2666 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2667 and optional debug files.
2669 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2671 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2672 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2675 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2676 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2680 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2681 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2682 considered "useable".
2684 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2686 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2687 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2690 * GDB supports logging output to a file
2692 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2693 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
2695 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2697 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2698 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2701 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
2703 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2704 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2708 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2709 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2710 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2711 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2712 data, for more informative profiling results.
2714 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2716 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2717 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
2718 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
2720 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2723 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2724 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2725 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2726 in a subsequent -var-update.
2728 * New native configurations.
2730 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2732 * Multi-arched targets.
2734 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
2735 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2737 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2739 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2740 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2741 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2742 permanently REMOVED.
2744 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2745 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2746 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2747 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2748 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2749 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2750 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2751 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2752 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2753 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2754 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2755 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2757 * REMOVED configurations and files
2760 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2761 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2762 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2763 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2764 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2765 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2767 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2768 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2769 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2770 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2771 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2772 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2774 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
2776 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2777 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2778 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2779 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2780 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2782 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
2784 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2786 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2787 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2788 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2789 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2790 shared libs like mad''.
2792 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
2794 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2795 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2796 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2797 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
2799 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2801 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2802 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2805 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2806 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2808 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2809 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2811 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2812 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2813 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2814 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2816 * Multi-arched targets.
2818 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2819 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2821 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
2822 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2823 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2827 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2830 * New native configurations
2832 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
2833 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
2834 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
2835 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
2837 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2839 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2840 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2841 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2842 permanently REMOVED.
2844 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2845 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2846 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2847 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2848 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2849 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2850 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2851 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2852 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2853 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2855 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2856 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2858 * OBSOLETE languages
2860 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2862 * REMOVED configurations and files
2864 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2865 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2866 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2867 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2868 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2870 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2872 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2874 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2875 commands. The default is 1024.
2877 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2879 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2881 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2883 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2884 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2885 from a file into memory (restore).
2887 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2889 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2890 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2891 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2893 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2901 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2902 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2903 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2905 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2906 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2907 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2909 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2910 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2911 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2913 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2914 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2915 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2917 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2919 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2921 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2922 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2923 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2924 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2925 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2926 (notably embedded) targets.
2928 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2930 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2931 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2932 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2933 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2935 * New command line option
2937 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2939 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2941 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2942 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2943 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2944 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2945 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2946 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2947 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2948 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2949 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2950 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2952 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2954 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2955 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2957 * New native configurations
2959 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2960 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2961 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2962 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2966 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2968 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2970 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2971 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2972 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2973 permanently REMOVED.
2975 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2976 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2977 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2978 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2979 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2981 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2983 * REMOVED configurations and files
2985 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2987 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2988 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2989 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2990 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2991 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2992 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2993 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2994 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2995 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2996 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2997 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2999 * Changes to command line processing
3001 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3002 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3004 * Changes to key bindings
3006 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3008 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3010 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3012 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3015 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3017 Numerous documentation fixes.
3019 Numerous testsuite fixes.
3021 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
3023 * New native configurations
3025 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3026 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
3027 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
3028 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3029 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
3030 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
3034 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
3036 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
3038 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3040 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
3041 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3042 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3043 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3044 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3046 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3047 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3048 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3049 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3050 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3051 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3052 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3053 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
3055 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3056 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3058 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3059 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3060 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3061 permanently REMOVED.
3063 * REMOVED configurations and files
3065 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3066 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3068 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3072 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
3074 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
3075 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3080 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3082 * The MI enabled by default.
3084 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3085 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3086 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3087 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3088 which is now deprecated.
3090 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3092 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3093 main features are supported:
3095 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3097 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3100 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3102 - a Pascal expression parser.
3104 However, some important features are not yet supported.
3106 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3108 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3110 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3111 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3113 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3115 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3117 * Changes in completion.
3119 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3120 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3121 users expect at the shell prompt.
3123 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3124 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3125 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3126 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3127 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3128 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3129 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3131 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3133 * New platform-independent commands:
3135 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3136 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3137 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3139 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3141 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3142 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3143 many threads as your system allows you to have.
3145 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3147 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3148 multi-threaded programs though.
3150 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
3152 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3154 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3155 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3158 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3160 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3161 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3162 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3163 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3164 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3167 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3168 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3169 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3171 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3173 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3174 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3176 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3177 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3180 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3181 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3182 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3183 a given linear address.
3185 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3186 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3187 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3189 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3191 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3193 * Changes in documentation.
3195 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3196 Documentation License.
3198 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3201 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3203 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3206 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3207 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3208 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3210 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3212 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3213 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3214 contents of this file.
3218 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3220 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3222 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3224 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3225 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3226 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3227 greater level of detail.
3229 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3231 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3232 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3233 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3236 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3238 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3239 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3240 machines ``out of the box''.
3242 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3243 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3244 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3245 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3246 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3248 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3249 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3250 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3251 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3252 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3254 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3255 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3258 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3261 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3262 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3263 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3264 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3266 * New native configurations
3268 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3269 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3273 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3274 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3275 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
3276 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3278 * OBSOLETE configurations
3280 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3281 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3283 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3286 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3287 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3288 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3289 be permanently REMOVED.
3291 * Gould support removed
3293 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3295 * New features for SVR4
3297 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3298 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3299 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3301 * Many C++ enhancements
3303 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3304 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3306 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3308 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3309 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3310 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3311 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3313 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3314 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3316 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3318 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3319 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3320 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3322 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3323 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3325 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3327 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3328 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3329 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3331 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3333 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3334 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3335 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3337 * ``apropos'' command added.
3339 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3340 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3341 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3345 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3346 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3347 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3348 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3349 enabled by configuring with:
3351 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3353 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3355 * New native configurations
3357 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3358 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3359 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3363 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3364 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3365 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3367 * OBSOLETE configurations
3369 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3371 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3372 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3373 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3374 be permanently REMOVED.
3378 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3379 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3380 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3381 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3382 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3383 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3384 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3389 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3391 * set extension-language
3393 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3394 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3395 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3396 set extension-language .c c++
3397 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3398 and their associated languages.
3400 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3402 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3403 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3404 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3408 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3409 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3411 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3412 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3414 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3415 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3416 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3417 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3418 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3419 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3420 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3421 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3423 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3424 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3425 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3426 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3430 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3431 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3432 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3433 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3434 for xdb and dbx commands.
3438 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3439 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3440 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3442 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3443 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3444 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3446 * Debugging across forks
3448 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3453 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3454 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3455 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3457 * GDB remote protocol additions
3459 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3460 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3461 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3462 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3464 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3465 full 64-bit address. The command
3467 set remoteaddresssize 32
3469 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3470 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3473 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3474 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3476 maint packet heythere
3478 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3479 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3482 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3483 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3484 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3486 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3488 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3489 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3490 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3492 * mask-address variable for Mips
3494 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3495 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3496 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3498 * Higher serial baud rates
3500 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3501 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3502 to achieve all of these rates.)
3506 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3507 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3510 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3512 * New native configurations
3514 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3515 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3516 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3517 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3518 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3519 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3520 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3524 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3525 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3526 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3527 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3528 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3529 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3530 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3531 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3532 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3533 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3534 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3536 * New debugging protocols
3538 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3539 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3540 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3541 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3542 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3543 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3547 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3548 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3553 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3554 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3556 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3558 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3559 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3560 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3562 * Live range splitting
3564 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3565 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3566 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3570 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3571 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3575 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3576 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3577 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3582 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3587 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3588 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3589 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3590 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3591 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3592 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3596 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3597 the symbol at the specified address.
3601 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3602 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3603 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3604 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3605 file tracepoint.c for more details.
3609 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3610 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3611 of most MIPS variants.
3615 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3616 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3617 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3621 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3622 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3623 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3624 the possible architectures.
3626 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3628 * New native configurations
3630 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3631 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3632 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3633 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3634 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3635 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3639 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3640 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3641 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3642 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3643 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3645 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3649 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3650 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3651 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3652 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3653 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3657 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3659 * Windows 95/NT native
3661 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3662 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3663 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3664 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3665 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3667 * dont-repeat command
3669 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3670 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3671 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3672 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3674 * Send break instead of ^C
3676 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3677 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3678 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3680 * Remote protocol timeout
3682 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3683 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3684 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3686 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3688 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3689 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3690 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3691 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3692 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3694 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3695 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3696 automatically on hpux10.
3698 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3700 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3702 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3704 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3705 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3706 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3707 every character. The default value is 1050.
3709 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3711 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3712 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3713 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3714 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3715 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3716 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3718 * Speedups for remote debugging
3720 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3721 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3722 and more efficient S-record downloading.
3724 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3726 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3727 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3729 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3731 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
3733 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3734 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3736 * Remote targets use caching
3738 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3739 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3740 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3741 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3742 off' turns the the data cache off.
3744 * Remote targets may have threads
3746 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3747 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3748 gdb/remote.c for details.
3752 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3753 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3754 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3755 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3756 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3757 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3758 sequence is something like
3760 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3762 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3766 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3767 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3768 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3769 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3770 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3771 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3772 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3773 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3777 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3778 but does simplify configuration and building.
3782 GDB now supports hpux10.
3784 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3786 * New native configurations
3788 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3789 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3790 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3791 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3795 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3796 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3797 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3798 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3801 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3803 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3804 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3805 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3806 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3807 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3809 * Arguments to user-defined commands
3811 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3812 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3815 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3817 To execute the command use:
3820 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3821 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3822 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3824 * New `if' and `while' commands
3826 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3827 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3828 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3829 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3830 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3831 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3832 if the expression is zero.
3834 * Fortran source language mode
3836 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3837 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3838 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3839 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3842 * Better HPUX support
3844 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3845 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3846 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3847 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3848 that behavior do the following before running the program:
3854 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3855 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3861 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3862 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3865 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3866 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3868 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3870 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3871 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3872 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3873 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3874 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3875 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3877 * New DOS host serial code
3879 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3880 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3883 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3885 * New "complete" command
3887 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3888 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3890 * Trailing space optional in prompt
3892 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3893 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3895 * Breakpoint hit counts
3897 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3898 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3899 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3900 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3901 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3904 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3906 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3907 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3908 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3910 * Shared library breakpoints
3912 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3913 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3915 * Hardware watchpoints
3917 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3918 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3920 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3924 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3925 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3927 * Improved Irix 5 support
3929 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3931 * Improved HPPA support
3933 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3935 * New native configurations
3937 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3938 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3939 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3940 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3944 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3945 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3948 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3950 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3951 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3955 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3956 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3958 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3960 * Irix 5 is now supported
3964 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3965 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3966 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3967 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3968 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3971 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3973 * User visible changes:
3977 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3978 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3979 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3980 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3981 debugging info for the mips target).
3983 * DEC Alpha native support
3985 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3986 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3987 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3988 Alpha-specific notes.
3990 * Preliminary thread implementation
3992 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3994 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3996 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3997 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4000 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4002 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4003 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4004 call methods, ...etc.
4006 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4008 * User visible changes:
4010 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4011 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4012 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4013 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4015 Filename completion now works.
4017 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4018 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4019 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4021 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4022 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4023 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4024 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4025 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4029 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4030 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4033 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4037 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4038 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4039 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4043 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4044 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4045 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4046 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4047 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4051 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4052 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4053 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4055 * New targets supported
4057 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4058 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4059 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4060 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4061 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4063 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4064 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4065 GO32 memory extender.
4067 * New remote protocols
4069 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4071 * New source languages supported
4073 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4074 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4075 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4078 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4080 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4082 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4083 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4084 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4085 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4086 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4087 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4089 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4091 * Faster and better demangling
4093 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4094 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4095 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4096 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4097 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4098 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4101 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4102 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4103 compiler does not actually implement.
4105 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4107 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4108 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4109 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4110 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4111 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4112 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4115 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4116 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4118 * Improved configure script
4120 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4121 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4122 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4123 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4125 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4126 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4127 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4128 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4129 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4130 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4132 * Documentation improvements
4134 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4135 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4136 before submitting changes.
4138 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4139 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4140 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4141 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4142 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4144 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4145 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4146 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4147 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4148 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4149 around this problem.
4153 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4154 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4155 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4158 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4159 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4161 * New native hosts supported
4163 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4164 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4166 * New targets supported
4168 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4170 * New file formats supported
4172 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4173 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4177 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4179 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4180 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4182 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4183 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4184 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4186 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4187 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4189 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4190 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4191 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4194 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4195 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4196 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4197 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4198 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4200 * Internal improvements
4202 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4203 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4205 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4206 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4207 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4208 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4209 shared code that handles any of them.
4211 * New command line options
4213 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4217 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4218 General Public License.
4220 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4222 * Host/native/target split
4224 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4225 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4226 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4227 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4228 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4230 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4231 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4232 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4233 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4234 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4235 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4236 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4238 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4239 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4240 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4242 * New hosts supported
4244 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4245 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4246 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4248 * New targets supported
4250 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4251 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4253 * New native hosts supported
4255 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4256 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4257 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4259 * New file formats supported
4261 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4262 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4263 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4267 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4268 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4269 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4271 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4273 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4274 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4275 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4276 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4280 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4281 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4282 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4284 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4288 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4289 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4292 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4293 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4295 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4296 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4297 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4298 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4299 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4300 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4302 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4303 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4304 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4305 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4309 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4310 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4311 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4312 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4313 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4315 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4316 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4317 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4318 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4322 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4323 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4324 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4325 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4326 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4327 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4328 each instruction being stepped through.
4330 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4331 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4333 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4334 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4335 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4336 processor with a serial port.
4340 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4341 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4342 supported, and what files each one uses.
4346 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4347 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4348 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4349 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4351 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4352 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4353 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4354 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4358 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4359 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4360 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4361 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4362 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4363 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4365 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4368 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4370 * Better support for C++ function names
4372 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4373 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4374 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4375 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4376 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4378 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4379 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4380 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4381 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4382 for the list of formats.
4384 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4386 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4387 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4388 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4389 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4390 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4391 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4394 * New 'maintenance' command
4396 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4397 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4398 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4400 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4401 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4402 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4403 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4404 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4405 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4407 The following commands are new:
4409 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4410 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4411 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4413 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4415 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4416 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4417 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4418 read after argv processing.
4420 * New hosts supported
4422 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4424 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4426 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4427 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4428 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4429 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4430 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4433 * New targets supported
4435 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4437 * More smarts about finding #include files
4439 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4440 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4441 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4442 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4443 the one that contains your sources.
4445 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4446 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4447 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4449 * Interesting infernals change
4451 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4452 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4453 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4454 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4456 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4458 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4459 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4460 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4462 See the ChangeLog for details.
4464 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4466 * New machines supported (host and target)
4468 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4470 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4472 * New malloc package
4474 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4475 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4476 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4477 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4478 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4479 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4483 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4484 'help info proc' for details.
4486 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4488 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4489 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4492 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4494 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4495 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4496 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4497 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4498 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4499 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4501 * Cross byte order fixes
4503 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4504 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4506 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4508 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4509 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4510 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4511 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4512 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4513 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4514 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4515 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4516 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4517 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4519 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4520 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4521 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4522 slower, but makes future operations faster.
4524 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4525 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4526 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4529 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4531 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4532 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4533 shared across multiple host platforms.
4535 * longjmp() handling
4537 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4538 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4539 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4540 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4544 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4545 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4550 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4551 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4552 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4554 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4556 * New machines supported (host and target)
4558 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4560 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4561 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4563 * New machines supported (target)
4565 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4569 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4570 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4571 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4573 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4574 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4575 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4576 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4577 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4580 * New features for SVR4
4582 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4583 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4584 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4586 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4587 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4588 it prints the address mappings of the process.
4590 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4591 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4593 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4595 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4596 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4597 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4598 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4599 same code linked statically.
4603 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4604 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4605 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4606 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4607 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4608 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4612 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4613 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4614 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4617 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4619 * New machines supported (host and target)
4621 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4622 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4623 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4625 * Almost SCO Unix support
4627 We had hoped to support:
4628 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4629 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4630 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4631 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4633 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4635 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4636 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4637 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4638 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4643 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4644 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4645 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4649 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4650 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4651 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4653 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4655 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4656 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4657 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4659 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4660 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4661 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4662 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4665 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4666 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4667 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4668 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4671 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4672 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4675 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4676 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4677 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4680 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4682 * Improved configuration
4684 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4685 Porting BFD is simpler.
4689 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4690 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4691 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4692 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4696 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4698 * New host supported (not target)
4700 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4703 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4705 * Multiple source language support
4707 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4708 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4709 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4710 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4711 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4712 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4716 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4717 currently under development at the State University of New York at
4718 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4719 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4721 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4722 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4723 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4725 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4726 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4730 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4731 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4732 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4733 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4736 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4738 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4739 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4740 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4741 examining core files.
4745 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4748 * New machines supported (host and target)
4750 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4751 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4752 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4754 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4756 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4758 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4760 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4761 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4762 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4764 * New remote interfaces
4770 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4774 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4776 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4777 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4778 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4779 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4780 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4781 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4782 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4783 stub on the target system.
4785 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4787 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4788 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4789 object file types such as a.out and coff.
4791 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4792 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4795 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4797 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4798 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4800 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4801 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4802 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4804 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4805 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4806 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4807 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4809 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4810 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4811 it is already running. Default is ON.
4813 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4814 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4815 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4816 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4819 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4820 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4821 or the value of the environment variable
4824 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4825 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4828 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4829 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4830 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4832 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4833 history expansion will be performed on
4834 command line input. The default is OFF.
4836 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4837 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4838 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4840 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4841 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4842 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4845 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4846 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4847 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4850 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4851 ``set width'' instead.
4853 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4854 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4855 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4856 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4858 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4861 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4864 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4867 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4870 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4872 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4873 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4874 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4878 * Support for Shared Libraries
4880 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4881 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4882 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4883 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4884 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4885 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4886 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4887 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4889 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4890 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4891 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4893 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4898 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4899 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4900 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4901 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4902 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4903 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4905 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4907 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4909 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4910 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4911 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4914 * C++ multiple inheritance
4916 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4919 * C++ exception handling
4921 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4922 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4923 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4926 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4927 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4928 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4930 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4931 current stack frame.
4934 * Minor command changes
4936 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4937 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4938 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4940 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4941 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4942 frames without printing.
4944 * New directory command
4946 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4947 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4948 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4949 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4950 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4952 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4954 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4957 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4958 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4959 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4960 where the program that you are debugging will run.