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 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
36 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
38 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
39 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
41 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
42 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
43 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
44 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
45 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
48 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
49 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
50 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
53 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
54 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
56 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
59 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
60 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
61 command does. For instance:
63 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
65 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
66 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
67 created, using the "condition" command.
69 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
70 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
72 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
74 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
75 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
76 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
77 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new option
78 --use-deprecated-index-sections will cause GDB to use any older
79 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but
80 the ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost
81 in symbol files with older .gdb_index sections.
83 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
87 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
88 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
90 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
93 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
96 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
97 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
98 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
99 configured with '--with-python'.
101 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
102 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
103 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
104 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
105 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
106 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
107 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
109 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
110 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
111 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
112 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
116 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
117 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
119 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
120 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
121 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
122 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
127 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
128 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
129 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
130 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
132 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
136 Disable auto-loading globally.
139 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
141 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
142 show auto-load gdb-scripts
143 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
145 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
146 show auto-load python-scripts
147 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
149 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
150 show auto-load local-gdbinit
151 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
153 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
154 show auto-load libthread-db
155 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
159 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
161 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
162 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
163 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
164 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
168 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
169 program without GDB involvement.
171 * New command line options
173 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
174 before loading inferior.
175 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
176 execute it before loading inferior.
178 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
180 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
181 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
182 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
183 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
186 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
187 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
189 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
190 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
191 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
192 target hardware watchpoint.
194 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
195 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
196 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
197 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
201 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
202 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
205 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
206 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
207 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
208 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
209 now "message", which just prints the error message without
212 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
215 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
216 modules library. This module provides functionality for
217 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
218 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
221 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
222 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
223 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
226 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
227 static_block will return the global and static blocks
228 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
229 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
231 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
233 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
236 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
237 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
238 available in the CLI.
240 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
241 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
242 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
245 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
248 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
249 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
250 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
251 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
252 any anonymous fields.
256 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
259 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
260 "=breakpoint-modified".
262 ** New command -ada-task-info.
264 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
265 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
266 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
269 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
270 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
271 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
272 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
273 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
275 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
276 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
278 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
279 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
280 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
281 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
282 use this option to specify where to find it.
284 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
285 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
286 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
287 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
288 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
289 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
290 section in the user manual for more details.
292 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
293 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
294 become available after that.
296 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
298 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
299 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
305 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
306 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
310 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
311 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
312 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
314 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
315 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
316 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
318 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
319 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
320 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
321 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
322 name starts with a hyphen.
324 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
325 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
326 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
327 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
328 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
329 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
330 number of bytes that will be collected.
333 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
334 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
335 setting the variable trace-notes.
338 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
339 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
340 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
343 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
344 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
345 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
346 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
347 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
350 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
351 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
352 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
358 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
359 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
360 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
361 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
364 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
365 show print entry-values
366 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
367 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
368 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
370 set debug entry-values
371 show debug entry-values
372 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
373 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
375 set basenames-may-differ
376 show basenames-may-differ
377 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
378 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
379 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
380 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
381 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
382 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
383 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
384 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
390 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
391 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
392 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
393 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
396 show trace-stop-notes
397 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
398 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
399 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
400 started by someone else.
406 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
410 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
414 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
418 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
422 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
425 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
426 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
430 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
434 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
436 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
438 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
440 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
442 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
443 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
444 matches the given regular expression.
446 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
448 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
449 dumping the instruction opcodes.
451 * New command line options
453 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
454 This is mostly for testing purposes.
456 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
457 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
459 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
460 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
461 source path list instead of augmenting it.
463 * GDB now understands thread names.
465 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
466 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
468 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
469 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
472 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
473 has been integrated into GDB.
477 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
478 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
479 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
481 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
482 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
483 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
484 and allows for more dynamic content.
486 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
487 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
488 have an is_valid method.
490 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
491 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
492 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
494 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
496 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
497 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
498 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
499 that function like so:
501 result = some_value (10,20)
503 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
504 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
505 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
507 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
508 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
509 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
510 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
511 New function: register_pretty_printer.
513 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
514 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
516 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
518 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
521 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
522 holds the thread's name.
524 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
525 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
526 occurring in the process being debugged.
527 The following events are currently supported:
528 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
529 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
530 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
534 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
535 instantiation. For example, if you have:
537 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
539 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
540 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
541 was added to GCC 4.5.
543 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
544 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
545 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
546 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
547 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
548 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
550 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
551 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
552 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
553 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
554 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
556 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
557 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
558 execution to a label.
560 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
561 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
562 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
563 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
565 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
566 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
567 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
570 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
572 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
573 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
574 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
575 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
576 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
577 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
580 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
582 While now you see this:
585 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
587 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
590 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
591 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
592 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
593 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
595 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
596 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
597 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
598 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
599 section in the user manual for more details.
601 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
603 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
604 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
606 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
608 * New native configurations
610 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
614 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
616 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
617 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
618 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
619 in the GDB user manual.
621 * Guile support was removed.
623 * New features in the GNU simulator
625 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
627 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
629 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
631 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
633 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
634 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
635 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
636 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
637 was always disabled for such configurations.
641 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
643 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
644 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
654 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
655 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
656 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
658 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
660 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
661 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
662 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
663 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
665 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
666 mentioned flavors of operators.
668 ** static const class members
670 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
671 class definition has been fixed.
673 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
675 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
676 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
677 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
678 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
679 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
680 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
684 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
685 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
686 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
687 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
688 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
689 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
690 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
691 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
692 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
693 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
694 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
695 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
696 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
697 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
698 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
699 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
700 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
701 the "New remote packets" section below.
703 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
705 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
706 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
707 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
708 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
712 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
713 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
714 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
715 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
716 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
717 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
718 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
720 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
727 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
731 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
732 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
733 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
734 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
735 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
736 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
740 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
744 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
747 qXfer:statictrace:read
749 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
750 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
751 to gdb's qSupported query.
755 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
759 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
760 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
762 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
763 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
766 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
768 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
769 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
770 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
771 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
773 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
774 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
775 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
776 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
777 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
778 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
779 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
781 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
782 for static tracepoints support.
784 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
786 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
787 it understands register description.
789 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
791 * X86 general purpose registers
793 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
794 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
795 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
796 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
797 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
799 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
800 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
801 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
802 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
803 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
804 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
806 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
807 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
808 in the specified file.
810 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
811 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
812 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
813 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
814 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
815 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
816 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
817 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
818 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
819 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
823 eval template, expressions...
824 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
825 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
827 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
828 show target-file-system-kind
829 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
832 save breakpoints <filename>
833 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
834 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
835 definitions, use the `source' command.
837 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
840 info static-tracepoint-markers
841 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
843 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
844 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
845 function, line, address, or marker ID.
849 Enable and disable observer mode.
851 set may-write-registers on|off
852 set may-write-memory on|off
853 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
854 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
855 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
856 set may-interrupt on|off
857 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
858 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
859 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
860 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
861 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
862 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
863 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
865 set record memory-query on|off
866 show record memory-query
867 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
868 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
873 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
877 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
878 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
879 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
880 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
881 GDB using Python' in the manual.
883 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
884 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
885 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
886 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
888 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
889 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
891 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
893 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
895 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
897 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
898 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
899 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
901 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
902 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
903 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
908 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
910 * D language support.
911 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
914 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
915 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
916 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
917 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
918 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
920 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
921 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
922 conditions of the form:
924 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
926 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
927 interface mentioned above.
929 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
935 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
936 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
937 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
938 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
939 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
943 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
944 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
949 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
950 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
954 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
959 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
962 * Multi-program debugging.
964 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
965 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
966 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
967 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
968 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
969 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
970 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
971 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
973 * New tracing features
975 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
977 ** Trace state variables
979 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
980 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
981 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
982 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
983 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
984 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
985 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
986 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
987 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
988 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
992 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
993 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
994 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
995 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
996 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
997 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
998 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
999 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1000 the regular trace command.
1002 ** Disconnected tracing
1004 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1005 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1006 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1007 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1008 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1012 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1013 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1014 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1015 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1016 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1017 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1020 ** Circular trace buffer
1022 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1023 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1024 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1025 not be available for all target agents.
1030 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1031 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1034 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1035 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1038 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1039 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1042 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1043 "set script-extension" (see below).
1045 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1047 record save [<FILENAME>]
1048 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1049 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1051 record restore <FILENAME>
1052 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1053 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1055 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1058 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1059 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1060 inferior has loaded.
1065 maint info program-spaces
1066 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1068 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1069 show remote interrupt-sequence
1070 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1071 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1072 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1073 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1074 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1076 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1077 show remote interrupt-on-connect
1078 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1079 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1082 set remotebreak [on | off]
1084 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1086 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1087 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1090 List trace state variables and their values.
1092 delete tvariable $NAME ...
1093 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1096 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1097 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1099 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1100 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1102 * New expression syntax
1104 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1105 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1109 set follow-exec-mode new|same
1110 show follow-exec-mode
1111 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1112 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1113 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1115 set default-collect EXPR, ...
1116 show default-collect
1117 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1118 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1119 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1121 set disconnected-tracing
1122 show disconnected-tracing
1123 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1124 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1127 set circular-trace-buffer
1128 show circular-trace-buffer
1129 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1130 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1131 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1132 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1134 set script-extension off|soft|strict
1135 show script-extension
1136 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1137 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1138 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1139 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1141 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1143 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1144 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1145 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1146 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1147 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1148 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1149 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1152 * Python API Improvements
1154 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1155 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1156 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1158 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1159 `is_base_class' attribute.
1161 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1163 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1164 evaluate an expression.
1166 * New remote packets
1169 Define a trace state variable.
1172 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1175 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1178 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1181 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1185 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1187 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1188 much more reliable. In particular:
1189 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1190 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1191 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1192 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1193 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1194 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1195 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1196 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1197 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1198 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1199 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1200 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1201 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1202 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1203 non-threaded programs.
1205 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1206 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1207 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1210 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1212 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1213 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1214 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1215 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1216 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1218 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1219 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1220 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1221 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1222 for tracepoint actions.
1224 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1225 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1226 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1228 * Process record and replay
1230 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1231 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1232 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1235 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1236 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1237 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1240 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1241 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1244 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1245 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1246 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1247 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1248 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1249 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1250 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1251 the installation instructions for more information.
1253 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1254 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1255 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1256 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1258 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1259 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1261 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1262 now complete on file names.
1264 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1265 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1266 For instance, consider:
1268 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1269 # struct example variable;
1272 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1273 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1275 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1276 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1278 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1279 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1282 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1283 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1284 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1286 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1287 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1288 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1289 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1291 * New remote packets
1294 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1297 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1298 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1299 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1302 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1303 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1306 Obtains additional operating system information
1310 Read or write additional signal information.
1312 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1314 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1315 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1316 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1318 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1319 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1321 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1322 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1323 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1325 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1326 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1328 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1330 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1332 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1333 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1335 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1336 list of section offsets.
1338 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1339 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1340 have also been fixed.
1342 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1343 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1344 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1346 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1349 template<typename T> class C { };
1352 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1354 ptype C<char const *>
1355 ptype C<char const*>
1356 ptype C<const char *>
1357 ptype C<const char*>
1359 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1361 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1362 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1364 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1365 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1366 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1368 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1369 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1371 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1374 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1375 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1377 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1378 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1383 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1384 available is determined at configure time.
1386 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1388 * Ada tasking support
1390 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1394 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1396 Print detailed information about task number N.
1398 Print the task number of the current task.
1400 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1402 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1403 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1405 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1407 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1408 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1409 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1410 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1411 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1412 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1415 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1416 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1419 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1420 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1421 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1422 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1425 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1427 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1428 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1429 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1430 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1431 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1433 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1434 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1435 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1436 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1437 --enable-targets configure option.
1439 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1441 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1442 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1443 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1444 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1445 section in the user manual for more information.
1447 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1448 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1449 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1450 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1451 extensions on linux targets.
1453 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1455 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1456 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1457 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1458 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1459 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1460 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1461 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1462 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1463 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1465 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1467 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1469 maint set python print-stack
1470 maint show python print-stack
1471 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1474 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1479 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1483 Show operating system information about processes.
1486 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1489 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1492 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1495 Kill inferior number NUM.
1499 set spu stop-on-load
1500 show spu stop-on-load
1501 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1503 set spu auto-flush-cache
1504 show spu auto-flush-cache
1505 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1506 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1508 set sh calling-convention
1509 show sh calling-convention
1510 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1513 show debug timestamp
1514 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1516 set disassemble-next-line
1517 show disassemble-next-line
1518 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1521 set remote noack-packet
1522 show remote noack-packet
1523 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1524 under "New remote packets."
1526 set remote query-attached-packet
1527 show remote query-attached-packet
1528 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1530 set remote read-siginfo-object
1531 show remote read-siginfo-object
1532 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1535 set remote write-siginfo-object
1536 show remote write-siginfo-object
1537 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1540 set remote reverse-continue
1541 show remote reverse-continue
1542 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1544 set remote reverse-step
1545 show remote reverse-step
1546 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1548 set displaced-stepping
1549 show displaced-stepping
1550 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1551 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1552 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1555 show debug displaced
1556 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1558 maint set internal-error
1559 maint show internal-error
1560 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1562 maint set internal-warning
1563 maint show internal-warning
1564 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1569 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1571 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1572 show multiple-symbols
1573 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1574 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1575 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1577 set breakpoint always-inserted
1578 show breakpoint always-inserted
1579 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1580 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1581 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1583 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1584 show arm fallback-mode
1585 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1587 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1588 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1589 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1590 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1592 set disable-randomization
1593 show disable-randomization
1594 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1595 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1596 multiple debugging sessions.
1600 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1605 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1606 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1607 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1608 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1610 set target-wide-charset
1611 show target-wide-charset
1612 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1613 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1615 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1617 set tcp connect-timeout
1618 show tcp connect-timeout
1619 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1620 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1621 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1623 set libthread-db-search-path
1624 show libthread-db-search-path
1625 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1628 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1629 show schedule-multiple
1630 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1631 the current process.
1635 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1636 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1637 affecting correctness.
1639 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1640 show interactive-mode
1641 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1642 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1643 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1644 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1645 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1650 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1651 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1652 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1656 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1657 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1658 alias for the `fork' command.
1661 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1662 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1663 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1666 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1667 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1668 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1672 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1673 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1674 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1677 * New native configurations
1679 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1681 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1685 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
1686 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
1687 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
1690 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1691 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1697 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1699 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
1701 * New native configurations
1703 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
1704 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
1708 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
1709 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
1711 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1713 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1714 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1715 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1716 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1718 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1719 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1721 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
1724 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
1725 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1726 and in inlined functions.
1728 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1729 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1730 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1732 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1734 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1735 registers on PowerPC targets.
1737 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1738 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1740 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1741 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1743 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1744 extended-remote mode.
1746 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
1747 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1748 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1749 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
1751 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1752 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1753 target architectures.
1755 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1756 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1757 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1758 stored in two consecutive float registers.
1760 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1763 * Improved support for debugging Ada
1764 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1766 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1767 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1768 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1769 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1771 - Improved command completion in Ada
1774 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1779 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1780 show print frame-arguments
1781 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1782 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1787 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1794 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1796 * New remote packets
1803 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
1806 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1810 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1812 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
1814 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1815 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1816 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1818 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1819 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1820 -Bsymbolic linker option.
1822 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1823 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1826 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1827 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1829 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1830 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
1832 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1834 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1835 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1836 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1838 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1839 automatically displayed as character or string data.
1841 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1842 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1845 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1846 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
1847 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
1849 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1852 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1853 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1854 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1856 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1858 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1860 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1861 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1862 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1864 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1865 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1867 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1868 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1869 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1870 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1871 Windows and SymbianOS).
1873 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1874 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
1876 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1877 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1883 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1884 when debugging using remote targets.
1886 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1887 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1888 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1889 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1890 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1891 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1892 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1894 set breakpoint auto-hw
1895 show breakpoint auto-hw
1896 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1897 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1898 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1899 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1900 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1901 including "next" and "finish".
1904 catch exception unhandled
1905 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1908 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1912 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1913 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1914 an alias to "set sysroot".
1917 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1918 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1921 * New native configurations
1923 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1926 unset tdesc filename
1928 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1929 not query the target for its built-in description.
1933 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1934 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1935 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1937 * New remote packets
1940 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1941 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1943 qXfer:features:read:
1944 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1949 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1950 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1952 qXfer:libraries:read:
1953 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1954 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1955 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1956 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1960 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1968 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1969 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1970 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1971 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1973 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1976 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1977 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1986 * Other removed features
1993 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2000 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2005 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2006 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2011 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2012 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2014 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2016 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2017 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2018 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2019 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2021 MIPS ".pdr" sections
2023 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2024 in debugging information.
2028 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2029 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2031 set mips stack-arg-size
2032 set mips saved-gpreg-size
2034 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2036 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
2041 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
2043 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2044 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2045 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2047 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2048 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2051 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2052 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2054 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2055 stub provides the required support.
2057 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2058 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2063 unset substitute-path
2064 show substitute-path
2065 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2066 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2067 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2068 between compilation and debugging.
2072 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2073 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2074 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2078 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2080 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2081 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2083 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2085 * New remote packets
2088 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2089 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2090 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2091 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2095 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2096 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2098 qXfer:memory-map:read:
2099 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2100 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2105 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2107 * Removed remote packets
2110 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2111 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2113 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
2117 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2119 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2123 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2124 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2126 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2128 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2130 restart <n> Return the program state to a
2131 previously saved state.
2133 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2135 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2137 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2138 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2140 info forks List forks of the user program that
2141 are available to be debugged.
2143 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2144 forks of the user program that are
2145 available to be debugged.
2147 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2148 that are available to be debugged (and
2149 kill the forked process).
2151 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2152 that are available to be debugged (and
2153 allow the process to continue).
2157 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2159 * Improved Windows host support
2161 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2162 native console support, and remote communications using either
2163 network sockets or serial ports.
2165 * Improved Modula-2 language support
2167 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2168 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2169 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2170 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2171 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2172 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2176 The ARM rdi-share module.
2178 The Netware NLM debug server.
2180 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2182 * New native configurations
2184 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2185 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2189 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2191 * New command line options
2193 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2194 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2195 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2196 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2197 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2198 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2199 with the --command (-x) option.
2201 * Deprecated commands removed
2203 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2207 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2208 othernames set arm disassembler
2209 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2210 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2211 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2214 * New BSD user-level threads support
2216 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2217 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2220 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2221 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2222 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2224 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2225 are not yet supported.
2227 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2228 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2230 * REMOVED configurations and files
2232 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2233 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2234 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2236 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2238 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2239 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2242 * VAX floating point support
2244 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2246 * User-defined command support
2248 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2249 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2250 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2252 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2254 * New command line option
2256 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2259 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2261 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2262 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2263 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2264 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2265 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
2267 * Internationalization
2269 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2270 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2271 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2275 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2276 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2277 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2279 * New native configurations
2281 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2285 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2286 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2288 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2290 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2291 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2292 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2295 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2296 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2297 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2307 powerpc bdm protocol
2309 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2310 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2312 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2314 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2315 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2316 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2317 permanently REMOVED.
2326 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2328 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2330 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2331 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2334 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2336 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2337 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2338 IRIX long double values).
2342 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2343 command. This problem has been fixed.
2345 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2347 * Fix for ``many threads''
2349 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2350 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2353 ptrace: No such process.
2354 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2356 This problem has been fixed.
2358 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2360 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2363 * New ``start'' command.
2365 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2367 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2369 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2370 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2371 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2373 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2374 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2375 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2376 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2377 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2378 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2379 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2380 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2381 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2383 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2385 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2386 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2387 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2388 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2389 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2391 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2392 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2393 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2395 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2397 * New native configurations
2399 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2400 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2401 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2402 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2403 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2404 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2405 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2407 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2409 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2410 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2411 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2412 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2413 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2414 work, was also included.
2416 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2417 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2427 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2428 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2430 * REMOVED configurations and files
2432 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2433 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2434 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2435 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2436 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2437 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2438 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2439 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2440 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2441 sonymips mips-sony-*
2442 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2444 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2446 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2448 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2449 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2450 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2451 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2454 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2456 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2457 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2458 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2459 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2460 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2461 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2464 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2466 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2468 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2469 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2470 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2472 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2474 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2475 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2477 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2479 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2480 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2481 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2483 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2485 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2486 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2488 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2490 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2491 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2492 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2494 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2496 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2497 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2498 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2500 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2502 * Removed --with-mmalloc
2504 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2505 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2507 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
2509 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2510 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2511 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2512 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2514 * Revised SPARC target
2516 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2517 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2518 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2519 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2520 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2524 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2525 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2526 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2529 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2531 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2532 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2535 * C++ nested types and namespaces
2537 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2538 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2539 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2540 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2541 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2542 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2543 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2544 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2545 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2547 * New native configurations
2549 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2550 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2551 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2552 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2553 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2555 * New debugging protocols
2557 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2559 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2561 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2562 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2563 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2565 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2567 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2568 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2569 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2570 permanently REMOVED.
2572 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2573 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2574 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2575 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2576 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2577 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2578 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2579 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2580 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2581 sonymips mips-sony-*
2582 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2584 * REMOVED configurations and files
2586 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2587 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2588 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2589 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2590 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2591 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2592 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2593 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2594 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2595 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2596 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2597 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2598 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2599 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2600 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2601 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2602 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2604 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2608 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2609 integrated into GDB.
2611 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2613 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2614 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2615 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2618 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2619 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2620 DWARF 2 CFI support.
2624 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2625 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2626 remote protocol documentation for details.
2628 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
2630 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2631 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2632 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2635 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2637 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2638 per-thread variables.
2640 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2642 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2643 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2645 * Separate debug info.
2647 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2648 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2649 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2650 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2651 and optional debug files.
2653 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2655 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2656 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2659 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2660 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2664 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2665 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2666 considered "useable".
2668 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2670 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2671 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2674 * GDB supports logging output to a file
2676 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2677 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
2679 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2681 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2682 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2685 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
2687 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2688 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2692 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2693 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2694 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2695 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2696 data, for more informative profiling results.
2698 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2700 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2701 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
2702 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
2704 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2707 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2708 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2709 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2710 in a subsequent -var-update.
2712 * New native configurations.
2714 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2716 * Multi-arched targets.
2718 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
2719 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2721 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2723 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2724 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2725 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2726 permanently REMOVED.
2728 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2729 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2730 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2731 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2732 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2733 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2734 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2735 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2736 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2737 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2738 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2739 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2741 * REMOVED configurations and files
2744 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2745 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2746 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2747 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2748 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2749 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2751 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2752 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2753 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2754 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2755 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2756 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2758 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
2760 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2761 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2762 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2763 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2764 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2766 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
2768 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2770 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2771 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2772 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2773 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2774 shared libs like mad''.
2776 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
2778 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2779 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2780 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2781 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
2783 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2785 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2786 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2789 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2790 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2792 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2793 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2795 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2796 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2797 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2798 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2800 * Multi-arched targets.
2802 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2803 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2805 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
2806 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2807 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2811 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2814 * New native configurations
2816 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
2817 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
2818 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
2819 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
2821 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2823 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2824 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2825 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2826 permanently REMOVED.
2828 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2829 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2830 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2831 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2832 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2833 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2834 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2835 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2836 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2837 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2839 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2840 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2842 * OBSOLETE languages
2844 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2846 * REMOVED configurations and files
2848 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2849 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2850 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2851 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2852 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2854 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2856 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2858 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2859 commands. The default is 1024.
2861 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2863 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2865 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2867 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2868 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2869 from a file into memory (restore).
2871 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2873 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2874 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2875 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2877 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2885 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2886 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2887 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2889 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2890 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2891 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2893 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2894 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2895 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2897 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2898 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2899 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2901 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2903 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2905 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2906 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2907 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2908 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2909 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2910 (notably embedded) targets.
2912 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2914 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2915 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2916 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2917 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2919 * New command line option
2921 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2923 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2925 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2926 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2927 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2928 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2929 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2930 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2931 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2932 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2933 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2934 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2936 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2938 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2939 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2941 * New native configurations
2943 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2944 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2945 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2946 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2950 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2952 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2954 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2955 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2956 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2957 permanently REMOVED.
2959 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2960 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2961 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2962 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2963 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2965 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2967 * REMOVED configurations and files
2969 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2971 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2972 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2973 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2974 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2975 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2976 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2977 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2978 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2979 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2980 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2981 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2983 * Changes to command line processing
2985 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2986 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2988 * Changes to key bindings
2990 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2992 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2994 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2996 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2999 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3001 Numerous documentation fixes.
3003 Numerous testsuite fixes.
3005 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
3007 * New native configurations
3009 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3010 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
3011 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
3012 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3013 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
3014 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
3018 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
3020 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
3022 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3024 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
3025 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3026 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3027 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3028 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3030 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3031 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3032 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3033 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3034 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3035 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3036 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3037 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
3039 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3040 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3042 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3043 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3044 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3045 permanently REMOVED.
3047 * REMOVED configurations and files
3049 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3050 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3052 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3056 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
3058 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
3059 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3064 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3066 * The MI enabled by default.
3068 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3069 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3070 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3071 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3072 which is now deprecated.
3074 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3076 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3077 main features are supported:
3079 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3081 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3084 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3086 - a Pascal expression parser.
3088 However, some important features are not yet supported.
3090 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3092 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3094 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3095 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3097 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3099 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3101 * Changes in completion.
3103 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3104 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3105 users expect at the shell prompt.
3107 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3108 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3109 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3110 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3111 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3112 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3113 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3115 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3117 * New platform-independent commands:
3119 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3120 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3121 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3123 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3125 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3126 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3127 many threads as your system allows you to have.
3129 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3131 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3132 multi-threaded programs though.
3134 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
3136 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3138 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3139 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3142 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3144 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3145 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3146 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3147 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3148 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3151 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3152 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3153 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3155 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3157 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3158 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3160 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3161 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3164 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3165 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3166 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3167 a given linear address.
3169 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3170 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3171 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3173 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3175 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3177 * Changes in documentation.
3179 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3180 Documentation License.
3182 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3185 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3187 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3190 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3191 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3192 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3194 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3196 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3197 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3198 contents of this file.
3202 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3204 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3206 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3208 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3209 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3210 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3211 greater level of detail.
3213 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3215 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3216 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3217 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3220 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3222 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3223 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3224 machines ``out of the box''.
3226 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3227 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3228 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3229 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3230 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3232 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3233 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3234 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3235 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3236 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3238 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3239 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3242 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3245 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3246 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3247 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3248 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3250 * New native configurations
3252 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3253 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3257 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3258 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3259 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
3260 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3262 * OBSOLETE configurations
3264 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3265 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3267 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3270 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3271 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3272 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3273 be permanently REMOVED.
3275 * Gould support removed
3277 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3279 * New features for SVR4
3281 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3282 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3283 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3285 * Many C++ enhancements
3287 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3288 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3290 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3292 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3293 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3294 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3295 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3297 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3298 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3300 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3302 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3303 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3304 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3306 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3307 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3309 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3311 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3312 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3313 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3315 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3317 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3318 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3319 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3321 * ``apropos'' command added.
3323 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3324 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3325 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3329 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3330 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3331 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3332 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3333 enabled by configuring with:
3335 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3337 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3339 * New native configurations
3341 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3342 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3343 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3347 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3348 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3349 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3351 * OBSOLETE configurations
3353 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3355 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3356 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3357 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3358 be permanently REMOVED.
3362 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3363 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3364 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3365 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3366 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3367 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3368 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3373 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3375 * set extension-language
3377 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3378 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3379 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3380 set extension-language .c c++
3381 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3382 and their associated languages.
3384 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3386 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3387 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3388 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3392 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3393 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3395 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3396 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3398 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3399 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3400 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3401 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3402 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3403 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3404 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3405 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3407 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3408 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3409 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3410 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3414 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3415 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3416 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3417 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3418 for xdb and dbx commands.
3422 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3423 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3424 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3426 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3427 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3428 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3430 * Debugging across forks
3432 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3437 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3438 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3439 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3441 * GDB remote protocol additions
3443 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3444 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3445 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3446 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3448 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3449 full 64-bit address. The command
3451 set remoteaddresssize 32
3453 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3454 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3457 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3458 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3460 maint packet heythere
3462 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3463 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3466 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3467 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3468 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3470 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3472 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3473 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3474 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3476 * mask-address variable for Mips
3478 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3479 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3480 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3482 * Higher serial baud rates
3484 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3485 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3486 to achieve all of these rates.)
3490 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3491 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3494 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3496 * New native configurations
3498 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3499 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3500 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3501 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3502 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3503 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3504 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3508 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3509 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3510 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3511 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3512 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3513 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3514 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3515 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3516 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3517 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3518 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3520 * New debugging protocols
3522 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3523 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3524 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3525 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3526 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3527 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3531 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3532 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3537 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3538 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3540 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3542 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3543 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3544 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3546 * Live range splitting
3548 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3549 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3550 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3554 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3555 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3559 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3560 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3561 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3566 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3571 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3572 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3573 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3574 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3575 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3576 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3580 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3581 the symbol at the specified address.
3585 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3586 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3587 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3588 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3589 file tracepoint.c for more details.
3593 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3594 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3595 of most MIPS variants.
3599 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3600 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3601 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3605 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3606 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3607 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3608 the possible architectures.
3610 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3612 * New native configurations
3614 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3615 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3616 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3617 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3618 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3619 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3623 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3624 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3625 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3626 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3627 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3629 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3633 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3634 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3635 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3636 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3637 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3641 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3643 * Windows 95/NT native
3645 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3646 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3647 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3648 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3649 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3651 * dont-repeat command
3653 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3654 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3655 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3656 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3658 * Send break instead of ^C
3660 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3661 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3662 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3664 * Remote protocol timeout
3666 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3667 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3668 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3670 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3672 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3673 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3674 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3675 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3676 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3678 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3679 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3680 automatically on hpux10.
3682 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3684 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3686 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3688 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3689 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3690 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3691 every character. The default value is 1050.
3693 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3695 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3696 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3697 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3698 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3699 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3700 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3702 * Speedups for remote debugging
3704 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3705 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3706 and more efficient S-record downloading.
3708 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3710 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3711 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3713 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3715 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
3717 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3718 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3720 * Remote targets use caching
3722 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3723 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3724 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3725 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3726 off' turns the the data cache off.
3728 * Remote targets may have threads
3730 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3731 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3732 gdb/remote.c for details.
3736 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3737 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3738 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3739 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3740 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3741 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3742 sequence is something like
3744 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3746 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3750 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3751 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3752 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3753 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3754 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3755 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3756 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3757 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3761 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3762 but does simplify configuration and building.
3766 GDB now supports hpux10.
3768 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3770 * New native configurations
3772 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3773 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3774 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3775 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3779 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3780 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3781 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3782 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3785 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3787 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3788 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3789 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3790 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3791 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3793 * Arguments to user-defined commands
3795 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3796 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3799 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3801 To execute the command use:
3804 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3805 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3806 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3808 * New `if' and `while' commands
3810 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3811 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3812 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3813 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3814 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3815 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3816 if the expression is zero.
3818 * Fortran source language mode
3820 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3821 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3822 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3823 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3826 * Better HPUX support
3828 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3829 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3830 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3831 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3832 that behavior do the following before running the program:
3838 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3839 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3845 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3846 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3849 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3850 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3852 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3854 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3855 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3856 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3857 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3858 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3859 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3861 * New DOS host serial code
3863 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3864 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3867 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3869 * New "complete" command
3871 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3872 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3874 * Trailing space optional in prompt
3876 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3877 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3879 * Breakpoint hit counts
3881 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3882 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3883 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3884 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3885 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3888 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3890 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3891 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3892 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3894 * Shared library breakpoints
3896 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3897 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3899 * Hardware watchpoints
3901 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3902 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3904 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3908 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3909 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3911 * Improved Irix 5 support
3913 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3915 * Improved HPPA support
3917 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3919 * New native configurations
3921 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3922 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3923 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3924 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3928 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3929 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3932 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3934 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3935 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3939 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3940 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3942 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3944 * Irix 5 is now supported
3948 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3949 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3950 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3951 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3952 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3955 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3957 * User visible changes:
3961 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3962 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3963 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3964 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3965 debugging info for the mips target).
3967 * DEC Alpha native support
3969 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3970 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3971 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3972 Alpha-specific notes.
3974 * Preliminary thread implementation
3976 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3978 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3980 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3981 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3984 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3986 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3987 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3988 call methods, ...etc.
3990 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3992 * User visible changes:
3994 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3995 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3996 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3997 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3999 Filename completion now works.
4001 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4002 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4003 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4005 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4006 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4007 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4008 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4009 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4013 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4014 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4017 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4021 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4022 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4023 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4027 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4028 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4029 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4030 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4031 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4035 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4036 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4037 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4039 * New targets supported
4041 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4042 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4043 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4044 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4045 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4047 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4048 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4049 GO32 memory extender.
4051 * New remote protocols
4053 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4055 * New source languages supported
4057 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4058 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4059 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4062 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4064 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4066 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4067 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4068 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4069 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4070 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4071 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4073 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4075 * Faster and better demangling
4077 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4078 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4079 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4080 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4081 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4082 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4085 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4086 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4087 compiler does not actually implement.
4089 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4091 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4092 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4093 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4094 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4095 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4096 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4099 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4100 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4102 * Improved configure script
4104 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4105 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4106 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4107 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4109 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4110 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4111 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4112 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4113 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4114 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4116 * Documentation improvements
4118 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4119 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4120 before submitting changes.
4122 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4123 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4124 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4125 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4126 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4128 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4129 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4130 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4131 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4132 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4133 around this problem.
4137 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4138 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4139 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4142 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4143 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4145 * New native hosts supported
4147 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4148 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4150 * New targets supported
4152 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4154 * New file formats supported
4156 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4157 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4161 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4163 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4164 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4166 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4167 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4168 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4170 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4171 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4173 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4174 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4175 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4178 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4179 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4180 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4181 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4182 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4184 * Internal improvements
4186 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4187 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4189 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4190 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4191 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4192 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4193 shared code that handles any of them.
4195 * New command line options
4197 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4201 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4202 General Public License.
4204 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4206 * Host/native/target split
4208 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4209 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4210 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4211 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4212 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4214 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4215 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4216 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4217 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4218 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4219 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4220 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4222 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4223 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4224 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4226 * New hosts supported
4228 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4229 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4230 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4232 * New targets supported
4234 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4235 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4237 * New native hosts supported
4239 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4240 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4241 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4243 * New file formats supported
4245 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4246 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4247 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4251 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4252 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4253 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4255 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4257 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4258 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4259 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4260 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4264 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4265 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4266 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4268 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4272 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4273 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4276 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4277 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4279 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4280 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4281 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4282 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4283 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4284 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4286 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4287 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4288 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4289 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4293 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4294 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4295 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4296 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4297 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4299 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4300 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4301 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4302 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4306 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4307 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4308 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4309 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4310 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4311 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4312 each instruction being stepped through.
4314 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4315 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4317 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4318 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4319 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4320 processor with a serial port.
4324 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4325 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4326 supported, and what files each one uses.
4330 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4331 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4332 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4333 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4335 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4336 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4337 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4338 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4342 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4343 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4344 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4345 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4346 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4347 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4349 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4352 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4354 * Better support for C++ function names
4356 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4357 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4358 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4359 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4360 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4362 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4363 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4364 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4365 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4366 for the list of formats.
4368 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4370 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4371 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4372 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4373 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4374 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4375 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4378 * New 'maintenance' command
4380 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4381 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4382 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4384 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4385 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4386 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4387 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4388 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4389 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4391 The following commands are new:
4393 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4394 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4395 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4397 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4399 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4400 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4401 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4402 read after argv processing.
4404 * New hosts supported
4406 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4408 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4410 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4411 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4412 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4413 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4414 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4417 * New targets supported
4419 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4421 * More smarts about finding #include files
4423 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4424 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4425 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4426 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4427 the one that contains your sources.
4429 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4430 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4431 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4433 * Interesting infernals change
4435 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4436 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4437 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4438 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4440 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4442 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4443 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4444 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4446 See the ChangeLog for details.
4448 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4450 * New machines supported (host and target)
4452 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4454 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4456 * New malloc package
4458 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4459 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4460 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4461 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4462 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4463 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4467 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4468 'help info proc' for details.
4470 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4472 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4473 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4476 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4478 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4479 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4480 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4481 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4482 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4483 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4485 * Cross byte order fixes
4487 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4488 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4490 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4492 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4493 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4494 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4495 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4496 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4497 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4498 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4499 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4500 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4501 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4503 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4504 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4505 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4506 slower, but makes future operations faster.
4508 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4509 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4510 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4513 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4515 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4516 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4517 shared across multiple host platforms.
4519 * longjmp() handling
4521 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4522 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4523 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4524 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4528 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4529 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4534 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4535 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4536 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4538 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4540 * New machines supported (host and target)
4542 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4544 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4545 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4547 * New machines supported (target)
4549 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4553 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4554 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4555 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4557 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4558 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4559 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4560 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4561 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4564 * New features for SVR4
4566 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4567 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4568 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4570 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4571 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4572 it prints the address mappings of the process.
4574 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4575 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4577 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4579 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4580 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4581 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4582 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4583 same code linked statically.
4587 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4588 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4589 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4590 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4591 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4592 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4596 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4597 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4598 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4601 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4603 * New machines supported (host and target)
4605 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4606 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4607 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4609 * Almost SCO Unix support
4611 We had hoped to support:
4612 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4613 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4614 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4615 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4617 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4619 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4620 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4621 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4622 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4627 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4628 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4629 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4633 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4634 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4635 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4637 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4639 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4640 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4641 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4643 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4644 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4645 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4646 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4649 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4650 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4651 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4652 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4655 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4656 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4659 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4660 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4661 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4664 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4666 * Improved configuration
4668 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4669 Porting BFD is simpler.
4673 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4674 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4675 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4676 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4680 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4682 * New host supported (not target)
4684 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4687 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4689 * Multiple source language support
4691 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4692 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4693 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4694 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4695 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4696 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4700 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4701 currently under development at the State University of New York at
4702 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4703 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4705 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4706 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4707 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4709 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4710 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4714 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4715 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4716 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4717 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4720 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4722 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4723 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4724 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4725 examining core files.
4729 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4732 * New machines supported (host and target)
4734 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4735 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4736 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4738 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4740 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4742 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4744 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4745 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4746 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4748 * New remote interfaces
4754 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4758 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4760 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4761 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4762 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4763 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4764 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4765 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4766 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4767 stub on the target system.
4769 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4771 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4772 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4773 object file types such as a.out and coff.
4775 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4776 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4779 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4781 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4782 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4784 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4785 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4786 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4788 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4789 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4790 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4791 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4793 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4794 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4795 it is already running. Default is ON.
4797 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4798 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4799 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4800 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4803 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4804 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4805 or the value of the environment variable
4808 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4809 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4812 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4813 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4814 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4816 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4817 history expansion will be performed on
4818 command line input. The default is OFF.
4820 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4821 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4822 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4824 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4825 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4826 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4829 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4830 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4831 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4834 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4835 ``set width'' instead.
4837 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4838 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4839 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4840 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4842 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4845 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4848 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4851 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4854 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4856 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4857 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4858 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4862 * Support for Shared Libraries
4864 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4865 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4866 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4867 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4868 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4869 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4870 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4871 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4873 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4874 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4875 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4877 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4882 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4883 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4884 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4885 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4886 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4887 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4889 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4891 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4893 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4894 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4895 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4898 * C++ multiple inheritance
4900 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4903 * C++ exception handling
4905 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4906 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4907 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4910 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4911 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4912 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4914 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4915 current stack frame.
4918 * Minor command changes
4920 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4921 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4922 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4924 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4925 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4926 frames without printing.
4928 * New directory command
4930 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4931 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4932 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4933 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4934 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4936 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4938 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4941 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4942 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4943 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4944 where the program that you are debugging will run.