1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 15
6 * Debugger Adapter Protocol changes
8 ** The "scopes" request will now return a scope holding global
9 variables from the stack frame's compilation unit.
11 ** The "scopes" request will return a "returnValue" scope holding
12 the return value from the latest "stepOut" command, when
15 * For ARM targets, the offset of the pc in the jmp_buf has been fixed to match
16 glibc 2.20 and later. This should only matter when not using libc probes.
17 This may cause breakage when using an incompatible libc, like uclibc or
18 newlib, or an older glibc.
20 * MTE (Memory Tagging Extension) debugging is now supported on AArch64 baremetal
25 * The MPX commands "show/set mpx bound" have been deprecated, as Intel
26 listed MPX as removed in 2019.
28 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++17 compiler.
29 For example, GCC 9 or later.
31 * GDB index now contains information about the main function. This speeds up
32 startup when it is being used for some large binaries.
34 * On hosts where threading is available, DWARF reading is now done in
35 the background, resulting in faster startup. This can be controlled
36 using "maint set dwarf synchronous".
41 Attempting to use both the 'r' and 'b' flags with the disassemble
42 command will now give an error. Previously the 'b' flag would
43 always override the 'r' flag.
47 GDB now generates sparse core files, on systems that support it.
49 maintenance info line-table
50 Add an EPILOGUE-BEGIN column to the output of the command. It indicates
51 if the line is considered the start of the epilgoue, and thus a point at
52 which the frame can be considered destroyed.
54 set unwindonsignal on|off
56 These commands are now aliases for the new set/show unwind-on-signal.
59 This command now gives an error if any unexpected arguments are
60 found after the command.
63 When using the command "list ." in a location that has no debug information
64 or no file loaded, GDB now says that there is no debug information to print
65 lines. This makes it more obvious that there is no information, as opposed
66 to implying there is no inferior loaded.
70 info missing-debug-handler
71 List all the registered missing debug handlers.
73 enable missing-debug-handler LOCUS HANDLER
74 disable missing-debug-handler LOCUS HANDLER
75 Enable or disable a missing debug handler with a name matching the
76 regular expression HANDLER, in LOCUS.
78 LOCUS can be 'global' to operate on global missing debug handler,
79 'progspace' to operate on handlers within the current program space,
80 or can be a regular expression which is matched against the filename
81 of the primary executable in each program space.
83 maintenance info linux-lwps
84 List all LWPs under control of the linux-nat target.
86 set remote thread-options-packet
87 show remote thread-options-packet
88 Set/show the use of the thread options packet.
90 set direct-call-timeout SECONDS
91 show direct-call-timeout
92 set indirect-call-timeout SECONDS
93 show indirect-call-timeout
94 These new settings can be used to limit how long GDB will wait for
95 an inferior function call to complete. The direct timeout is used
96 for inferior function calls from e.g. 'call' and 'print' commands,
97 while the indirect timeout is used for inferior function calls from
98 within a conditional breakpoint expression.
100 The default for the direct timeout is unlimited, while the default
101 for the indirect timeout is 30 seconds.
103 These timeouts will only have an effect for targets that are
104 operating in async mode. For non-async targets the timeouts are
105 ignored, GDB will wait indefinitely for an inferior function to
106 complete, unless interrupted by the user using Ctrl-C.
108 set unwind-on-timeout on|off
109 show unwind-on-timeout
110 These commands control whether GDB should unwind the stack when a
111 timeout occurs during an inferior function call. The default is
112 off, in which case the inferior will remain in the frame where the
113 timeout occurred. When on, GDB will unwind the stack removing the
114 dummy frame that was added for the inferior call, and restoring the
115 inferior state to how it was before the inferior call started.
117 set unwind-on-signal on|off
118 show unwind-on-signal
119 These new commands replaces the existing set/show unwindonsignal. The
120 old command is maintained as an alias.
122 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
124 ** The --remote-debug and --event-loop-debug command line options
127 ** The --debug command line option now takes an optional comma
128 separated list of components to emit debug for. The currently
129 supported components are: all, threads, event-loop, and remote.
130 If no components are given then threads is assumed.
132 ** The 'monitor set remote-debug' and 'monitor set event-loop-debug'
133 command have been removed.
135 ** The 'monitor set debug 0|1' command has been extended to take a
136 component name, e.g.: 'monitor set debug COMPONENT off|on'.
137 Possible component names are: all, threads, event-loop, and
142 ** New function gdb.notify_mi(NAME, DATA), that emits custom
143 GDB/MI async notification.
145 ** New read/write attribute gdb.Value.bytes that contains a bytes
146 object holding the contents of this value.
148 ** New module gdb.missing_debug that facilitates dealing with
149 objfiles that are missing any debug information.
151 ** New function gdb.missing_debug.register_handler that can register
152 an instance of a sub-class of gdb.missing_debug.MissingDebugInfo
153 as a handler for objfiles that are missing debug information.
155 ** New class gdb.missing_debug.MissingDebugInfo which can be
156 sub-classed to create handlers for objfiles with missing debug
159 ** Stop events now have a "details" attribute that holds a
160 dictionary that carries the same information as an MI "*stopped"
163 ** New function gdb.interrupt(), that interrupts GDB as if the user
166 ** New gdb.InferiorThread.ptid_string attribute. This read-only
167 attribute contains the string that appears in the 'Target Id'
168 column of the 'info threads' command output.
170 ** It is no longer possible to create new gdb.Progspace object using
171 'gdb.Progspace()', this will result in a TypeError. Progspace
172 objects can still be obtained through calling other API
173 functions, for example 'gdb.current_progspace()'.
175 ** User defined attributes can be added to a gdb.Inferior object,
176 these will be stored in the object's new Inferior.__dict__
179 ** User defined attributes can be added to a gdb.InferiorThread
180 object, these will be stored in the object's new
181 InferiorThread.__dict__ attribute.
183 ** New constants gdb.SYMBOL_TYPE_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTION_DOMAIN,
184 and gdb.SEARCH_*_DOMAIN corresponding to all the existing symbol
185 domains. Symbol lookup can now search in multiple domains at
186 once, and can also narrowly search for just a type or function.
188 * Debugger Adapter Protocol changes
190 ** GDB now emits the "process" event.
192 ** GDB now supports the "cancel" request.
194 ** The "attach" request now supports specifying the program.
196 ** New command "set debug dap-log-level" controls DAP logging.
198 ** The "set debug dap-log-file" command is now documented. This
199 command was available in GDB 14 but not documented.
203 ** New constants SYMBOL_TYPE_DOMAIN, SYMBOL_FUNCTION_DOMAIN, and
204 SEARCH_*_DOMAIN corresponding to all the existing symbol domains.
205 Symbol lookup can now search in multiple domains at once, and can
206 also narrowly search for just a type or function.
210 New stop reason: clone
211 Indicates that a clone system call was executed.
214 Enable/disable optional event reporting, on a per-thread basis.
215 Currently supported options are GDB_THREAD_OPTION_CLONE, to enable
216 clone event reporting, and GDB_THREAD_OPTION_EXIT to enable thread
217 exit event reporting.
219 QThreadOptions in qSupported
220 The qSupported packet allows GDB to inform the stub it supports the
221 QThreadOptions packet, and the qSupported response can contain the
222 set of thread options the remote stub supports.
225 This new packet allows GDB to query the stub about a given address to check
226 if it is tagged or not. Many memory tagging-related GDB commands need to
227 perform this check before they read/write the allocation tag related to an
228 address. Currently, however, this is done through a 'vFile' request to read
229 the file /proc/<PID>/smaps and check if the address is in a region reported
230 as memory tagged. Since not all targets have a notion of what the smaps
231 file is about, this new packet provides a more generic way to perform such
235 Return information about files on the remote system. Like
236 vFile:fstat but takes a filename rather than an open file
239 *** Changes in GDB 14
241 * GDB now supports the AArch64 Scalable Matrix Extension 2 (SME2), which
242 includes a new 512 bit lookup table register named ZT0.
244 * GDB now supports the AArch64 Scalable Matrix Extension (SME), which includes
245 a new matrix register named ZA, a new thread register TPIDR2 and a new vector
246 length register SVG (streaming vector granule). GDB also supports tracking
247 ZA state across signal frames.
249 Some features are still under development or are dependent on ABI specs that
250 are still in alpha stage. For example, manual function calls with ZA state
251 don't have any special handling, and tracking of SVG changes based on
252 DWARF information is still not implemented, but there are plans to do so in
255 * GDB now recognizes the NO_COLOR environment variable and disables
256 styling according to the spec. See https://no-color.org/.
257 Styling can be re-enabled with "set style enabled on".
259 * The AArch64 'org.gnu.gdb.aarch64.pauth' Pointer Authentication feature string
260 has been deprecated in favor of the 'org.gnu.gdb.aarch64.pauth_v2' feature
263 * GDB now has some support for integer types larger than 64 bits.
265 * Removed targets and native configurations
267 GDB no longer supports AIX 4.x, AIX 5.x and AIX 6.x. The minimum supported
268 AIX version is now AIX 7.1.
270 * Multi-target feature configuration
272 GDB now supports the individual configuration of remote targets' feature
273 sets. Based on the current selection of a target, the commands 'set remote
274 <name>-packet (on|off|auto)' and 'show remote <name>-packet' can be used to
275 configure a target's feature packet and to display its configuration,
278 The individual packet sizes can be configured and shown using the commands
279 ** 'set remote memory-read-packet-size (number of bytes|fixed|limit)'
280 ** 'set remote memory-write-packet-size (number of bytes|fixed|limit)'
281 ** 'show remote memory-read-packet-size'
282 ** 'show remote memory-write-packet-size'.
284 The configuration of the packet itself, as well as the size of a memory-read
285 or memory-write packet applies to the currently selected target (if
286 available). If no target is selected, it applies to future remote
287 connections. Similarly, the show commands print the configuration of the
288 currently selected target. If no remote target is selected, the default
289 configuration for future connections is shown.
291 * GDB has initial built-in support for the Debugger Adapter Protocol.
292 This support requires that GDB be built with Python scripting
295 * For the break command, multiple uses of the 'thread' or 'task'
296 keywords will now give an error instead of just using the thread or
297 task id from the last instance of the keyword. E.g.:
298 break foo thread 1 thread 2
299 will now give an error rather than using 'thread 2'.
301 * For the watch command, multiple uses of the 'task' keyword will now
302 give an error instead of just using the task id from the last
303 instance of the keyword. E.g.:
304 watch my_var task 1 task 2
305 will now give an error rather than using 'task 2'. The 'thread'
306 keyword already gave an error when used multiple times with the
307 watch command, this remains unchanged.
309 * The 'set print elements' setting now helps when printing large arrays.
310 If an array would otherwise exceed max-value-size, but 'print elements'
311 is set such that the size of elements to print is less than or equal
312 to 'max-value-size', GDB will now still print the array, however only
313 'max-value-size' worth of data will be added into the value history.
315 * For both the break and watch commands, it is now invalid to use both
316 the 'thread' and 'task' keywords within the same command. For
317 example the following commnds will now give an error:
318 break foo thread 1 task 1
319 watch var thread 2 task 3
321 * The printf command now accepts a '%V' output format which will
322 format an expression just as the 'print' command would. Print
323 options can be placed withing '[...]' after the '%V' to modify how
324 the value is printed. E.g:
325 printf "%V", some_array
326 printf "%V[-array-indexes on]", some_array
327 will print the array without, or with array indexes included, just
328 as the array would be printed by the 'print' command. This
329 functionality is also available for dprintf when dprintf-style is
332 * When the printf command requires a string to be fetched from the
333 inferior, GDB now uses the existing 'max-value-size' setting to the
334 limit the memory allocated within GDB. The default 'max-value-size'
335 is 64k. To print longer strings you should increase
338 * The Ada 2022 Enum_Rep and Enum_Val attributes are now supported.
340 * The Ada 2022 target name symbol ('@') is now supported by the Ada
343 * The 'list' command now accepts '.' as an argument, which tells GDB to
344 print the location around the point of execution within the current frame.
345 If the inferior hasn't started yet, the command will print around the
346 beginning of the 'main' function.
348 * Using the 'list' command with no arguments in a situation where the
349 command would attempt to list past the end of the file now warns the
350 user that the end of file has been reached, refers the user to the
351 newly added '.' argument
353 * Breakpoints can now be inferior-specific. This is similar to the
354 existing thread-specific breakpoint support. Breakpoint conditions
355 can include the 'inferior' keyword followed by an inferior id (as
356 displayed in the 'info inferiors' output). It is invalid to use the
357 'inferior' keyword with either the 'thread' or 'task' keywords when
358 creating a breakpoint.
360 * New convenience function "$_shell", to execute a shell command and
361 return the result. This lets you run shell commands in expressions.
364 (gdb) p $_shell("true")
366 (gdb) p $_shell("false")
368 (gdb) break func if $_shell("some command") == 0
372 --additional-debug-dirs=PATHs
374 Provide a colon-separated list of additional directories to search for
375 separate debug info. These directories are added to the default value of
376 the 'debug-file-directory' GDB parameter.
380 set debug breakpoint on|off
381 show debug breakpoint
382 Print additional debug messages about breakpoint insertion and removal.
384 maintenance print record-instruction [ N ]
385 Print the recorded information for a given instruction. If N is not given
386 prints how GDB would undo the last instruction executed. If N is negative,
387 prints how GDB would undo the N-th previous instruction, and if N is
388 positive, it prints how GDB will redo the N-th following instruction.
390 maintenance info frame-unwinders
391 List the frame unwinders currently in effect, starting with the highest
394 maintenance wait-for-index-cache
395 Wait until all pending writes to the index cache have completed.
397 set always-read-ctf on|off
399 When off, CTF is only read if DWARF is not present. When on, CTF is
400 read regardless of whether DWARF is present. Off by default.
403 Get main symbol to identify entry point into program.
405 set tui mouse-events [on|off]
406 show tui mouse-events
407 When on (default), mouse clicks control the TUI and can be accessed by
408 Python extensions. When off, mouse clicks are handled by the terminal,
409 enabling terminal-native text selection.
413 ** MI version 1 has been removed.
415 ** mi now reports 'no-history' as a stop reason when hitting the end of the
416 reverse execution history.
418 ** When creating a thread-specific breakpoint using the '-p' option,
419 the -break-insert command would report the 'thread' field twice in
420 the reply. The content of both fields was always identical. This
421 has now been fixed; the 'thread' field will be reported just once
422 for thread-specific breakpoints, or not at all for breakpoints
423 without a thread restriction. The same is also true for the 'task'
424 field of an Ada task-specific breakpoint.
426 ** It is no longer possible to create a thread-specific breakpoint for
427 a thread that doesn't exist using '-break-insert -p ID'. Creating
428 breakpoints for non-existent threads is not allowed when using the
429 CLI, that the MI allowed it was a long standing bug, which has now
432 ** The '--simple-values' argument to the '-stack-list-arguments',
433 '-stack-list-locals', '-stack-list-variables', and '-var-list-children'
434 commands now takes reference types into account: that is, a value is now
435 considered simple if it is neither an array, structure, or union, nor a
436 reference to an array, structure, or union. (Previously all references were
437 considered simple.) Support for this feature can be verified by using the
438 '-list-features' command, which should contain "simple-values-ref-types".
440 ** The -break-insert command now accepts a '-g thread-group-id' option
441 to allow for the creation of inferior-specific breakpoints.
443 ** The bkpt tuple, which appears in breakpoint-created notifications,
444 and in the result of the -break-insert command can now include an
445 optional 'inferior' field for both the main breakpoint, and each
446 location, when the breakpoint is inferior-specific.
450 ** gdb.ThreadExitedEvent added. Emits a ThreadEvent.
452 ** The gdb.unwinder.Unwinder.name attribute is now read-only.
454 ** The name argument passed to gdb.unwinder.Unwinder.__init__ must
455 now be of type 'str' otherwise a TypeError will be raised.
457 ** The gdb.unwinder.Unwinder.enabled attribute can now only accept
458 values of type 'bool'. Changing this attribute will now
459 invalidate GDB's frame-cache, which means GDB will need to
460 rebuild its frame-cache when next required - either with, or
461 without the particular unwinder, depending on how 'enabled' was
464 ** New methods added to the gdb.PendingFrame class. These methods
465 have the same behaviour as the corresponding methods on
466 gdb.Frame. The new methods are:
468 - gdb.PendingFrame.name: Return the name for the frame's
470 - gdb.PendingFrame.is_valid: Return True if the pending frame
472 - gdb.PendingFrame.pc: Return the $pc register value for this
474 - gdb.PendingFrame.language: Return a string containing the
475 language for this frame, or None.
476 - gdb.PendingFrame.find_sal: Return a gdb.Symtab_and_line
477 object for the current location within the pending frame, or
479 - gdb.PendingFrame.block: Return a gdb.Block for the current
480 pending frame, or None.
481 - gdb.PendingFrame.function: Return a gdb.Symbol for the
482 current pending frame, or None.
484 ** The frame-id passed to gdb.PendingFrame.create_unwind_info can
485 now use either an integer or a gdb.Value object for each of its
486 'sp', 'pc', and 'special' attributes.
488 ** A new class gdb.unwinder.FrameId has been added. Instances of
489 this class are constructed with 'sp' (stack-pointer) and 'pc'
490 (program-counter) values, and can be used as the frame-id when
491 calling gdb.PendingFrame.create_unwind_info.
493 ** It is now no longer possible to sub-class the
494 gdb.disassembler.DisassemblerResult type.
496 ** The Disassembler API from the gdb.disassembler module has been
497 extended to include styling support:
499 - The DisassemblerResult class can now be initialized with a list
500 of parts. Each part represents part of the disassembled
501 instruction along with the associated style information. This
502 list of parts can be accessed with the new
503 DisassemblerResult.parts property.
505 - New constants gdb.disassembler.STYLE_* representing all the
506 different styles part of an instruction might have.
508 - New methods DisassembleInfo.text_part and
509 DisassembleInfo.address_part which are used to create the new
510 styled parts of a disassembled instruction.
512 - Changes are backwards compatible, the older API can still be
513 used to disassemble instructions without styling.
515 ** New function gdb.execute_mi(COMMAND, [ARG]...), that invokes a
516 GDB/MI command and returns the output as a Python dictionary.
518 ** New function gdb.block_signals(). This returns a context manager
519 that blocks any signals that GDB needs to handle itself.
521 ** New class gdb.Thread. This is a subclass of threading.Thread
522 that calls gdb.block_signals in its "start" method.
524 ** gdb.parse_and_eval now has a new "global_context" parameter.
525 This can be used to request that the parse only examine global
528 ** gdb.Inferior now has a new "arguments" attribute. This holds the
529 command-line arguments to the inferior, if known.
531 ** gdb.Inferior now has a new "main_name" attribute. This holds the
532 name of the inferior's "main", if known.
534 ** gdb.Inferior now has new methods "clear_env", "set_env", and
535 "unset_env". These can be used to modify the inferior's
536 environment before it is started.
538 ** gdb.Value now has the 'assign' method.
540 ** gdb.Value now has the 'to_array' method. This converts an
541 array-like Value to an array.
543 ** gdb.Progspace now has the new method "objfile_for_address". This
544 returns the gdb.Objfile, if any, that covers a given address.
546 ** gdb.Breakpoint now has an "inferior" attribute. If the
547 Breakpoint object is inferior specific then this attribute holds
548 the inferior-id (an integer). If the Breakpoint object is not
549 inferior specific, then this field contains None. This field can
552 ** gdb.Type now has the "is_array_like" and "is_string_like"
553 methods. These reflect GDB's internal idea of whether a type
554 might be array- or string-like, even if they do not have the
555 corresponding type code.
557 ** gdb.ValuePrinter is a new class that can be used as the base
558 class for the result of applying a pretty-printer. As a base
559 class, it signals to gdb that the printer may implement new
560 pretty-printer methods.
562 ** New attribute Progspace.symbol_file. This attribute holds the
563 gdb.Objfile that corresponds to Progspace.filename (when
564 Progspace.filename is not None), otherwise, this attribute is
567 ** New attribute Progspace.executable_filename. This attribute
568 holds a string containing a file name set by the "exec-file" or
569 "file" commands, or None if no executable file is set. This
570 isn't the exact string passed by the user to these commands; the
571 file name will have been partially resolved to an absolute file
574 ** A new executable_changed event registry is available. This event
575 emits ExecutableChangedEvent objects, which have 'progspace' (a
576 gdb.Progspace) and 'reload' (a Boolean) attributes. This event
577 is emitted when gdb.Progspace.executable_filename changes.
579 ** New event registries gdb.events.new_progspace and
580 gdb.events.free_progspace, these emit NewProgspaceEvent and
581 FreeProgspaceEvent event types respectively. Both of these event
582 types have a single 'progspace' attribute, which is the
583 gdb.Progspace that is either being added to GDB, or removed from
586 ** gdb.LazyString now implements the __str__ method.
588 ** New method gdb.Frame.static_link that returns the outer frame
589 of a nested function frame.
591 *** Changes in GDB 13
593 * MI version 1 is deprecated, and will be removed in GDB 14.
595 * GDB now supports dumping memory tag data for AArch64 MTE. It also supports
596 reading memory tag data for AArch64 MTE from core files generated by
597 the gcore command or the Linux kernel.
599 When a process uses memory-mapped pages protected by memory tags (for
600 example, AArch64 MTE), this additional information will be recorded in
601 the core file in the event of a crash or if GDB generates a core file
602 from the current process state. GDB will show this additional information
603 automatically, or through one of the memory-tag subcommands.
605 * Scheduler-locking and new threads
607 When scheduler-locking is in effect, only the current thread may run
608 when the inferior is resumed. However, previously, new threads
609 created by the resumed thread would still be able to run free. Now,
610 they are held stopped.
612 * "info breakpoints" now displays enabled breakpoint locations of
613 disabled breakpoints as in the "y-" state. For example:
615 (gdb) info breakpoints
616 Num Type Disp Enb Address What
617 1 breakpoint keep n <MULTIPLE>
618 1.1 y- 0x00000000000011b6 in ...
619 1.2 y- 0x00000000000011c2 in ...
620 1.3 n 0x00000000000011ce in ...
622 * Support for Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on FreeBSD arm and
623 aarch64 architectures.
625 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on FreeBSD/Aarch64.
627 * Remove support for building against Python 2, it is now only possible to
628 build GDB against Python 3.
630 * DBX mode has been removed.
632 * GDB now honours the DWARF prologue_end line-table entry flag the compiler can
633 emit to indicate where a breakpoint should be placed to break in a function
636 * Completion now also offers "NUMBER" for "set" commands that accept
637 a numeric argument and the "unlimited" keyword. For example:
639 (gdb) set width <TAB>
644 (gdb) complete set width
648 * Disassembler styling using libopcodes. GDB now supports
649 disassembler styling using libopcodes. This is only available for
650 some targets (currently x86 and RISC-V). For unsupported targets
651 Python Pygments is still used. For supported targets, libopcodes
652 styling is used by default.
654 * The Windows native target now supports target async.
656 * gdb now supports zstd compressed debug sections (ELFCOMPRESS_ZSTD) for ELF.
658 * The format of 'disassemble /r' and 'record instruction-history /r'
659 has changed. The instruction bytes could now be grouped together,
660 and displayed in the endianness of the instruction. This is the
661 same layout as used by GNU objdump when disassembling.
663 There is now 'disassemble /b' and 'record instruction-history /b'
664 which will always display the instructions bytes one at a time in
665 memory order, that is, the byte at the lowest address first.
667 For both /r and /b GDB is now better at using whitespace in order to
668 align the disassembled instruction text.
670 * The TUI no longer styles the source and assembly code highlighted by
671 the current position indicator by default. You can however
672 re-enable styling using the new "set style tui-current-position"
675 * New convenience variable $_inferior_thread_count contains the number
676 of live threads in the current inferior.
678 * When a breakpoint with multiple code locations is hit, GDB now prints
679 the code location using the syntax <breakpoint_number>.<location_number>
681 Thread 1 "zeoes" hit Breakpoint 2.3, some_func () at zeoes.c:8
683 * When a breakpoint is hit, GDB now sets the convenience variables $_hit_bpnum
684 and $_hit_locno to the hit breakpoint number and code location number.
685 This allows to disable the last hit breakpoint using
686 (gdb) disable $_hit_bpnum
687 or disable only the specific breakpoint code location using
688 (gdb) disable $_hit_bpnum.$_hit_locno
689 These commands can be used inside the command list of a breakpoint to
690 automatically disable the just encountered breakpoint (or the just
691 encountered specific breakpoint code location).
692 When a breakpoint has only one location, $_hit_locno is set to 1 so that
693 (gdb) disable $_hit_bpnum.$_hit_locno
695 (gdb) disable $_hit_bpnum
696 are both disabling the breakpoint.
700 maintenance set ignore-prologue-end-flag on|off
701 maintenance show ignore-prologue-end-flag
702 This setting, which is off by default, controls whether GDB ignores the
703 PROLOGUE-END flag from the line-table when skipping prologue. This can be
704 used to force GDB to use prologue analyzers if the line-table is constructed
705 from erroneous debug information.
707 set print nibbles [on|off]
709 This controls whether the 'print/t' command will display binary values
710 in groups of four bits, known as "nibbles". The default is 'off'.
712 maintenance set libopcodes-styling on|off
713 maintenance show libopcodes-styling
714 These can be used to force off libopcodes based styling, the Python
715 Pygments styling will then be used instead.
717 set style disassembler comment
718 show style disassembler comment
719 set style disassembler immediate
720 show style disassembler immediate
721 set style disassembler mnemonic
722 show style disassembler mnemonic
723 set style disassembler register
724 show style disassembler register
725 set style disassembler address
726 show style disassembler address
727 set style disassembler symbol
728 show style disassembler symbol
729 For targets that support libopcodes based styling, these settings
730 control how various aspects of the disassembler output are styled.
731 The 'disassembler address' and 'disassembler symbol' styles are
732 aliases for the 'address' and 'function' styles respectively.
734 maintenance print frame-id [ LEVEL ]
735 Print GDB's internal frame-id for the frame at LEVEL. If LEVEL is
736 not given, then print the frame-id for the currently selected frame.
738 set debug infcall on|off
740 Print additional debug messages about inferior function calls.
742 set debug solib on|off
744 Print additional debug messages about shared library handling.
746 set style tui-current-position [on|off]
747 Whether to style the source and assembly code highlighted by the
748 TUI's current position indicator. The default is off.
750 set print characters LIMIT
751 show print characters
752 This new setting is like 'set print elements', but controls how many
753 characters of a string are printed. This functionality used to be
754 covered by 'set print elements', but it can be controlled separately
755 now. LIMIT can be set to a numerical value to request that particular
756 character count, to 'unlimited' to print all characters of a string,
757 or to 'elements', which is also the default, to follow the setting of
758 'set print elements' as it used to be.
760 print -characters LIMIT
761 This new option to the 'print' command has the same effect as a temporary
762 use of 'set print characters'.
766 document user-defined
767 It is now possible to document user-defined aliases.
768 When a user-defined alias is documented, the help and apropos commands
769 use the provided documentation instead of the documentation of the
771 Documenting a user-defined alias is particularly useful when the alias
772 is a set of nested 'with' commands to avoid showing the help of
773 the with command for an alias that will in fact launch the
774 last command given in the nested commands.
776 maintenance info line-table
777 Add a PROLOGUE-END column to the output which indicates that an
778 entry corresponds to an address where a breakpoint should be placed
779 to be at the first instruction past a function's prologue.
783 set debug aix-solib on|off
785 set debug solib-frv on|off
787 Removed in favor of "set/show debug solib".
789 maintenance info program-spaces
790 This command now includes a 'Core File' column which indicates the
791 name of the core file associated with each program space.
795 GNU/Linux/LoongArch (gdbserver) loongarch*-*-linux*
797 GNU/Linux/CSKY (gdbserver) csky*-*linux*
803 ** The async record stating the stopped reason 'breakpoint-hit' now
804 contains an optional field locno giving the code location number
805 when the breakpoint has multiple code locations.
809 ** GDB will now reformat the doc string for gdb.Command and
810 gdb.Parameter sub-classes to remove unnecessary leading
811 whitespace from each line before using the string as the help
814 ** New function gdb.format_address(ADDRESS, PROGSPACE, ARCHITECTURE),
815 that formats ADDRESS as 'address <symbol+offset>', where symbol is
816 looked up in PROGSPACE, and ARCHITECTURE is used to format address.
817 This is the same format that GDB uses when printing address, symbol,
818 and offset information from the disassembler.
820 ** New function gdb.current_language that returns the name of the
821 current language. Unlike gdb.parameter('language'), this will
824 ** New method gdb.Frame.language that returns the name of the
827 ** New Python API for wrapping GDB's disassembler:
829 - gdb.disassembler.register_disassembler(DISASSEMBLER, ARCH).
830 DISASSEMBLER is a sub-class of gdb.disassembler.Disassembler.
831 ARCH is either None or a string containing a bfd architecture
832 name. DISASSEMBLER is registered as a disassembler for
833 architecture ARCH, or for all architectures if ARCH is None.
834 The previous disassembler registered for ARCH is returned, this
835 can be None if no previous disassembler was registered.
837 - gdb.disassembler.Disassembler is the class from which all
838 disassemblers should inherit. Its constructor takes a string,
839 a name for the disassembler, which is currently only used in
840 some debug output. Sub-classes should override the __call__
841 method to perform disassembly, invoking __call__ on this base
842 class will raise an exception.
844 - gdb.disassembler.DisassembleInfo is the class used to describe
845 a single disassembly request from GDB. An instance of this
846 class is passed to the __call__ method of
847 gdb.disassembler.Disassembler and has the following read-only
848 attributes: 'address', and 'architecture', as well as the
849 following method: 'read_memory'.
851 - gdb.disassembler.builtin_disassemble(INFO, MEMORY_SOURCE),
852 calls GDB's builtin disassembler on INFO, which is a
853 gdb.disassembler.DisassembleInfo object. MEMORY_SOURCE is
854 optional, its default value is None. If MEMORY_SOURCE is not
855 None then it must be an object that has a 'read_memory' method.
857 - gdb.disassembler.DisassemblerResult is a class that can be used
858 to wrap the result of a call to a Disassembler. It has
859 read-only attributes 'length' and 'string'.
861 ** gdb.Objfile now has an attribute named "is_file". This is True
862 if the objfile comes from a file, and False otherwise.
864 ** New function gdb.print_options that returns a dictionary of the
865 prevailing print options, in the form accepted by
866 gdb.Value.format_string.
868 ** gdb.Value.format_string now uses the format provided by 'print',
869 if it is called during a 'print' or other similar operation.
871 ** gdb.Value.format_string now accepts the 'summary' keyword. This
872 can be used to request a shorter representation of a value, the
873 way that 'set print frame-arguments scalars' does.
875 ** New Python type gdb.BreakpointLocation.
876 The new attribute 'locations' of gdb.Breakpoint returns a list of
877 gdb.BreakpointLocation objects specifying the locations where the
878 breakpoint is inserted into the debuggee.
880 ** The gdb.register_window_type method now restricts the set of
881 acceptable window names. The first character of a window's name
882 must start with a character in the set [a-zA-Z], every subsequent
883 character of a window's name must be in the set [-_.a-zA-Z0-9].
885 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
887 ** GDBserver is now supported on LoongArch GNU/Linux.
889 ** GDBserver is now supported on CSKY GNU/Linux.
891 * LoongArch floating-point support
893 GDB now supports floating-point on LoongArch GNU/Linux.
895 * AMD GPU ROCm debugging support
897 GDB now supports debugging programs offloaded to AMD GPUs using the ROCm
900 *** Changes in GDB 12
902 * DBX mode is deprecated, and will be removed in GDB 13
904 * GDB 12 is the last release of GDB that will support building against
905 Python 2. From GDB 13, it will only be possible to build GDB itself
906 with Python 3 support.
908 * The disable-randomization setting now works on Windows.
910 * Improved C++ template support
912 GDB now treats functions/types involving C++ templates like it does function
913 overloads. Users may omit parameter lists to set breakpoints on families of
914 template functions, including types/functions composed of multiple template types:
916 (gdb) break template_func(template_1, int)
918 The above will set breakpoints at every function `template_func' where
919 the first function parameter is any template type named `template_1' and
920 the second function parameter is `int'.
922 TAB completion also gains similar improvements.
924 * The FreeBSD native target now supports async mode.
930 Enable or disable multithreaded symbol loading. This is enabled
931 by default, but passing --disable-threading or --enable-threading=no
932 to configure will disable it.
934 Disabling this can cause a performance penalty when there are a lot of
935 symbols to load, but is useful for debugging purposes.
939 maint set backtrace-on-fatal-signal on|off
940 maint show backtrace-on-fatal-signal
941 This setting is 'on' by default. When 'on' GDB will print a limited
942 backtrace to stderr in the situation where GDB terminates with a
943 fatal signal. This only supported on some platforms where the
944 backtrace and backtrace_symbols_fd functions are available.
946 set source open on|off
948 This setting, which is on by default, controls whether GDB will try
949 to open source code files. Switching this off will stop GDB trying
950 to open and read source code files, which can be useful if the files
951 are located over a slow network connection.
955 These are now deprecated aliases for "set max-value-size" and
956 "show max-value-size".
958 task apply [all | TASK-IDS...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
959 Like "thread apply", but applies COMMAND to Ada tasks.
962 Watchpoints can now be restricted to a specific Ada task.
964 maint set internal-error backtrace on|off
965 maint show internal-error backtrace
966 maint set internal-warning backtrace on|off
967 maint show internal-warning backtrace
968 GDB can now print a backtrace of itself when it encounters either an
969 internal-error, or an internal-warning. This is on by default for
970 internal-error and off by default for internal-warning.
973 Deprecated and replaced by "set logging enabled on|off".
975 set logging enabled on|off
977 These commands set or show whether logging is enabled or disabled.
980 You can now exit GDB by using the new command "exit", in addition to
981 the existing "quit" command.
983 set debug threads on|off
985 Print additional debug messages about thread creation and deletion.
987 set debug linux-nat on|off
989 These new commands replaced the old 'set debug lin-lwp' and 'show
990 debug lin-lwp' respectively. Turning this setting on prints debug
991 messages relating to GDB's handling of native Linux inferiors.
993 maint flush source-cache
994 Flush the contents of the source code cache.
996 maint set gnu-source-highlight enabled on|off
997 maint show gnu-source-highlight enabled
998 Whether GDB should use the GNU Source Highlight library for adding
999 styling to source code. When off, the library will not be used, even
1000 when available. When GNU Source Highlight isn't used, or can't add
1001 styling to a particular source file, then the Python Pygments
1002 library will be used instead.
1004 set suppress-cli-notifications (on|off)
1005 show suppress-cli-notifications
1006 This controls whether printing the notifications is suppressed for CLI.
1007 CLI notifications occur when you change the selected context
1008 (i.e., the current inferior, thread and/or the frame), or when
1009 the program being debugged stops (e.g., because of hitting a
1010 breakpoint, completing source-stepping, an interrupt, etc.).
1012 set style disassembler enabled on|off
1013 show style disassembler enabled
1014 If GDB is compiled with Python support, and the Python Pygments
1015 package is available, then, when this setting is on, disassembler
1016 output will have styling applied.
1018 set ada source-charset
1019 show ada source-charset
1020 Set the character set encoding that is assumed for Ada symbols. Valid
1021 values for this follow the values that can be passed to the GNAT
1022 compiler via the '-gnati' option. The default is ISO-8859-1.
1028 These are the new names for the old 'layout', 'focus', 'refresh',
1029 and 'winheight' tui commands respectively. The old names still
1030 exist as aliases to these new commands.
1034 The new command 'tui window width', and the alias 'winwidth' allow
1035 the width of a tui window to be adjusted when windows are laid out
1038 set debug tui on|off
1040 Control the display of debug output about GDB's tui.
1045 Printing of floating-point values with base-modifying formats like
1046 /x has been changed to display the underlying bytes of the value in
1047 the desired base. This was GDB's documented behavior, but was never
1048 implemented correctly.
1051 This command can now print a reply, if the reply includes
1052 non-printable characters. Any non-printable characters are printed
1053 as escaped hex, e.g. \x?? where '??' is replaces with the value of
1054 the non-printable character.
1057 The clone-inferior command now ensures that the TTY, CMD and ARGS
1058 settings are copied from the original inferior to the new one.
1059 All modifications to the environment variables done using the 'set
1060 environment' or 'unset environment' commands are also copied to the new
1063 set debug lin-lwp on|off
1065 These commands have been removed from GDB. The new command 'set
1066 debug linux-nat' and 'show debug linux-nat' should be used
1070 This command now includes information about the width of the tui
1071 windows in its output.
1077 These commands are now aliases for the 'tui layout', 'tui focus',
1078 'tui refresh', and 'tui window height' commands respectively.
1080 * GDB's Ada parser now supports an extension for specifying the exact
1081 byte contents of a floating-point literal. This can be useful for
1082 setting floating-point registers to a precise value without loss of
1083 precision. The syntax is an extension of the based literal syntax.
1084 Use, e.g., "16lf#0123abcd#" -- the number of "l"s controls the width
1085 of the floating-point type, and the "f" is the marker for floating
1090 ** The '-add-inferior' with no option flags now inherits the
1091 connection of the current inferior, this restores the behaviour of
1092 GDB as it was prior to GDB 10.
1094 ** The '-add-inferior' command now accepts a '--no-connection'
1095 option, which causes the new inferior to start without a
1098 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 4 (-i=mi4).
1100 ** The "script" field in breakpoint output (which is syntactically
1101 incorrect in MI 3 and below) has changed in MI 4 to become a list.
1102 This affects the following commands and events:
1106 - =breakpoint-created
1107 - =breakpoint-modified
1109 The -fix-breakpoint-script-output command can be used to enable
1110 this behavior with previous MI versions.
1114 GNU/Linux/LoongArch loongarch*-*-linux*
1122 ** New function gdb.add_history(), which takes a gdb.Value object
1123 and adds the value it represents to GDB's history list. An
1124 integer, the index of the new item in the history list, is
1127 ** New function gdb.history_count(), which returns the number of
1128 values in GDB's value history.
1130 ** New gdb.events.gdb_exiting event. This event is called with a
1131 gdb.GdbExitingEvent object which has the read-only attribute
1132 'exit_code', which contains the value of the GDB exit code. This
1133 event is triggered once GDB decides it is going to exit, but
1134 before GDB starts to clean up its internal state.
1136 ** New function gdb.architecture_names(), which returns a list
1137 containing all of the possible Architecture.name() values. Each
1140 ** New function gdb.Architecture.integer_type(), which returns an
1141 integer type given a size and a signed-ness.
1143 ** New gdb.TargetConnection object type that represents a connection
1144 (as displayed by the 'info connections' command). A sub-class,
1145 gdb.RemoteTargetConnection, is used to represent 'remote' and
1146 'extended-remote' connections.
1148 ** The gdb.Inferior type now has a 'connection' property which is an
1149 instance of gdb.TargetConnection, the connection used by this
1150 inferior. This can be None if the inferior has no connection.
1152 ** New 'gdb.events.connection_removed' event registry, which emits a
1153 'gdb.ConnectionEvent' when a connection is removed from GDB.
1154 This event has a 'connection' property, a gdb.TargetConnection
1155 object for the connection being removed.
1157 ** New gdb.connections() function that returns a list of all
1158 currently active connections.
1160 ** New gdb.RemoteTargetConnection.send_packet(PACKET) method. This
1161 is equivalent to the existing 'maint packet' CLI command; it
1162 allows a user specified packet to be sent to the remote target.
1164 ** New function gdb.host_charset(), returns a string, which is the
1165 name of the current host charset.
1167 ** New gdb.set_parameter(NAME, VALUE). This sets the gdb parameter
1170 ** New gdb.with_parameter(NAME, VALUE). This returns a context
1171 manager that temporarily sets the gdb parameter NAME to VALUE,
1172 then resets it when the context is exited.
1174 ** The gdb.Value.format_string method now takes a 'styling'
1175 argument, which is a boolean. When true, the returned string can
1176 include escape sequences to apply styling. The styling will only
1177 be present if styling is otherwise turned on in GDB (see 'help
1178 set styling'). When false, which is the default if the argument
1179 is not given, then no styling is applied to the returned string.
1181 ** New read-only attribute gdb.InferiorThread.details, which is
1182 either a string, containing additional, target specific thread
1183 state information, or None, if there is no such additional
1186 ** New read-only attribute gdb.Type.is_scalar, which is True for
1187 scalar types, and False for all other types.
1189 ** New read-only attribute gdb.Type.is_signed. This attribute
1190 should only be read when Type.is_scalar is True, and will be True
1191 for signed types, and False for all other types. Attempting to
1192 read this attribute for non-scalar types will raise a ValueError.
1194 ** It is now possible to add GDB/MI commands implemented in Python.
1196 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1198 ** GDBserver is now supported on OpenRISC GNU/Linux.
1200 * New native configurations
1202 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
1204 *** Changes in GDB 11
1206 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
1209 * GDB now supports general memory tagging functionality if the underlying
1210 architecture supports the proper primitives and hooks. Currently this is
1211 enabled only for AArch64 MTE.
1215 - Additional information when the inferior crashes with a SIGSEGV caused by
1216 a memory tag violation.
1218 - A new modifier 'm' for the "x" command, which displays allocation tags for a
1219 particular memory range.
1221 - Display of memory tag mismatches by "print", for addresses and
1222 pointers, if memory tagging is supported by the architecture.
1224 * Building GDB now requires GMP (The GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic
1229 ** '-break-insert --qualified' and '-dprintf-insert --qualified'
1231 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
1232 new "--qualified" option that makes GDB interpret a specified
1233 function name as a complete fully-qualified name. This is the
1234 equivalent of the CLI's "break -qualified" and "dprintf
1237 ** '-break-insert --force-condition' and '-dprintf-insert --force-condition'
1239 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
1240 '--force-condition' flag to forcibly define a condition even when
1241 the condition is invalid at all locations of the breakpoint. This
1242 is equivalent to the '-force-condition' flag of the CLI's "break"
1245 ** '-break-condition --force'
1247 The MI -break-condition command now supports a '--force' flag to
1248 forcibly define a condition even when the condition is invalid at
1249 all locations of the selected breakpoint. This is equivalent to
1250 the '-force' flag of the CLI's "cond" command.
1252 ** '-file-list-exec-source-files [--group-by-objfile]
1253 [--basename | --dirname]
1256 The existing -file-list-exec-source-files command now takes an
1257 optional REGEXP which is used to filter the source files that are
1258 included in the results.
1260 By default REGEXP is matched against the full filename of the
1261 source file. When one of --basename or --dirname is given then
1262 REGEXP is only matched against the specified part of the full
1265 When the optional --group-by-objfile flag is used the output
1266 format is changed, the results are now a list of object files
1267 (executable and libraries) with the source files that are
1268 associated with each object file.
1270 The results from -file-list-exec-source-files now include a
1271 'debug-fully-read' field which takes the value 'true' or 'false'.
1272 A 'true' value indicates the source file is from a compilation
1273 unit that has had its debug information fully read in by GDB, a
1274 value of 'false' indicates GDB has only performed a partial scan
1275 of the debug information so far.
1277 * GDB now supports core file debugging for x86_64 Cygwin programs.
1279 * GDB will now look for the .gdbinit file in a config directory before
1280 looking for ~/.gdbinit. The file is searched for in the following
1281 locations: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.config/gdb/gdbinit,
1282 $HOME/.gdbinit. On Apple hosts the search order is instead:
1283 $HOME/Library/Preferences/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.gdbinit.
1285 * GDB now supports fixed point types which are described in DWARF
1286 as base types with a fixed-point encoding. Additionally, support
1287 for the DW_AT_GNU_numerator and DW_AT_GNU_denominator has also
1290 For Ada, this allows support for fixed point types without requiring
1291 the use of the GNAT encoding (based on information added to the type's
1292 name following a GNAT-specific format).
1294 * GDB will now load and process commands from ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit
1295 or ~/.gdbearlyinit if these files are present. These files are
1296 processed earlier than any of the other initialization files and
1297 can affect parts of GDB's startup that previously had already been
1298 completed before the initialization files were read, for example
1299 styling of the initial GDB greeting.
1301 * GDB now has two new options "--early-init-command" and
1302 "--early-init-eval-command" with corresponding short options "-eix"
1303 and "-eiex" that allow options (that would normally appear in a
1304 gdbearlyinit file) to be passed on the command line.
1306 * For RISC-V targets, the target feature "org.gnu.gdb.riscv.vector" is
1307 now understood by GDB, and can be used to describe the vector
1308 registers of a target. The precise requirements of this register
1309 feature are documented in the GDB manual.
1311 * For ARM targets, the "org.gnu.gdb.arm.m-profile-mve" feature is now
1312 supported by GDB and describes a new VPR register from the ARM MVE
1313 (Helium) extension. See the GDB manual for more information.
1317 ** TUI windows now support mouse actions. The mouse wheel scrolls
1318 the appropriate window.
1320 ** Key combinations that do not have a specific action on the
1321 focused window are passed to GDB. For example, you now can use
1322 Ctrl-Left/Ctrl-Right to move between words in the command window
1323 regardless of which window is in focus. Previously you would
1324 need to focus on the command window for such key combinations to
1329 set debug event-loop
1330 show debug event-loop
1331 Control the display of debug output about GDB's event loop.
1333 set print memory-tag-violations
1334 show print memory-tag-violations
1335 Control whether to display additional information about memory tag violations
1336 when printing pointers and addresses. Architecture support for memory
1337 tagging is required for this option to have an effect.
1339 maintenance flush symbol-cache
1340 maintenance flush register-cache
1341 These new commands are equivalent to the already existing commands
1342 'maintenance flush-symbol-cache' and 'flushregs' respectively.
1344 maintenance flush dcache
1345 A new command to flush the dcache.
1347 maintenance info target-sections
1348 Print GDB's internal target sections table.
1350 maintenance info jit
1351 Print the JIT code objects in the inferior known to GDB.
1353 memory-tag show-logical-tag POINTER
1354 Print the logical tag for POINTER.
1355 memory-tag with-logical-tag POINTER TAG
1356 Print POINTER with logical tag TAG.
1357 memory-tag show-allocation-tag ADDRESS
1358 Print the allocation tag for ADDRESS.
1359 memory-tag set-allocation-tag ADDRESS LENGTH TAGS
1360 Set the allocation tag for [ADDRESS, ADDRESS + LENGTH) to TAGS.
1361 memory-tag check POINTER
1362 Validate that POINTER's logical tag matches the allocation tag.
1364 set startup-quietly on|off
1365 show startup-quietly
1366 When 'on', this causes GDB to act as if "-silent" were passed on the
1367 command line. This command needs to be added to an early
1368 initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to
1371 set print type hex on|off
1373 When 'on', the 'ptype' command uses hexadecimal notation to print sizes
1374 and offsets of struct members. When 'off', decimal notation is used.
1376 set python ignore-environment on|off
1377 show python ignore-environment
1378 When 'on', this causes GDB's builtin Python to ignore any
1379 environment variables that would otherwise affect how Python
1380 behaves. This command needs to be added to an early initialization
1381 file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to affect GDB.
1383 set python dont-write-bytecode auto|on|off
1384 show python dont-write-bytecode
1385 When 'on', this causes GDB's builtin Python to not write any
1386 byte-code (.pyc files) to disk. This command needs to be added to
1387 an early initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in
1388 order to affect GDB. When 'off' byte-code will always be written.
1389 When set to 'auto' (the default) Python will check the
1390 PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE environment variable.
1394 break [PROBE_MODIFIER] [LOCATION] [thread THREADNUM]
1395 [-force-condition] [if CONDITION]
1396 This command would previously refuse setting a breakpoint if the
1397 CONDITION expression is invalid at a location. It now accepts and
1398 defines the breakpoint if there is at least one location at which
1399 the CONDITION is valid. The locations for which the CONDITION is
1400 invalid, are automatically disabled. If CONDITION is invalid at all
1401 of the locations, setting the breakpoint is still rejected. However,
1402 the '-force-condition' flag can be used in this case for forcing GDB to
1403 define the breakpoint, making all the current locations automatically
1404 disabled. This may be useful if the user knows the condition will
1405 become meaningful at a future location, e.g. due to a shared library
1408 condition [-force] N COND
1409 The behavior of this command is changed the same way for the 'break'
1410 command as explained above. The '-force' flag can be used to force
1411 GDB into defining the condition even when COND is invalid for all the
1412 current locations of breakpoint N.
1415 maintenance flush-symbol-cache
1416 These commands are deprecated in favor of the new commands
1417 'maintenance flush register-cache' and 'maintenance flush
1418 symbol-cache' respectively.
1420 set style version foreground COLOR
1421 set style version background COLOR
1422 set style version intensity VALUE
1423 Control the styling of GDB's version number text.
1426 When the ID parameter is omitted, then this command prints information
1427 about the current inferior. When the ID parameter is present, the
1428 behavior of the command is unchanged and have the inferior ID become
1429 the current inferior.
1431 maintenance info sections
1432 The ALLOBJ keyword has been replaced with an -all-objects command
1433 line flag. It is now possible to filter which sections are printed
1434 even when -all-objects is passed.
1436 ptype[/FLAGS] TYPE | EXPRESSION
1437 The 'ptype' command has two new flags. When '/x' is set, hexadecimal
1438 notation is used when printing sizes and offsets of struct members.
1439 When '/d' is set, decimal notation is used when printing sizes and
1440 offsets of struct members. Default behavior is given by 'show print
1444 The info sources command output has been restructured. The results
1445 are now based around a list of objfiles (executable and libraries),
1446 and for each objfile the source files that are part of that objfile
1449 * Removed targets and native configurations
1451 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1453 * New remote packets
1456 Request the remote to send allocation tags for a particular memory range.
1458 Request the remote to store the specified allocation tags to the requested
1463 ** Improved support for rvalue reference values:
1464 TYPE_CODE_RVALUE_REF is now exported as part of the API and the
1465 value-referenced-value procedure now handles rvalue reference
1468 ** New procedures for obtaining value variants:
1469 value-reference-value, value-rvalue-reference-value and
1472 ** Temporary breakpoints can now be created with make-breakpoint and
1473 tested for using breakpoint-temporary?.
1477 ** Inferior objects now contain a read-only 'connection_num' attribute that
1478 gives the connection number as seen in 'info connections' and
1481 ** New method gdb.Frame.level() which returns the stack level of the
1484 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.level() which returns the stack level
1485 of the frame object.
1487 ** When hitting a catchpoint, the Python API will now emit a
1488 gdb.BreakpointEvent rather than a gdb.StopEvent. The
1489 gdb.Breakpoint attached to the event will have type BP_CATCHPOINT.
1491 ** Python TUI windows can now receive mouse click events. If the
1492 Window object implements the click method, it is called for each
1493 mouse click event in this window.
1495 *** Changes in GDB 10
1497 * There are new feature names for ARC targets: "org.gnu.gdb.arc.core"
1498 and "org.gnu.gdb.arc.aux". The old names are still supported but
1499 must be considered obsolete. They will be deprecated after some
1502 * Help and apropos commands will now show the documentation of a
1503 command only once, even if that command has one or more aliases.
1504 These commands now show the command name, then all of its aliases,
1505 and finally the description of the command.
1507 * 'help aliases' now shows only the user defined aliases. GDB predefined
1508 aliases are shown together with their aliased command.
1510 * GDB now supports debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF
1511 debugging information as well as source code.
1513 When built with debuginfod, GDB can automatically query debuginfod
1514 servers for the separate debug files and source code of the executable
1517 To build GDB with debuginfod, pass --with-debuginfod to configure (this
1518 requires libdebuginfod, the debuginfod client library).
1520 debuginfod is distributed with elfutils, starting with version 0.178.
1522 You can get the latest version from https://sourceware.org/elfutils.
1524 * Multi-target debugging support
1526 GDB now supports debugging multiple target connections
1527 simultaneously. For example, you can now have each inferior
1528 connected to different remote servers running in different machines,
1529 or have one inferior debugging a local native process, an inferior
1530 debugging a core dump, etc.
1532 This support is experimental and comes with some limitations -- you
1533 can only resume multiple targets simultaneously if all targets
1534 support non-stop mode, and all remote stubs or servers must support
1535 the same set of remote protocol features exactly. See also "info
1536 connections" and "add-inferior -no-connection" below, and "maint set
1537 target-non-stop" in the user manual.
1539 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1541 ** GDBserver is now supported on ARC GNU/Linux.
1543 ** GDBserver is now supported on RISC-V GNU/Linux.
1545 ** GDBserver no longer supports these host triplets:
1547 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1556 i[34567]86-*-mingw32ce*
1558 * Debugging MS-Windows processes now sets $_exitsignal when the
1559 inferior is terminated by a signal, instead of setting $_exitcode.
1561 * Multithreaded symbol loading has now been enabled by default on systems
1562 that support it (see entry for GDB 9, below), providing faster
1563 performance for programs with many symbols.
1565 * The $_siginfo convenience variable now also works on Windows targets,
1566 and will display the EXCEPTION_RECORD of the last handled exception.
1568 * TUI windows can now be arranged horizontally.
1570 * The command history filename can now be set to the empty string
1571 either using 'set history filename' or by setting 'GDBHISTFILE=' in
1572 the environment. The effect of setting this filename to the empty
1573 string is that GDB will not try to load any previous command
1576 * On Windows targets, it is now possible to debug 32-bit programs with a
1581 set exec-file-mismatch -- Set exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
1582 show exec-file-mismatch -- Show exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
1583 Set or show the option 'exec-file-mismatch'. When GDB attaches to a
1584 running process, this new option indicates whether to detect
1585 a mismatch between the current executable file loaded by GDB and the
1586 executable file used to start the process. If 'ask', the default,
1587 display a warning and ask the user whether to load the process
1588 executable file; if 'warn', just display a warning; if 'off', don't
1589 attempt to detect a mismatch.
1591 tui new-layout NAME WINDOW WEIGHT [WINDOW WEIGHT]...
1592 Define a new TUI layout, specifying its name and the windows that
1595 maintenance print xml-tdesc [FILE]
1596 Prints the current target description as an XML document. If the
1597 optional FILE is provided (which is an XML target description) then
1598 the target description is read from FILE into GDB, and then
1601 maintenance print core-file-backed-mappings
1602 Prints file-backed mappings loaded from a core file's note section.
1603 Output is expected to be similar to that of "info proc mappings".
1605 set debug fortran-array-slicing on|off
1606 show debug fortran-array-slicing
1607 Print debugging when taking slices of Fortran arrays.
1609 set fortran repack-array-slices on|off
1610 show fortran repack-array-slices
1611 When taking slices from Fortran arrays and strings, if the slice is
1612 non-contiguous within the original value then, when this option is
1613 on, the new value will be repacked into a single contiguous value.
1614 When this option is off, then the value returned will consist of a
1615 descriptor that describes the slice within the memory of the
1616 original parent value.
1620 alias [-a] [--] ALIAS = COMMAND [DEFAULT-ARGS...]
1621 The alias command can now specify default args for an alias.
1622 GDB automatically prepends the alias default args to the argument list
1623 provided explicitly by the user.
1624 For example, to have a backtrace with full details, you can define
1625 an alias 'bt_ALL' as
1626 'alias bt_ALL = backtrace -entry-values both -frame-arg all
1627 -past-main -past-entry -full'.
1628 Alias default arguments can also use a set of nested 'with' commands,
1629 e.g. 'alias pp10 = with print pretty -- with print elem 10 -- print'
1630 defines the alias pp10 that will pretty print a maximum of 10 elements
1631 of the given expression (if the expression is an array).
1635 GNU/Linux/RISC-V (gdbserver) riscv*-*-linux*
1636 BPF bpf-unknown-none
1641 ** gdb.register_window_type can be used to implement new TUI windows
1644 ** Dynamic types can now be queried. gdb.Type has a new attribute,
1645 "dynamic", and gdb.Type.sizeof can be None for a dynamic type. A
1646 field of a dynamic type may have None for its "bitpos" attribute
1649 ** Commands written in Python can be in the "TUI" help class by
1650 registering with the new constant gdb.COMMAND_TUI.
1652 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.architecture () to retrieve the
1653 architecture of the pending frame.
1655 ** New gdb.Architecture.registers method that returns a
1656 gdb.RegisterDescriptorIterator object, an iterator that returns
1657 gdb.RegisterDescriptor objects. The new RegisterDescriptor is a
1658 way to query the registers available for an architecture.
1660 ** New gdb.Architecture.register_groups method that returns a
1661 gdb.RegisterGroupIterator object, an iterator that returns
1662 gdb.RegisterGroup objects. The new RegisterGroup is a way to
1663 discover the available register groups.
1667 ** GDB can now be built with GNU Guile 3.0 and 2.2 in addition to 2.0.
1669 ** Procedures 'memory-port-read-buffer-size',
1670 'set-memory-port-read-buffer-size!', 'memory-port-write-buffer-size',
1671 and 'set-memory-port-write-buffer-size!' are deprecated. When
1672 using Guile 2.2 and later, users who need to control the size of
1673 a memory port's internal buffer can use the 'setvbuf' procedure.
1675 *** Changes in GDB 9
1677 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
1679 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
1680 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
1681 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
1682 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
1683 such as in system-wide init files.
1685 * New built-in convenience functions $_gdb_setting, $_gdb_setting_str,
1686 $_gdb_maint_setting and $_gdb_maint_setting_str provide access to values
1687 of the GDB settings and the GDB maintenance settings. They are handy
1688 for changing the logic of user defined commands depending on the
1689 current GDB settings.
1691 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
1692 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
1693 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
1694 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
1696 * Support for Pointer Authentication (PAC) on AArch64 Linux. Return
1697 addresses that required unmasking are shown in the backtrace with the
1700 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
1701 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
1703 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
1704 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
1705 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
1707 * The command define-prefix can now define user defined prefix commands.
1708 User defined commands can now be defined using these user defined prefix
1711 * Command names can now use the . character.
1713 * The RX port now supports XML target descriptions.
1715 * GDB now shows the Ada task names at more places, e.g. in task switching
1718 * GDB can now be compiled with Python 3 on Windows.
1720 * New convenience variable $_ada_exception holds the address of the
1721 Ada exception being thrown. This is set by Ada-related catchpoints.
1723 * GDB can now place breakpoints on nested functions and subroutines in
1724 Fortran code. The '::' operator can be used between parent and
1725 child scopes when placing breakpoints, for example:
1727 (gdb) break outer_function::inner_function
1729 The 'outer_function::' prefix is only needed if 'inner_function' is
1730 not visible in the current scope.
1732 * In addition to the system-wide gdbinit file, if configured with
1733 --with-system-gdbinit-dir, GDB will now also load files in that directory
1734 as system gdbinit files, unless the -nx or -n flag is provided. Files
1735 with extensions .gdb, .py and .scm are supported as long as GDB was
1736 compiled with support for that language.
1738 * GDB now supports multithreaded symbol loading for higher performance.
1739 This feature is still in testing, so it is disabled by default. You
1740 can turn it on using 'maint set worker-threads unlimited'.
1744 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
1745 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
1746 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
1747 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
1748 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
1750 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
1751 type was defined in.
1753 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
1754 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
1755 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
1758 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
1759 symbols with static linkage.
1761 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbols can be used to look up
1762 all static symbols with static linkage.
1764 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
1765 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
1767 ** gdb.Block now supports the dictionary syntax for accessing symbols in
1768 this block (e.g. block['local_variable']).
1772 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
1773 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
1774 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
1775 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
1776 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
1777 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
1778 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
1780 define-prefix COMMAND
1781 Define or mark a command as a user-defined prefix command.
1783 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
1784 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
1785 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
1786 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
1787 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
1788 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
1789 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
1790 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
1791 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
1792 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
1793 of array elements to print.
1795 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
1796 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
1798 set may-call-functions [on|off]
1799 show may-call-functions
1800 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
1801 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
1802 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
1803 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
1804 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
1805 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
1808 set print finish [on|off]
1810 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
1811 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
1812 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
1816 show print max-depth
1817 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
1818 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
1819 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
1820 the old behavior back.
1822 set print raw-values [on|off]
1823 show print raw-values
1824 By default, GDB applies the enabled pretty printers when printing a
1825 value. This allows to ignore the enabled pretty printers for a series
1826 of commands. The default is 'off'.
1828 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
1829 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
1830 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
1832 set style title foreground COLOR
1833 set style title background COLOR
1834 set style title intensity VALUE
1835 Control the styling of titles.
1837 set style highlight foreground COLOR
1838 set style highlight background COLOR
1839 set style highlight intensity VALUE
1840 Control the styling of highlightings.
1842 maint set worker-threads
1843 maint show worker-threads
1844 Control the number of worker threads that can be used by GDB. The
1845 default is 0. "unlimited" lets GDB choose a number that is
1846 reasonable. Currently worker threads are only used when demangling
1847 the names of linker symbols.
1849 set style tui-border foreground COLOR
1850 set style tui-border background COLOR
1851 Control the styling of TUI borders.
1853 set style tui-active-border foreground COLOR
1854 set style tui-active-border background COLOR
1855 Control the styling of the active TUI border.
1857 maint set test-settings KIND
1858 maint show test-settings KIND
1859 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
1862 maint set tui-resize-message [on|off]
1863 maint show tui-resize-message
1864 Control whether GDB prints a message each time the terminal is
1865 resized when in TUI mode. This is primarily useful for testing the
1868 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
1869 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
1870 show print frame-info
1871 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
1872 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
1873 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
1874 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
1876 set tui compact-source
1877 show tui compact-source
1879 Enable the "compact" display mode for the TUI source window. The
1880 compact display uses only as much space as is needed for the line
1881 numbers in the current file, and only a single space to separate the
1882 line numbers from the source.
1884 info modules [-q] [REGEXP]
1885 Return a list of Fortran modules matching REGEXP, or all modules if
1888 info module functions [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
1889 Return a list of functions within all modules, grouped by module.
1890 The list of functions can be restricted with the optional regular
1891 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
1892 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the function type signature, and REGEXP
1893 matches against the function name.
1895 info module variables [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
1896 Return a list of variables within all modules, grouped by module.
1897 The list of variables can be restricted with the optional regular
1898 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
1899 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the variable type, and REGEXP matches
1900 against the variable name.
1902 set debug remote-packet-max-chars
1903 show debug remote-packet-max-chars
1904 Controls the number of characters to output in a remote packet when using
1906 The default is 512 bytes.
1909 Lists the target connections currently in use.
1914 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
1915 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
1919 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
1920 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
1921 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
1922 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
1923 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
1927 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
1928 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
1929 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
1930 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
1932 info sources [-dirname | -basename] [--] [REGEXP]
1933 This command has now optional arguments to only print the files
1934 whose names match REGEXP. The arguments -dirname and -basename
1935 allow to restrict matching respectively to the dirname and basename
1939 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
1940 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
1941 the user visualize the different styles.
1943 set print frame-arguments
1944 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
1945 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
1947 set print raw-frame-arguments
1948 show print raw-frame-arguments
1950 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
1951 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
1952 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
1955 add-inferior [-no-connection]
1956 The add-inferior command now supports a "-no-connection" flag that
1957 makes the new inferior start with no target connection associated.
1958 By default, the new inferior inherits the target connection of the
1959 current inferior. See also "info connections".
1962 This command's output now includes a new "Connection" column
1963 indicating which target connection an inferior is bound to. See
1964 "info connections" above.
1966 maint test-options require-delimiter
1967 maint test-options unknown-is-error
1968 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
1969 maint show test-options-completion-result
1970 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
1973 focus, winheight, +, -, >, <
1974 These commands are now case-sensitive.
1976 * New command options, command completion
1978 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
1979 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
1980 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
1981 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
1982 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
1983 number of commands got support for new command options in this
1986 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
1987 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
1988 set by "set print" subcommands:
1992 -array-indexes [on|off]
1993 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
1997 -raw-values [on|off]
1998 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
1999 -static-members [on|off]
2004 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
2005 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
2006 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
2007 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
2009 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
2010 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
2011 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
2013 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
2014 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
2015 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
2016 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
2017 |location-and-address|short-location
2019 -past-entry [on|off]
2021 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
2022 exposed as command options too:
2028 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
2029 support the following options:
2032 -past-entry [on|off]
2034 ** The new "info sources" options -dirname and -basename options
2035 are using the standard '-OPT' infrastructure.
2037 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
2038 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
2039 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
2042 (gdb) p -ra -p -o 0 -- *myptr
2044 The above is equivalent to:
2046 (gdb) print -raw-values -pretty -object off -- *myptr
2048 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
2049 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
2050 variables" and "info functions".
2052 ** The "info variables", "info functions", and "whereis" commands
2053 now take a '-n' flag that excludes non-debug symbols (symbols
2054 from the symbol table, not from the debug info such as DWARF)
2057 * Completion improvements
2059 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
2060 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
2063 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
2064 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
2067 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
2068 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
2069 completes on filenames.
2071 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
2072 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
2074 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
2076 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
2077 elements unlimited".
2082 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2083 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
2084 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
2086 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
2087 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
2088 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
2090 -symbol-info-functions, -symbol-info-types, and -symbol-info-variables
2091 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
2092 functions', 'info types', and 'info variables' respectively.
2094 -symbol-info-modules, this is the MI equivalent of the CLI 'info
2097 -symbol-info-module-functions and -symbol-info-module-variables.
2098 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
2099 module functions' and 'info module variables'.
2103 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
2105 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
2106 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
2107 the following commands and events:
2111 - =breakpoint-created
2112 - =breakpoint-modified
2114 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
2115 this behavior with previous MI versions.
2117 ** Backtraces and frames include a new optional field addr_flags which is
2118 given after the addr field. On AArch64 this contains PAC if the address
2119 has been masked in the frame. On all other targets the field is not
2124 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
2125 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
2126 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
2127 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
2129 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.82.
2131 Using another implementation of the make program or an earlier version of
2132 GNU make to build GDB or GDBserver is not supported.
2134 * Building GDB now requires GNU readline >= 7.0.
2136 GDB now bundles GNU readline 8.0, but if you choose to use
2137 --with-system-readline, only readline >= 7.0 can be used.
2139 * The TUI SingleKey keymap is now named "SingleKey". This can be used
2140 from .inputrc to bind keys in this keymap. This feature is only
2141 available when gdb is built against GNU readline 8.0 or later.
2143 * Removed targets and native configurations
2145 GDB no longer supports debugging the Cell Broadband Engine. This includes
2146 both debugging standalone Cell/B.E. SPU applications and integrated debugging
2147 of Cell/B.E. applications that use both the PPU and SPU architectures.
2153 * Removed targets and native configurations
2155 Solaris 10 i?86-*-solaris2.10, x86_64-*-solaris2.10,
2156 sparc*-*-solaris2.10
2158 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
2160 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
2161 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
2164 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
2165 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
2166 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
2169 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
2172 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
2173 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
2174 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
2176 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
2177 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
2179 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
2180 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
2181 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
2182 in the GDB user manual.
2184 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
2187 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
2189 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
2190 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
2191 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
2192 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
2193 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
2194 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
2195 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
2196 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
2197 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
2198 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
2199 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
2200 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
2202 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
2203 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
2204 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
2207 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
2212 set debug compile-cplus-types
2213 show debug compile-cplus-types
2214 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
2215 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiling
2216 for other languages.
2220 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
2223 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
2224 Apply a command to some frames.
2225 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
2226 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
2229 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
2230 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
2233 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
2234 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
2237 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
2239 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
2241 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
2242 maint show dwarf unwinders
2243 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
2246 Display a list of open files for a process.
2250 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
2251 These commands all now take a frame specification which
2252 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
2253 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
2254 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
2255 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
2256 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
2258 target remote FILENAME
2259 target extended-remote FILENAME
2260 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
2261 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
2263 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
2264 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
2265 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
2266 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
2267 These commands can now print only the searched entities
2268 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
2269 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
2270 printing headers or informations messages.
2276 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
2277 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
2278 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
2281 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
2282 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
2283 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
2284 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
2286 set tui tab-width NCHARS
2287 show tui tab-width NCHARS
2288 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
2290 set style enabled [on|off]
2292 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
2293 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
2295 set style sources [on|off]
2297 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
2298 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
2299 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
2301 set style filename foreground COLOR
2302 set style filename background COLOR
2303 set style filename intensity VALUE
2304 Control the styling of file names.
2306 set style function foreground COLOR
2307 set style function background COLOR
2308 set style function intensity VALUE
2309 Control the styling of function names.
2311 set style variable foreground COLOR
2312 set style variable background COLOR
2313 set style variable intensity VALUE
2314 Control the styling of variable names.
2316 set style address foreground COLOR
2317 set style address background COLOR
2318 set style address intensity VALUE
2319 Control the styling of addresses.
2323 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
2324 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
2325 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
2326 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
2327 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
2329 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
2330 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
2332 * New native configurations
2334 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
2335 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
2339 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
2340 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
2341 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
2342 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
2344 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
2348 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
2353 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
2355 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
2356 space associated to that inferior.
2358 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
2359 of objfiles associated to that program space.
2361 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
2362 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
2365 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
2366 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
2367 correct and did not work properly.
2369 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
2370 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
2376 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
2377 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
2378 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
2379 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
2380 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
2382 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
2384 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
2385 for the MIPS target.
2387 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
2388 offset to all sections.
2390 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
2391 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
2392 address of individual sections using '-s'.
2394 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
2395 (address of the text section).
2397 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
2398 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
2399 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
2400 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
2403 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
2404 for the rest of the current command.
2406 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
2407 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
2409 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
2410 files created on FreeBSD systems.
2412 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
2415 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
2416 the vector length while the process is running.
2422 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
2424 set|show varsize-limit
2425 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
2426 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
2427 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
2429 set|show record btrace cpu
2430 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
2431 branch trace decode.
2433 maint check libthread-db
2434 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
2437 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
2438 maint show check-libthread-db
2439 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
2440 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
2441 perform such checks.
2445 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
2447 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
2448 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
2450 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
2452 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
2453 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
2454 of convenience variables.
2456 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
2457 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
2458 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
2462 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
2464 * Removed targets and native configurations
2466 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
2467 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
2468 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
2469 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
2471 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
2473 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
2474 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
2475 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
2476 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
2477 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
2478 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
2483 --enable-codesign=CERT
2484 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
2485 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
2486 gdb to work properly.
2488 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
2489 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
2491 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
2493 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
2494 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
2495 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
2497 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
2498 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
2500 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
2501 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
2502 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
2503 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
2504 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
2506 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
2507 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
2508 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
2509 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
2511 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
2512 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
2514 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
2515 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
2516 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
2518 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
2519 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
2520 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
2522 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
2523 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
2524 environment" command.
2526 * Completion improvements
2528 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
2529 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
2530 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
2531 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
2534 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
2535 (gdb) b function(int)
2537 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
2538 C++ anonymous namespaces:
2541 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
2542 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
2543 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
2545 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
2546 completion support, that better understands what you're
2547 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
2548 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
2549 setting a breakpoint.
2551 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
2553 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
2555 * New command line options (gcore)
2558 Dump all memory mappings.
2560 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
2562 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
2563 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
2564 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
2566 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
2571 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
2574 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
2575 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
2576 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
2577 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
2578 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
2579 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
2580 a breakpoint from Python.
2582 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
2584 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
2585 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
2586 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
2588 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
2590 function[abi:cxx11](int)
2593 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
2596 (gdb) b function(int)
2598 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
2600 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
2602 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
2606 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
2607 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
2608 description of these.
2610 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
2611 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
2612 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
2614 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
2615 manual for a further description of this feature.
2618 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2620 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
2621 specified initial working directory.
2623 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
2624 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
2626 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
2627 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
2629 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
2630 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
2632 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
2633 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
2634 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
2635 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
2636 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
2638 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
2639 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
2640 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
2642 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
2643 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
2644 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
2645 in the *stopped notification.
2647 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
2648 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
2650 * New remote packets
2652 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
2653 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
2654 the inferior when starting it.
2657 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
2658 before starting the remote inferior.
2661 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
2662 user-set environment variables should be unset).
2665 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
2668 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
2671 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
2672 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
2674 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
2675 filter the tests to be run.
2677 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
2678 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
2683 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
2685 set|show compile-gcc
2686 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
2687 with the 'compile' commands.
2689 set debug separate-debug-file
2690 show debug separate-debug-file
2691 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
2693 set dump-excluded-mappings
2694 show dump-excluded-mappings
2695 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
2696 dumped when generating a core file.
2698 maint info selftests
2699 List the registered selftests.
2702 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
2705 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
2707 set|show print type nested-type-limit
2708 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
2709 type printer will show.
2711 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
2714 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
2716 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
2719 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
2720 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
2721 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
2722 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
2724 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
2725 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
2726 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
2727 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
2728 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
2729 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
2731 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
2732 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
2733 unless you tell it the variable's type:
2736 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
2740 * New native configurations
2742 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
2743 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
2747 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
2748 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
2749 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
2751 * Removed targets and native configurations
2753 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
2755 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
2757 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
2758 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
2759 available in future Intel CPUs.
2761 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
2765 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
2766 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
2768 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
2771 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
2773 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
2775 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
2776 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
2779 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
2781 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
2782 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
2784 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
2786 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
2787 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
2788 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
2789 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
2792 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
2794 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
2795 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
2798 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
2800 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
2801 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
2803 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
2805 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
2810 eval "print $arg%d", $i
2815 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
2817 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
2818 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
2820 * New native configurations
2822 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
2826 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
2827 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
2829 * Removed targets and native configurations
2831 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2832 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
2837 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
2839 maint print arc arc-instruction address
2840 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
2844 set disassembler-options
2845 show disassembler-options
2846 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
2847 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
2848 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
2849 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
2850 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
2855 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
2856 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
2858 -file-list-shared-libraries
2859 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
2860 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
2863 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
2864 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
2866 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
2868 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
2870 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
2871 default. One must now explicitly configure with
2872 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
2873 option will be removed in a future release.
2875 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
2878 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
2879 memory backward from the given address. For example:
2882 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
2883 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
2884 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
2885 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
2886 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
2887 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
2888 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
2889 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
2890 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
2892 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
2893 arrays of dynamic types.
2895 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
2896 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
2897 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
2898 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
2899 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
2900 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
2902 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
2905 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
2906 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
2907 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
2909 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
2911 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
2912 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
2913 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
2914 signal received and code location.
2918 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
2919 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
2920 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
2921 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
2923 * Rust language support.
2924 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
2925 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
2928 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
2930 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
2931 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
2932 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
2933 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
2934 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
2935 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
2936 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
2937 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
2938 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
2939 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
2942 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
2944 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
2945 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
2950 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
2951 skip -function function
2952 skip -rfunction regular-expression
2953 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
2954 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
2955 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
2957 maint info line-table REGEXP
2958 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data structure.
2961 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
2964 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
2965 using the TTY file for input/output.
2969 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
2970 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
2971 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
2972 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
2973 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
2975 signal-event EVENTID
2976 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
2977 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
2978 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
2979 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
2980 signalling an event.
2982 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
2983 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
2984 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
2986 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
2989 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
2990 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
2991 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
2992 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
2993 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
2994 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
2996 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
2997 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
2998 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
2999 bytecode into native code.
3001 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
3002 recording. For example:
3004 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
3006 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
3008 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
3012 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
3014 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
3016 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
3018 * Per-inferior thread numbers
3020 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
3021 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
3022 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
3026 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
3027 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
3028 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
3029 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
3031 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
3032 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
3033 are no longer unique between inferiors.
3035 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
3036 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
3037 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
3039 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
3042 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
3043 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
3046 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
3049 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
3050 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
3051 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
3052 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
3055 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
3058 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
3061 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
3064 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
3065 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
3068 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
3069 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
3071 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
3073 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
3075 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
3076 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
3078 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
3079 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
3082 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
3083 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
3086 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
3087 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
3090 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
3092 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
3093 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
3094 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
3096 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
3097 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
3101 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
3102 maint show target-non-stop
3103 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
3104 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
3105 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
3107 maint set bfd-sharing
3108 maint show bfd-sharing
3109 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
3112 show debug bfd-cache
3113 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
3117 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
3119 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
3120 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
3121 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
3123 set remote thread-events
3124 show remote thread-events
3125 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
3127 set ada print-signatures on|off
3128 show ada print-signatures"
3129 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
3130 selection menus. It is activated (@code{on}) by default.
3134 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
3135 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
3136 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
3138 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
3139 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
3140 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
3141 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
3142 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
3143 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
3145 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
3146 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
3148 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
3149 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
3151 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
3153 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
3154 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
3155 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
3156 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
3157 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
3158 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
3160 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
3161 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
3164 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
3166 * New remote packets
3169 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
3171 exec-events feature in qSupported
3172 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
3173 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
3174 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
3175 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
3178 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
3181 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
3182 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
3184 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
3185 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
3188 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
3189 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
3190 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
3191 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
3192 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
3193 stop for that same thread.
3196 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
3197 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
3198 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
3201 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
3202 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
3204 syscall_entry stop reason
3205 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
3207 syscall_return stop reason
3208 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
3210 * Extended-remote exec events
3212 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
3213 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
3214 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
3216 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
3217 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
3218 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
3220 * Thread names in remote protocol
3222 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
3225 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
3227 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
3228 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
3229 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
3230 fork and exec catchpoints.
3232 * Remote syscall events
3234 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
3235 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
3237 set remote catch-syscall-packet
3238 show remote catch-syscall-packet
3239 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
3243 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
3244 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
3249 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
3250 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
3251 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
3252 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
3253 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
3254 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
3256 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
3258 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
3259 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
3260 including advance SIMD instructions.
3262 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
3264 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
3265 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
3266 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
3267 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
3268 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
3269 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
3270 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
3272 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
3274 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
3276 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
3277 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
3280 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
3281 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
3282 and may include things like its command line arguments.
3284 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
3285 is now available on all platforms.
3287 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
3288 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
3289 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
3290 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
3291 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
3292 backward compatibility.
3294 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
3295 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
3296 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
3297 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
3299 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
3300 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
3301 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
3302 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
3305 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
3307 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
3309 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
3310 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
3311 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
3312 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
3313 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
3314 See "New remote packets" below.
3316 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
3317 available register groups, including target specific groups.
3319 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
3320 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
3321 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
3322 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
3327 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
3331 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
3332 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
3333 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
3334 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
3335 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
3336 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
3337 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
3338 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
3339 "const" version of the value respectively.
3343 maint print symbol-cache
3344 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
3346 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
3347 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
3349 maint flush-symbol-cache
3350 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
3354 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
3357 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
3361 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
3364 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
3365 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
3369 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
3372 Print information about branch tracing internals.
3374 maint btrace packet-history
3375 Print the raw branch tracing data.
3377 maint btrace clear-packet-history
3378 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
3381 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
3382 anew by the next "record" command.
3387 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
3388 show debug dwarf-die
3389 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
3391 set debug dwarf-read
3392 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
3393 show debug dwarf-read
3394 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
3396 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
3397 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
3398 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
3399 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
3401 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
3402 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
3403 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
3404 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
3406 set debug dwarf-line
3407 show debug dwarf-line
3408 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
3411 show max-completions
3412 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
3413 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
3414 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
3415 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
3417 set history remove-duplicates
3418 show history remove-duplicates
3419 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
3421 maint set symbol-cache-size
3422 maint show symbol-cache-size
3423 Control the size of the symbol cache.
3425 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
3426 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
3428 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
3429 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
3431 set debug linux-namespaces
3432 show debug linux-namespaces
3433 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
3435 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
3436 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
3437 Intel Processor Trace format.
3438 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
3439 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
3441 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
3442 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
3445 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
3446 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
3448 * Python/Guile scripting
3450 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
3451 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
3453 * New remote packets
3455 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
3456 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
3458 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
3459 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
3462 Enable Intel Processor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
3463 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
3466 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
3467 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
3471 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
3472 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
3473 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
3477 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
3478 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
3481 Return information about files on the remote system.
3483 qXfer:exec-file:read
3484 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
3485 create a process running on the remote system.
3488 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
3489 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
3490 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
3491 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
3494 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
3497 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
3499 vforkdone stop reason
3500 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
3501 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
3503 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
3504 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
3505 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
3506 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
3507 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
3508 whether these features are enabled.
3510 * Extended-remote fork events
3512 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
3513 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
3514 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
3515 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
3517 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
3518 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
3519 the btrace record target.
3520 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
3522 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
3523 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
3525 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
3528 * Removed command line options
3530 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
3532 * Removed targets and native configurations
3534 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
3535 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3537 * New configure options
3540 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
3541 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
3543 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
3544 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
3545 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
3546 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
3548 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
3552 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
3554 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
3556 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
3560 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
3561 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
3562 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
3563 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
3564 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
3565 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
3566 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
3567 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
3568 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
3569 selecting a new file to debug.
3570 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
3571 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
3573 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
3576 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
3577 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
3578 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
3579 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
3581 * New Python-based convenience functions:
3583 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
3584 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
3585 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
3586 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
3588 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
3589 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
3590 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
3591 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
3592 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
3593 interface with this new feature are:
3595 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
3596 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
3600 demangle [-l language] [--] name
3601 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
3602 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
3603 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
3604 as "maint demangler-warning".
3606 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
3607 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
3609 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
3610 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
3613 maint print user-registers
3614 List all currently available "user" registers.
3616 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
3617 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
3618 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
3620 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
3621 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
3622 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
3625 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
3626 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
3627 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
3628 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
3631 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
3632 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
3633 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
3634 switched threads meanwhile.
3636 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
3638 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
3639 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
3640 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
3641 is now the default mode.
3645 set debug symbol-lookup
3646 show debug symbol-lookup
3647 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
3651 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
3652 inferiors that have exited.
3656 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
3660 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
3662 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
3663 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
3664 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
3665 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
3666 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
3668 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
3669 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
3670 its alias "share", instead.
3672 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
3674 * New command line options
3677 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
3679 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
3680 as specified in ISO C99.
3682 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
3683 with or without disassembly.
3687 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
3688 available is determined at configure time.
3689 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
3690 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
3692 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3696 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
3700 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
3702 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
3703 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
3705 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
3706 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
3710 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
3711 show print symbol-loading
3712 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
3713 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
3714 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
3715 becomes less useful.
3717 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
3718 show guile print-stack
3719 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
3721 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
3722 show auto-load guile-scripts
3723 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
3725 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
3726 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
3727 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
3728 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
3729 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
3730 usage of this option.
3732 set auto-connect-native-target
3734 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
3735 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
3736 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
3738 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
3739 show record btrace replay-memory-access
3740 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
3742 maint set target-async (on|off)
3743 maint show target-async
3744 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
3745 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
3746 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
3747 occurring only in synchronous mode.
3749 set mi-async (on|off)
3751 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
3752 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
3754 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
3755 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
3757 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
3758 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
3759 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
3760 "set target-async on" command.
3762 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3764 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
3765 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
3766 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
3767 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
3768 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
3770 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
3771 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
3772 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
3774 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
3775 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
3776 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
3777 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
3778 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
3779 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
3780 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
3782 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
3783 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
3785 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
3786 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
3787 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
3789 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
3790 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
3791 memory or registers.
3793 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
3795 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
3796 remote. It now works with all targets.
3798 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
3799 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
3800 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
3801 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
3802 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
3803 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
3804 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
3805 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
3806 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
3809 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
3810 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
3811 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
3813 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
3815 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
3816 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
3817 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
3819 * New remote packets
3821 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
3822 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
3823 branch trace incrementally.
3827 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
3828 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
3830 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
3831 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
3832 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
3833 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
3834 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
3837 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
3839 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
3840 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
3841 its alias "share", instead.
3843 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
3844 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
3849 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
3850 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
3851 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
3852 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
3853 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
3854 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
3855 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
3856 commands and CLI execution commands.
3858 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
3860 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
3861 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
3862 recording has been added.
3864 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
3866 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
3867 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
3869 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
3870 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
3871 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
3872 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
3873 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
3874 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
3877 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
3879 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
3881 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
3882 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
3883 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
3884 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
3889 (gdb) info registers rax
3892 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
3893 "*value not available*".
3895 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
3900 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
3901 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
3902 ** Line tables representation has been added.
3903 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
3904 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
3905 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
3909 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
3910 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
3911 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
3913 * Removed native configurations
3915 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
3916 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
3918 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3919 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3920 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
3921 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
3922 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3923 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3924 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
3928 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
3929 maint check-psymtabs
3930 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
3932 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
3933 maint expand-symtabs
3934 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
3937 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
3939 maint set|show per-command
3940 maint set|show per-command space
3941 maint set|show per-command time
3942 maint set|show per-command symtab
3943 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
3945 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
3946 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
3947 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
3948 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
3949 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
3952 info exceptions REGEXP
3953 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
3954 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
3959 set debug symfile off|on
3961 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
3962 symbol tables within those files
3964 set print raw frame-arguments
3965 show print raw frame-arguments
3966 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
3967 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
3969 set remote trace-status-packet
3970 show remote trace-status-packet
3971 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
3975 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
3979 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
3981 set startup-with-shell
3982 show startup-with-shell
3983 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
3988 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
3989 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
3991 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
3992 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
3993 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
3994 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
3997 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
3998 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
3999 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
4001 * New command-line options
4003 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
4005 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
4006 buffer in Common Trace Format.
4008 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
4011 * GDB now implements the C++ 'typeid' operator.
4013 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
4014 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
4016 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
4017 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
4019 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
4020 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
4021 due to an uncaught signal.
4025 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
4026 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
4027 command, which should contain "language-option".
4029 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
4030 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
4032 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
4033 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
4034 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
4035 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
4036 "undefined-command-error-code".
4038 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
4041 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
4043 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
4044 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
4047 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
4048 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
4050 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
4051 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
4052 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
4054 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
4055 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
4056 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
4057 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
4058 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
4059 "exec-run-start-option".
4061 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
4062 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
4064 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
4065 the new "info exceptions" command.
4067 * New system-wide configuration scripts
4068 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
4069 configuration scripts for the following systems:
4073 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
4074 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
4075 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
4078 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
4079 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
4081 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
4082 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
4083 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
4085 * New remote packets
4089 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
4090 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
4091 involvemement at each single-step.
4093 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
4094 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
4095 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
4096 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
4097 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
4098 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
4101 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
4103 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
4104 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
4106 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
4107 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
4108 trace state variables.
4110 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
4113 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
4114 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
4116 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
4118 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
4119 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
4120 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
4121 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
4123 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
4125 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
4126 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
4127 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
4128 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
4130 set|show record full insn-number-max
4131 set|show record full stop-at-limit
4132 set|show record full memory-query
4134 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
4135 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
4136 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
4137 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
4138 This new recording method can be enabled using:
4142 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
4143 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
4145 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
4146 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
4147 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
4149 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
4150 instruction granularity
4152 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
4153 function granularity
4155 * New native configurations
4157 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
4158 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
4159 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
4160 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
4164 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
4165 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
4166 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
4167 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
4168 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
4170 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
4171 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
4172 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
4173 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
4174 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
4175 --data-directory command-line option.
4177 * New command line options:
4179 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
4180 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
4182 * Removed command line options
4184 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
4187 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
4190 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
4194 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
4196 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
4198 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
4200 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
4202 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
4203 of architecture in the Python API.
4205 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
4206 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
4208 * New Python-based convenience functions:
4210 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
4211 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
4213 ** $_regex(str, regex)
4215 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
4218 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
4219 default for GCC since November 2000.
4221 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
4223 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
4224 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
4226 * New configure options
4228 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
4229 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
4230 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
4231 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
4232 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
4233 options allow the user to override that default.
4234 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
4235 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
4236 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
4238 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4241 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
4242 conditions to be attached.
4245 List the BFDs known to GDB.
4247 python-interactive [command]
4249 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
4250 and print the result of expressions.
4253 "py" is a new alias for "python".
4255 enable type-printer [name]...
4256 disable type-printer [name]...
4257 Enable or disable type printers.
4261 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
4262 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
4267 set print type methods (on|off)
4268 show print type methods
4269 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
4270 The default is to show them.
4272 set print type typedefs (on|off)
4273 show print type typedefs
4274 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
4275 The default is to show them.
4277 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
4278 show filename-display
4279 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
4280 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
4282 set trace-buffer-size
4283 show trace-buffer-size
4284 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
4286 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
4287 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
4288 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
4292 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
4295 set debug coff-pe-read
4296 show debug coff-pe-read
4297 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
4302 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
4305 set debug notification
4306 show debug notification
4307 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
4311 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
4312 "=cmd-param-changed".
4313 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
4314 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
4315 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
4316 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
4317 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
4318 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
4319 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
4320 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
4322 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
4323 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
4324 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
4325 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
4326 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
4327 library load/unload events.
4328 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
4329 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
4330 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
4331 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
4332 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
4333 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
4334 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
4335 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
4337 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
4338 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
4339 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
4340 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
4342 * New remote packets
4345 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
4346 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
4349 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
4350 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
4354 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
4355 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
4358 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
4359 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
4361 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
4363 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
4364 for more x32 ABI info.
4366 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
4368 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
4370 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
4371 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
4372 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
4373 "info os files" lists file descriptors
4374 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
4375 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
4376 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
4377 "info os msg" lists message queues
4378 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
4380 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
4381 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
4382 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
4383 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
4384 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
4385 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
4387 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
4388 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
4389 record/replay support.
4391 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
4395 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
4398 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
4400 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
4401 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
4403 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
4405 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
4406 the source at which the symbol was defined.
4408 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
4409 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
4410 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
4413 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
4414 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
4416 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
4417 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
4418 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
4420 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
4421 object associated with a PC value.
4423 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
4424 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
4426 * Go language support.
4427 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
4430 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
4431 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
4433 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
4434 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
4436 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
4437 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
4438 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
4439 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
4440 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
4443 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
4444 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
4445 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
4446 build/libcpp/expr.c.
4448 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
4449 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
4451 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
4452 since December 2007.
4454 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
4455 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
4456 command does. For instance:
4458 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
4460 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
4461 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
4462 created, using the "condition" command.
4464 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
4465 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
4467 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
4469 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
4470 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
4471 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
4472 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
4473 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
4474 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
4475 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
4476 files with older .gdb_index sections.
4478 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
4479 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
4480 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
4481 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
4482 the .gdb_index section.
4484 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
4486 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
4491 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
4493 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
4497 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
4498 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
4499 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
4501 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
4502 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
4504 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
4507 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
4508 C++ and Java objects.
4510 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
4511 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
4512 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
4513 configured with '--with-python'.
4515 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
4516 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
4517 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
4518 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
4519 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
4520 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
4521 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
4523 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
4524 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
4525 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
4526 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
4528 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
4529 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
4530 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
4531 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
4533 ** "set print symbol"
4535 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
4536 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
4537 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
4539 * Deprecated commands
4541 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
4542 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
4546 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
4547 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
4549 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
4550 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
4551 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
4552 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
4557 set mips compression
4558 show mips compression
4559 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
4560 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
4563 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
4565 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
4566 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
4567 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
4568 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
4570 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
4574 Disable auto-loading globally.
4577 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
4579 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
4580 show auto-load gdb-scripts
4581 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
4583 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
4584 show auto-load python-scripts
4585 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
4587 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
4588 show auto-load local-gdbinit
4589 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
4591 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
4592 show auto-load libthread-db
4593 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
4595 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
4596 show auto-load scripts-directory
4597 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
4598 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
4599 of the directories listed by this option.
4600 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
4602 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
4603 show auto-load safe-path
4604 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
4605 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
4607 set debug auto-load on|off
4608 show debug auto-load
4609 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
4611 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
4613 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
4614 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
4615 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
4616 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
4618 set dprintf-function <expr>
4619 show dprintf-function
4620 set dprintf-channel <expr>
4621 show dprintf-channel
4622 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
4623 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
4625 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
4626 show disconnected-dprintf
4627 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
4628 after GDB disconnects.
4630 * New configure options
4632 --with-auto-load-dir
4633 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
4634 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
4635 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
4636 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
4637 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
4639 --with-auto-load-safe-path
4640 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
4641 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
4643 --without-auto-load-safe-path
4644 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
4647 * New remote packets
4649 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
4651 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
4652 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
4653 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
4654 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
4658 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
4659 program without GDB involvement.
4661 * New command line options
4663 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
4664 before loading inferior.
4665 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
4666 execute it before loading inferior.
4668 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
4670 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
4671 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
4672 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
4673 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
4676 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
4677 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
4679 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
4680 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
4681 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
4682 target hardware watchpoint.
4684 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
4685 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
4686 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
4687 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
4691 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
4692 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
4695 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
4696 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
4697 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
4698 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
4699 now "message", which just prints the error message without
4702 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
4705 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
4706 modules library. This module provides functionality for
4707 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
4708 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
4709 corresponding value.
4711 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
4712 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
4713 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
4716 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
4717 static_block will return the global and static blocks
4718 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
4719 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
4721 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
4723 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
4726 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
4727 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
4728 available in the CLI.
4730 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
4731 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
4732 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
4733 "some_type.items()".
4735 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
4738 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
4739 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
4740 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
4741 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
4742 any anonymous fields.
4746 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
4749 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
4750 "=breakpoint-modified".
4752 ** New command -ada-task-info.
4754 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
4755 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
4756 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
4759 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
4760 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
4761 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
4762 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
4763 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
4765 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
4766 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
4768 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
4769 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
4770 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
4771 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
4772 use this option to specify where to find it.
4774 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
4775 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
4776 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
4777 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
4778 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
4779 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
4780 section in the user manual for more details.
4782 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
4783 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
4784 become available after that.
4786 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
4788 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
4789 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
4795 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
4796 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
4800 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
4801 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
4802 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
4804 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
4805 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
4806 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
4808 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
4809 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
4810 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
4811 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
4812 name starts with a hyphen.
4814 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
4815 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
4816 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
4817 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
4818 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
4819 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
4820 number of bytes that will be collected.
4823 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
4824 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
4825 setting the variable trace-notes.
4828 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
4829 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
4830 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
4833 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
4834 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
4835 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
4836 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
4837 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
4840 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
4841 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
4842 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
4846 set debug dwarf2-read
4847 show debug dwarf2-read
4848 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
4849 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
4851 set debug symtab-create
4852 show debug symtab-create
4853 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
4854 creation. The default is off.
4857 show extended-prompt
4858 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
4859 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
4860 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
4861 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
4862 prompt is displayed.
4864 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
4865 show print entry-values
4866 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
4867 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
4868 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
4870 set debug entry-values
4871 show debug entry-values
4872 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
4873 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
4875 set basenames-may-differ
4876 show basenames-may-differ
4877 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
4878 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
4879 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
4880 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
4881 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
4882 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
4883 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
4884 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
4890 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
4891 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
4892 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
4893 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
4895 set trace-stop-notes
4896 show trace-stop-notes
4897 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
4898 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
4899 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
4900 started by someone else.
4902 * New remote packets
4906 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
4910 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
4914 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
4918 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
4922 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
4925 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
4926 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
4930 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
4934 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
4936 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
4938 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
4940 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
4942 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
4943 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
4944 matches the given regular expression.
4946 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
4948 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
4949 dumping the instruction opcodes.
4951 * New command line options
4953 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
4954 This is mostly for testing purposes.
4956 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
4957 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
4959 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
4960 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
4961 source path list instead of augmenting it.
4963 * GDB now understands thread names.
4965 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
4966 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
4968 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
4969 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
4972 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
4973 has been integrated into GDB.
4977 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
4978 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
4979 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
4981 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
4982 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
4983 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
4984 and allows for more dynamic content.
4986 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
4987 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
4988 have an is_valid method.
4990 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
4991 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
4992 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
4994 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
4996 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
4997 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
4998 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
4999 that function like so:
5001 result = some_value (10,20)
5003 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
5004 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
5005 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
5007 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
5008 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
5009 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
5010 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
5011 New function: register_pretty_printer.
5013 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
5014 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
5016 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
5018 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
5021 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
5022 holds the thread's name.
5024 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
5025 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
5026 occurring in the process being debugged.
5027 The following events are currently supported:
5028 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
5029 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
5030 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
5034 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
5035 instantiation. For example, if you have:
5037 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
5039 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
5040 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
5041 was added to GCC 4.5.
5043 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
5044 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
5045 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
5046 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
5047 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
5048 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
5050 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
5051 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
5052 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
5053 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
5054 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
5056 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
5057 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
5058 execution to a label.
5060 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
5061 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
5062 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
5063 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
5065 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
5066 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
5067 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
5070 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
5072 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
5073 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
5074 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
5075 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
5076 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
5077 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
5080 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
5082 While now you see this:
5085 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
5087 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
5090 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
5091 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
5092 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
5093 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
5095 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
5096 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
5097 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
5098 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
5099 section in the user manual for more details.
5101 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
5103 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
5104 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
5106 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
5108 * New native configurations
5110 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
5114 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
5116 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
5117 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
5118 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
5119 in the GDB user manual.
5121 * Guile support was removed.
5123 * New features in the GNU simulator
5125 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
5127 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
5129 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
5131 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
5133 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
5134 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
5135 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
5136 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
5137 was always disabled for such configurations.
5141 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
5143 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
5144 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
5154 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
5155 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
5156 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
5158 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
5160 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
5161 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
5162 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
5163 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
5165 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
5166 mentioned flavors of operators.
5168 ** static const class members
5170 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
5171 class definition has been fixed.
5173 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
5175 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
5176 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
5177 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
5178 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
5179 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
5180 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
5182 * Static tracepoints
5184 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
5185 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
5186 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
5187 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
5188 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
5189 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
5190 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
5191 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
5192 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
5193 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
5194 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
5195 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
5196 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
5197 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
5198 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
5199 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
5200 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
5201 the "New remote packets" section below.
5203 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
5205 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
5206 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
5207 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
5208 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
5212 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
5213 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
5214 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
5215 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
5216 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
5217 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
5218 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
5220 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
5223 * New remote packets
5227 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
5231 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
5232 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
5233 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
5234 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
5235 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
5236 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
5240 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
5244 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
5247 qXfer:statictrace:read
5249 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
5250 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
5251 to gdb's qSupported query.
5255 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
5259 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
5260 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
5262 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
5263 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
5266 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
5268 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
5269 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
5270 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
5271 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
5273 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
5274 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
5275 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
5276 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
5277 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
5278 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
5279 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
5281 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
5282 for static tracepoints support.
5284 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
5286 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
5287 it understands register description.
5289 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
5291 * X86 general purpose registers
5293 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
5294 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
5295 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
5296 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
5297 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
5299 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
5300 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
5301 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
5302 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
5303 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
5304 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
5306 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
5307 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
5308 in the specified file.
5310 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
5311 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
5312 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
5313 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
5314 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
5315 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
5316 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
5317 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
5318 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
5319 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
5323 eval template, expressions...
5324 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
5325 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
5327 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
5328 show target-file-system-kind
5329 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
5332 save breakpoints <filename>
5333 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
5334 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
5335 definitions, use the `source' command.
5337 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
5340 info static-tracepoint-markers
5341 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
5343 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
5344 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
5345 function, line, address, or marker ID.
5349 Enable and disable observer mode.
5351 set may-write-registers on|off
5352 set may-write-memory on|off
5353 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
5354 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
5355 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
5356 set may-interrupt on|off
5357 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
5358 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
5359 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
5360 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
5361 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
5362 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
5363 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
5365 set record memory-query on|off
5366 show record memory-query
5367 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
5368 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
5373 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
5377 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
5378 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
5379 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
5380 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
5381 GDB using Python' in the manual.
5383 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
5384 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
5385 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
5386 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
5388 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
5389 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
5391 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
5393 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
5395 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
5397 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
5398 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
5399 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
5401 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
5402 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
5403 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
5404 regular breakpoints.
5408 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
5410 * D language support.
5411 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
5414 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
5415 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
5416 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
5417 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
5418 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
5420 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
5421 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
5422 conditions of the form:
5424 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
5426 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
5427 interface mentioned above.
5429 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
5433 ** Namespace Support
5435 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
5436 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
5437 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
5438 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
5439 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
5443 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
5444 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
5449 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
5450 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
5454 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
5459 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
5462 * Multi-program debugging.
5464 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
5465 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
5466 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
5467 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
5468 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
5469 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
5470 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
5471 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
5473 * New tracing features
5475 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
5477 ** Trace state variables
5479 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
5480 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
5481 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
5482 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
5483 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
5484 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
5485 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
5486 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
5487 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
5488 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
5492 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
5493 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
5494 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
5495 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
5496 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
5497 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
5498 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
5499 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
5500 the regular trace command.
5502 ** Disconnected tracing
5504 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
5505 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
5506 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
5507 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
5508 connection is lost unexpectedly.
5512 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
5513 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
5514 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
5515 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
5516 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
5517 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
5520 ** Circular trace buffer
5522 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
5523 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
5524 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
5525 not be available for all target agents.
5530 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
5531 the arguments to be comma-separated.
5534 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
5535 which only declare a variable are not shown.
5538 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
5539 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
5542 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
5543 "set script-extension" (see below).
5545 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
5547 record save [<FILENAME>]
5548 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
5549 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
5551 record restore <FILENAME>
5552 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
5553 earlier time, for replay debugging.
5555 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
5558 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
5559 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
5560 inferior has loaded.
5565 maint info program-spaces
5566 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
5568 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
5569 show remote interrupt-sequence
5570 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
5571 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
5572 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
5573 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
5574 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
5576 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
5577 show remote interrupt-on-connect
5578 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
5579 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
5582 set remotebreak [on | off]
5584 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
5586 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
5587 Create or modify a trace state variable.
5590 List trace state variables and their values.
5592 delete tvariable $NAME ...
5593 Delete one or more trace state variables.
5596 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
5597 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
5599 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
5600 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
5602 * New expression syntax
5604 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
5605 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
5609 set follow-exec-mode new|same
5610 show follow-exec-mode
5611 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
5612 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
5613 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
5615 set default-collect EXPR, ...
5616 show default-collect
5617 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
5618 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
5619 such as registers or a critical global variable.
5621 set disconnected-tracing
5622 show disconnected-tracing
5623 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
5624 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
5627 set circular-trace-buffer
5628 show circular-trace-buffer
5629 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
5630 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
5631 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
5632 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
5634 set script-extension off|soft|strict
5635 show script-extension
5636 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
5637 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
5638 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
5639 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
5641 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
5643 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
5644 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
5645 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
5646 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
5647 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
5648 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
5649 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
5652 * Python API Improvements
5654 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
5655 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
5656 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
5658 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
5659 `is_base_class' attribute.
5661 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
5663 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
5664 evaluate an expression.
5666 * New remote packets
5669 Define a trace state variable.
5672 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
5675 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
5678 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
5681 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
5685 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
5687 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
5688 much more reliable. In particular:
5689 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
5690 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
5691 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
5692 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
5693 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
5694 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
5695 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
5696 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
5697 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
5698 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
5699 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
5700 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
5701 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
5702 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
5703 non-threaded programs.
5705 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
5706 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
5707 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
5710 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
5712 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
5713 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
5714 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
5715 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
5716 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
5718 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
5719 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
5720 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
5721 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
5722 for tracepoint actions.
5724 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
5725 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
5726 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
5728 * Process record and replay
5730 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
5731 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
5732 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
5735 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
5736 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
5737 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
5740 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
5741 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
5744 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
5745 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
5746 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
5747 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
5748 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
5749 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
5750 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
5751 the installation instructions for more information.
5753 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
5754 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
5755 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
5756 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
5758 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
5759 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
5761 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
5762 now complete on file names.
5764 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
5765 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
5766 For instance, consider:
5768 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
5769 # struct example variable;
5772 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
5773 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
5775 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
5776 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
5778 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
5779 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
5782 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
5783 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
5784 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
5786 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
5787 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
5788 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
5789 and simulator targets may also provide them.
5791 * New remote packets
5794 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
5797 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
5798 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
5799 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
5802 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
5803 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
5806 Obtains additional operating system information
5810 Read or write additional signal information.
5812 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
5814 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
5815 packet that permitted the stub to pass a process id was removed.
5816 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
5818 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
5819 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
5821 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
5822 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
5823 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
5825 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
5826 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
5828 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
5830 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
5832 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
5833 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
5835 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote protocol packet now allows passing a
5836 list of section offsets.
5838 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
5839 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
5840 have also been fixed.
5842 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
5843 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
5844 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
5846 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
5849 template<typename T> class C { };
5852 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
5854 ptype C<char const *>
5855 ptype C<char const*>
5856 ptype C<const char *>
5857 ptype C<const char*>
5859 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
5861 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
5862 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
5864 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
5865 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
5866 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
5868 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
5869 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
5871 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
5874 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
5875 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
5877 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
5878 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
5883 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
5884 available is determined at configure time.
5886 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
5888 * Ada tasking support
5890 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
5894 Print the list of Ada tasks.
5896 Print detailed information about task number N.
5898 Print the task number of the current task.
5900 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
5902 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
5903 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
5905 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
5907 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
5908 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
5909 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
5910 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
5911 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
5912 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
5915 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
5916 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
5919 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
5920 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
5921 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
5922 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
5925 * Multi-architecture debugging.
5927 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
5928 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
5929 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
5930 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
5931 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
5933 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
5934 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
5935 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
5936 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
5937 --enable-targets configure option.
5939 * Non-stop mode debugging.
5941 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
5942 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
5943 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
5944 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
5945 section in the user manual for more information.
5947 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
5948 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
5949 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
5950 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
5951 extensions on linux targets.
5953 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
5955 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
5956 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
5957 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
5958 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
5959 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
5960 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
5961 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
5962 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
5963 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
5965 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
5967 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
5969 maint set python print-stack
5970 maint show python print-stack
5971 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
5974 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
5979 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
5983 Show operating system information about processes.
5986 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
5989 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
5992 Detach from inferior number NUM.
5995 Kill inferior number NUM.
5999 set spu stop-on-load
6000 show spu stop-on-load
6001 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
6003 set spu auto-flush-cache
6004 show spu auto-flush-cache
6005 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
6006 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
6008 set sh calling-convention
6009 show sh calling-convention
6010 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
6013 show debug timestamp
6014 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
6016 set disassemble-next-line
6017 show disassemble-next-line
6018 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
6021 set remote noack-packet
6022 show remote noack-packet
6023 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
6024 under "New remote packets."
6026 set remote query-attached-packet
6027 show remote query-attached-packet
6028 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
6030 set remote read-siginfo-object
6031 show remote read-siginfo-object
6032 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
6035 set remote write-siginfo-object
6036 show remote write-siginfo-object
6037 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
6040 set remote reverse-continue
6041 show remote reverse-continue
6042 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
6044 set remote reverse-step
6045 show remote reverse-step
6046 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
6048 set displaced-stepping
6049 show displaced-stepping
6050 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
6051 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
6052 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
6055 show debug displaced
6056 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
6058 maint set internal-error
6059 maint show internal-error
6060 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
6062 maint set internal-warning
6063 maint show internal-warning
6064 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
6069 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
6071 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
6072 show multiple-symbols
6073 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
6074 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
6075 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
6077 set breakpoint always-inserted
6078 show breakpoint always-inserted
6079 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
6080 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
6081 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
6083 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
6084 show arm fallback-mode
6085 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
6087 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
6088 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
6089 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
6090 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
6092 set arm unwind-secure-frames
6093 Enable unwinding from Non-secure to Secure mode on Cortex-M with
6095 This can trigger security exceptions when unwinding exception stacks.
6097 set disable-randomization
6098 show disable-randomization
6099 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
6100 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
6101 multiple debugging sessions.
6105 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
6110 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
6111 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
6112 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
6113 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
6115 set target-wide-charset
6116 show target-wide-charset
6117 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
6118 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
6120 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
6122 set tcp connect-timeout
6123 show tcp connect-timeout
6124 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
6125 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
6126 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
6128 set libthread-db-search-path
6129 show libthread-db-search-path
6130 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
6133 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
6134 show schedule-multiple
6135 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
6136 the current process.
6140 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
6141 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
6142 affecting correctness.
6144 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
6145 show interactive-mode
6146 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
6147 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
6148 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
6149 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
6150 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
6155 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
6156 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
6157 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
6161 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
6162 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
6163 alias for the `fork' command.
6166 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
6167 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
6168 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
6171 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
6172 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
6173 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
6177 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
6178 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
6179 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
6182 * New native configurations
6184 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
6186 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
6190 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
6191 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
6192 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
6195 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
6196 (mingw32ce) debugging.
6202 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
6204 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
6206 * New native configurations
6208 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
6209 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
6213 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
6214 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
6216 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
6218 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
6219 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
6220 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
6221 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
6223 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
6224 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
6226 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
6229 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
6230 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
6231 and in inlined functions.
6233 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
6234 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
6235 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
6237 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
6239 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
6240 registers on PowerPC targets.
6242 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
6243 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
6245 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
6246 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
6248 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
6249 extended-remote mode.
6251 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
6252 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
6253 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
6254 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
6256 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
6257 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
6258 target architectures.
6260 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
6261 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
6262 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
6263 stored in two consecutive float registers.
6265 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
6268 * Improved support for debugging Ada
6269 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
6271 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
6272 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
6273 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
6274 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
6276 - Improved command completion in Ada
6279 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
6284 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
6285 show print frame-arguments
6286 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
6287 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
6292 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
6299 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
6301 * New remote packets
6308 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
6311 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
6315 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
6317 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
6319 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
6320 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
6321 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
6323 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
6324 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
6325 -Bsymbolic linker option.
6327 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
6328 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
6331 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
6332 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
6334 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
6335 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
6337 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
6339 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
6340 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
6341 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
6343 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
6344 automatically displayed as character or string data.
6346 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
6347 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
6350 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
6351 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
6352 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
6354 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
6357 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
6358 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
6359 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
6361 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
6363 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
6365 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
6366 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
6367 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
6369 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
6370 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
6372 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
6373 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
6374 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
6375 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
6376 Windows and SymbianOS).
6378 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
6379 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
6381 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
6382 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
6388 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
6389 when debugging using remote targets.
6391 set mem inaccessible-by-default
6392 show mem inaccessible-by-default
6393 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
6394 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
6395 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
6396 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
6397 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
6399 set breakpoint auto-hw
6400 show breakpoint auto-hw
6401 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
6402 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
6403 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
6404 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
6405 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
6406 including "next" and "finish".
6409 catch exception unhandled
6410 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
6413 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
6417 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
6418 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
6419 an alias to "set sysroot".
6422 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
6423 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
6426 * New native configurations
6428 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
6431 unset tdesc filename
6433 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
6434 not query the target for its built-in description.
6438 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
6439 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
6440 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
6442 * New remote packets
6445 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
6446 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
6448 qXfer:features:read:
6449 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
6454 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
6455 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
6457 qXfer:libraries:read:
6458 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
6459 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
6460 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
6461 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
6465 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
6473 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
6474 i[34567]86-*-netware*
6475 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
6476 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
6478 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
6481 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
6482 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
6491 * Other removed features
6498 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
6505 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
6510 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
6511 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
6516 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
6517 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
6519 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
6521 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
6522 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
6523 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
6524 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
6526 MIPS ".pdr" sections
6528 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
6529 in debugging information.
6533 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
6534 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
6536 set mips stack-arg-size
6537 set mips saved-gpreg-size
6539 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
6541 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
6546 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
6548 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
6549 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
6550 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
6552 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
6553 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
6556 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
6557 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
6559 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
6560 stub provides the required support.
6562 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
6563 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
6568 unset substitute-path
6569 show substitute-path
6570 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
6571 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
6572 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
6573 between compilation and debugging.
6577 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
6578 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
6579 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
6583 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
6585 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
6586 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
6588 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
6590 * New remote packets
6593 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
6594 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
6595 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
6596 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
6600 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
6601 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
6603 qXfer:memory-map:read:
6604 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
6605 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
6610 Erase and program a flash memory device.
6612 * Removed remote packets
6615 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
6616 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
6618 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
6622 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
6624 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
6628 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
6629 only if it doesn't already have a value.
6631 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
6633 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
6635 restart <n> Return the program state to a
6636 previously saved state.
6638 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
6640 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
6642 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
6643 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
6645 info forks List forks of the user program that
6646 are available to be debugged.
6648 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
6649 forks of the user program that are
6650 available to be debugged.
6652 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
6653 that are available to be debugged (and
6654 kill the forked process).
6656 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
6657 that are available to be debugged (and
6658 allow the process to continue).
6662 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
6664 * Improved Windows host support
6666 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
6667 native console support, and remote communications using either
6668 network sockets or serial ports.
6670 * Improved Modula-2 language support
6672 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
6673 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
6674 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
6675 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
6676 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
6677 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
6681 The ARM rdi-share module.
6683 The Netware NLM debug server.
6685 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
6687 * New native configurations
6689 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
6690 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
6694 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
6696 * New command line options
6698 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
6699 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
6700 the child (debugged) program exited with.
6701 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
6702 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
6703 specified multiple times and in conjunction
6704 with the --command (-x) option.
6706 * Deprecated commands removed
6708 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
6712 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
6713 othernames set arm disassembler
6714 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
6715 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
6716 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
6719 * New BSD user-level threads support
6721 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
6722 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
6725 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
6726 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
6727 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
6729 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
6730 are not yet supported.
6732 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
6733 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
6735 * REMOVED configurations and files
6737 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
6738 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
6739 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
6741 * New "set print array-indexes" command
6743 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
6744 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
6747 * VAX floating point support
6749 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
6751 * User-defined command support
6753 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
6754 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
6755 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
6757 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
6759 * New command line option
6761 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
6764 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
6766 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
6767 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
6768 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
6769 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
6770 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
6772 * Internationalization
6774 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
6775 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
6776 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
6780 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
6781 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
6782 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
6784 * New native configurations
6786 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
6790 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
6791 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
6793 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
6795 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
6796 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
6797 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
6800 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the registers[]
6801 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
6802 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
6812 powerpc bdm protocol
6814 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
6815 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
6817 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6819 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6820 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6821 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6822 permanently REMOVED.
6831 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
6833 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
6835 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
6836 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
6839 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
6841 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
6842 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
6843 IRIX long double values).
6847 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
6848 command. This problem has been fixed.
6850 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
6852 * Fix for ``many threads''
6854 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
6855 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
6858 ptrace: No such process.
6859 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
6861 This problem has been fixed.
6863 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
6865 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
6868 * New ``start'' command.
6870 This command runs the program until the beginning of the main procedure.
6872 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
6874 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
6875 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
6876 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
6878 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
6879 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
6880 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
6881 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
6882 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
6883 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
6884 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
6885 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
6886 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
6888 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
6890 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
6891 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
6892 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
6893 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
6894 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
6896 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
6897 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
6898 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
6900 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
6902 * New native configurations
6904 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
6905 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
6906 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
6907 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
6908 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6909 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
6910 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6912 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
6914 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
6915 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
6916 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
6917 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
6918 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
6919 work, was also included.
6921 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
6922 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
6932 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
6933 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
6935 * REMOVED configurations and files
6937 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
6938 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
6939 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
6940 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
6941 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
6942 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
6943 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
6944 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
6945 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
6946 sonymips mips-sony-*
6947 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
6949 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
6951 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
6953 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
6954 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
6955 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
6956 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
6959 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
6961 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
6962 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
6963 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
6964 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
6965 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
6966 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
6969 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
6971 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
6973 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
6974 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
6975 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
6977 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
6979 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
6980 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
6982 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
6984 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
6985 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
6986 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
6988 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
6990 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
6991 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
6993 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
6995 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
6996 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
6997 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
6999 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
7001 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
7002 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
7003 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
7005 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
7007 * Removed --with-mmalloc
7009 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
7010 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
7012 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
7014 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
7015 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
7016 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
7017 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
7019 * Revised SPARC target
7021 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
7022 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
7023 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
7024 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
7025 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
7029 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
7030 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
7031 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
7034 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
7036 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
7037 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
7040 * C++ nested types and namespaces
7042 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
7043 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
7044 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
7045 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
7046 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
7047 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
7048 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
7049 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
7050 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
7052 * New native configurations
7054 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
7055 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
7056 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
7057 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
7058 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
7060 * New debugging protocols
7062 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
7064 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
7066 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
7067 and its very obscure effect on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
7068 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
7070 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7072 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7073 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7074 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7075 permanently REMOVED.
7077 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
7078 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
7079 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
7080 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
7081 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
7082 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
7083 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
7084 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
7085 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
7086 sonymips mips-sony-*
7087 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
7089 * REMOVED configurations and files
7091 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
7092 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7093 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
7094 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
7095 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
7096 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
7097 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
7098 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
7099 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
7100 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
7101 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
7102 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
7103 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
7104 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
7105 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
7106 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
7107 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
7109 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
7113 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
7114 integrated into GDB.
7116 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
7118 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
7119 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
7120 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
7123 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
7124 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
7125 DWARF 2 CFI support.
7129 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
7130 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
7131 remote protocol documentation for details.
7133 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
7135 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
7136 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
7137 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
7140 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
7142 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
7143 per-thread variables.
7145 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
7147 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
7148 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
7150 * Separate debug info.
7152 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
7153 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
7154 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
7155 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
7156 and optional debug files.
7158 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
7160 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
7161 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
7164 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
7165 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
7169 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
7170 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
7171 considered "useable".
7173 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
7175 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
7176 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
7179 * GDB supports logging output to a file
7181 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
7182 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
7184 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
7186 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
7187 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
7190 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
7192 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
7193 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
7197 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
7198 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
7199 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
7200 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
7201 data, for more informative profiling results.
7203 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
7205 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
7206 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
7207 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
7209 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
7212 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
7213 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
7214 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
7215 in a subsequent -var-update.
7217 * New native configurations.
7219 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
7221 * Multi-arched targets.
7223 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
7224 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
7226 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7228 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7229 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7230 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7231 permanently REMOVED.
7233 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
7234 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
7235 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
7236 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
7237 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
7238 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
7239 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
7240 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
7241 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
7242 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
7243 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
7244 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
7246 * REMOVED configurations and files
7249 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7250 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7251 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
7252 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
7253 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
7254 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
7256 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
7257 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
7258 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
7259 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7260 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
7261 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
7263 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
7265 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
7266 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
7267 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
7268 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
7269 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
7271 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
7273 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
7275 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
7276 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
7277 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
7278 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
7279 shared libs like mad''.
7281 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
7283 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
7284 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
7285 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
7286 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
7288 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
7290 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
7291 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
7294 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
7295 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
7297 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
7298 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
7300 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
7301 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
7302 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
7303 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
7305 * Multi-arched targets.
7307 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
7308 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
7310 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
7311 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
7312 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
7316 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
7319 * New native configurations
7321 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
7322 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
7323 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
7324 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
7326 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7328 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7329 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7330 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7331 permanently REMOVED.
7333 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
7334 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
7335 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7336 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7337 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7338 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
7339 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
7340 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
7341 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
7342 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
7344 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
7345 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
7347 * OBSOLETE languages
7349 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
7351 * REMOVED configurations and files
7353 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
7354 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
7355 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7356 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7357 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7359 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
7361 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
7363 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
7364 commands. The default is 1024.
7366 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
7368 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
7370 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
7372 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
7373 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
7374 from a file into memory (restore).
7376 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
7378 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
7379 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
7380 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
7382 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
7390 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
7391 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
7392 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
7394 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
7395 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
7396 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
7398 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
7399 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
7400 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
7402 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
7403 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
7404 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
7406 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
7408 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
7410 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
7411 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
7412 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
7413 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
7414 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
7415 (notably embedded) targets.
7417 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
7419 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
7420 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
7421 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
7422 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
7424 * New command line option
7426 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
7428 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
7430 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
7431 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
7432 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
7433 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
7434 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
7435 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
7436 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
7437 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
7438 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
7439 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
7441 * Changes in ARM configurations.
7443 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
7444 configuration is fully multi-arch.
7446 * New native configurations
7448 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
7449 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
7450 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
7451 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
7455 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
7457 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7459 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7460 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7461 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7462 permanently REMOVED.
7464 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
7465 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
7466 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7467 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7468 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7470 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
7472 * REMOVED configurations and files
7474 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7476 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
7477 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
7478 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
7479 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
7480 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
7481 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7482 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
7483 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
7484 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
7485 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
7486 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
7488 * Changes to command line processing
7490 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
7491 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
7493 * Changes to key bindings
7495 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
7497 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
7499 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
7501 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
7504 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
7506 Numerous documentation fixes.
7508 Numerous testsuite fixes.
7510 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
7512 * New native configurations
7514 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
7515 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
7516 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
7517 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
7518 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
7519 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
7523 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
7525 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
7527 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7529 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
7530 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
7531 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
7532 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7533 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7535 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
7536 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
7537 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
7538 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
7539 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
7540 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
7541 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
7542 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
7544 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
7545 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
7547 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7548 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7549 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7550 permanently REMOVED.
7552 * REMOVED configurations and files
7554 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
7555 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
7557 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
7561 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
7563 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
7564 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
7569 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
7571 * The MI enabled by default.
7573 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
7574 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
7575 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
7576 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
7577 which is now deprecated.
7579 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
7581 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
7582 main features are supported:
7584 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
7586 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
7589 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
7591 - a Pascal expression parser.
7593 However, some important features are not yet supported.
7595 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
7597 - there are some problems with boolean types;
7599 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
7600 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
7602 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
7604 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
7606 * Changes in completion.
7608 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
7609 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
7610 users expect at the shell prompt.
7612 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
7613 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
7614 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
7615 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
7616 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
7617 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
7618 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
7620 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
7622 * New platform-independent commands:
7624 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
7625 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
7626 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
7628 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
7630 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
7631 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
7632 many threads as your system allows you to have.
7634 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
7636 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
7637 multi-threaded programs though.
7639 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
7641 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
7643 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
7644 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
7647 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
7649 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
7650 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
7651 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
7652 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
7653 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
7656 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
7657 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
7658 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
7660 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
7662 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
7663 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
7665 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
7666 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
7669 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
7670 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
7671 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
7672 a given linear address.
7674 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
7675 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
7676 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
7678 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
7680 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
7682 * Changes in documentation.
7684 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
7685 Documentation License.
7687 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
7690 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
7692 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
7695 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
7696 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
7697 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
7699 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
7701 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
7702 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
7703 contents of this file.
7707 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
7709 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7711 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
7713 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
7714 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
7715 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
7716 greater level of detail.
7718 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
7720 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
7721 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
7722 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
7725 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
7727 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
7728 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
7729 machines ``out of the box''.
7731 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
7732 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
7733 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
7734 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
7735 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
7737 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
7738 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
7739 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
7740 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
7741 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
7743 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
7744 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
7747 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
7750 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
7751 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
7752 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
7753 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
7755 * New native configurations
7757 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
7758 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
7762 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
7763 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
7764 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7765 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7767 * OBSOLETE configurations
7769 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
7770 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
7772 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
7775 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
7776 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
7777 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
7778 be permanently REMOVED.
7780 * Gould support removed
7782 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
7784 * New features for SVR4
7786 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
7787 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
7788 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
7790 * Many C++ enhancements
7792 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
7793 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
7795 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
7797 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
7798 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
7799 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
7800 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
7802 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
7803 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
7805 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
7807 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
7808 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
7809 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
7811 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
7812 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
7814 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
7816 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
7817 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
7818 include ``set remote P-packet''.
7820 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
7822 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
7823 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
7824 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
7826 * ``apropos'' command added.
7828 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
7829 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
7830 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
7834 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
7835 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7836 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
7837 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
7838 enabled by configuring with:
7840 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
7842 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
7844 * New native configurations
7846 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
7847 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
7848 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
7852 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7853 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
7854 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
7856 * OBSOLETE configurations
7858 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
7860 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
7861 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
7862 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
7863 be permanently REMOVED.
7867 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
7868 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
7869 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
7870 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
7871 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
7872 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
7873 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
7878 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
7880 * set extension-language
7882 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
7883 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
7884 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
7885 set extension-language .c c++
7886 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
7887 and their associated languages.
7889 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
7891 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
7892 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
7893 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
7897 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
7898 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
7900 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
7901 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
7903 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
7904 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
7905 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
7906 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
7907 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
7908 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
7909 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
7910 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
7912 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
7913 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
7914 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
7915 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
7919 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
7920 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
7921 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
7922 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
7923 for xdb and dbx commands.
7927 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
7928 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
7929 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
7931 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
7932 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
7933 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
7935 * Debugging across forks
7937 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
7942 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
7943 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
7944 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
7946 * GDB remote protocol additions
7948 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
7949 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
7950 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
7951 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
7953 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
7954 full 64-bit address. The command
7956 set remoteaddresssize 32
7958 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
7959 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
7962 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
7963 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
7965 maint packet heythere
7967 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
7968 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
7971 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
7972 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
7973 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
7975 * Tracing can collect general expressions
7977 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
7978 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
7979 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
7981 * mask-address variable for Mips
7983 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
7984 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
7985 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
7987 * Higher serial baud rates
7989 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
7990 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
7991 to achieve all of these rates.)
7995 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
7996 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
7999 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
8001 * New native configurations
8003 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
8004 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
8005 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
8006 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
8007 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
8008 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
8009 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
8013 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
8014 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
8015 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
8016 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
8017 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
8018 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
8019 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
8020 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
8021 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
8022 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
8023 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
8025 * New debugging protocols
8027 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
8028 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
8029 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
8030 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
8031 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
8032 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
8036 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
8037 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
8042 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
8043 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
8045 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
8047 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
8048 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
8049 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
8051 * Live range splitting
8053 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
8054 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
8055 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
8059 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
8060 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
8064 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
8065 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
8066 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
8071 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
8076 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
8077 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
8078 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
8079 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
8080 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
8081 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
8085 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
8086 the symbol at the specified address.
8090 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
8091 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
8092 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
8093 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
8094 file tracepoint.c for more details.
8098 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
8099 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
8100 of most MIPS variants.
8104 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
8105 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
8106 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
8110 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
8111 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
8112 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
8113 the possible architectures.
8115 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
8117 * New native configurations
8119 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
8120 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
8121 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
8122 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
8123 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
8124 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
8128 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
8129 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
8130 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
8131 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
8132 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
8134 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
8138 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
8139 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
8140 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
8141 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
8142 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
8146 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
8148 * Windows 95/NT native
8150 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
8151 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
8152 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
8153 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
8154 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
8156 * dont-repeat command
8158 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
8159 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
8160 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
8161 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
8163 * Send break instead of ^C
8165 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
8166 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
8167 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
8169 * Remote protocol timeout
8171 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
8172 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
8173 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
8175 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
8177 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
8178 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
8179 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
8180 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
8181 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
8183 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
8184 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
8185 automatically on hpux10.
8187 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
8189 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
8191 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
8193 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
8194 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
8195 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
8196 every character. The default value is 1050.
8198 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
8200 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
8201 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
8202 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
8203 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
8204 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
8205 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
8207 * Speedups for remote debugging
8209 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
8210 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
8211 and more efficient S-record downloading.
8213 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
8215 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
8216 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
8218 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
8220 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
8222 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
8223 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
8225 * Remote targets use caching
8227 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
8228 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
8229 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
8230 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
8231 off' turns the data cache off.
8233 * Remote targets may have threads
8235 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
8236 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
8237 gdb/remote.c for details.
8241 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
8242 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
8243 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
8244 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
8245 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
8246 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
8247 sequence is something like
8249 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
8251 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
8255 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
8256 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
8257 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
8258 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
8259 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
8260 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
8261 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
8262 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
8266 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
8267 but does simplify configuration and building.
8271 GDB now supports hpux10.
8273 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
8275 * New native configurations
8277 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
8278 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
8279 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
8280 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
8284 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
8285 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
8286 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
8287 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
8290 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
8292 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
8293 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
8294 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
8295 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
8296 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
8298 * Arguments to user-defined commands
8300 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
8301 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
8304 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
8306 To execute the command use:
8309 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
8310 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
8311 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
8313 * New `if' and `while' commands
8315 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
8316 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
8317 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
8318 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
8319 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
8320 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
8321 if the expression is zero.
8323 * Fortran source language mode
8325 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
8326 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
8327 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
8328 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
8331 * Better HPUX support
8333 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
8334 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
8335 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
8336 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
8337 that behavior do the following before running the program:
8343 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
8344 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
8350 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
8351 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
8354 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
8355 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
8357 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
8359 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
8360 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
8361 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
8362 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
8363 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
8364 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
8366 * New DOS host serial code
8368 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
8369 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
8372 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
8374 * New "complete" command
8376 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
8377 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
8379 * Trailing space optional in prompt
8381 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
8382 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
8384 * Breakpoint hit counts
8386 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
8387 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
8388 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
8389 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
8390 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
8393 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
8395 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
8396 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
8397 arrays actually contain only short strings.
8399 * Shared library breakpoints
8401 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
8402 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
8404 * Hardware watchpoints
8406 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
8407 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
8409 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
8413 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
8414 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
8416 * Improved Irix 5 support
8418 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
8420 * Improved HPPA support
8422 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
8424 * New native configurations
8426 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
8427 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
8428 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
8429 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
8433 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
8434 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
8437 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
8439 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
8440 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
8444 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
8445 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
8447 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
8449 * Irix 5 is now supported
8453 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
8454 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
8455 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
8456 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
8457 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
8460 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
8462 * User visible changes:
8466 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
8467 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
8468 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
8469 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
8470 debugging info for the mips target).
8472 * DEC Alpha native support
8474 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
8475 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
8476 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
8477 Alpha-specific notes.
8479 * Preliminary thread implementation
8481 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
8483 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
8485 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
8486 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
8489 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
8491 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
8492 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
8493 call methods, ...etc.
8495 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
8497 * User visible changes:
8499 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
8500 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
8501 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
8502 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
8504 Filename completion now works.
8506 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
8507 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
8508 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
8510 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
8511 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
8512 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
8513 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
8514 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
8518 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
8519 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
8522 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
8526 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
8527 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
8528 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
8532 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
8533 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
8534 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
8535 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
8536 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
8540 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
8541 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
8542 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
8544 * New targets supported
8546 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
8547 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
8548 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
8549 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
8550 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
8552 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
8553 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
8554 GO32 memory extender.
8556 * New remote protocols
8558 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
8560 * New source languages supported
8562 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
8563 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
8564 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
8567 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
8569 * HP Precision Architecture supported
8571 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
8572 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
8573 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
8574 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
8575 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
8576 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
8578 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
8580 * Faster and better demangling
8582 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
8583 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
8584 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
8585 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
8586 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
8587 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
8590 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
8591 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
8592 compiler does not actually implement.
8594 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
8596 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
8597 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
8598 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
8599 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
8600 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
8601 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
8604 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
8605 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
8607 * Improved configure script
8609 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
8610 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
8611 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
8612 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
8614 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
8615 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
8616 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
8617 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
8618 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
8619 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
8621 * Documentation improvements
8623 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
8624 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
8625 before submitting changes.
8627 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
8628 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
8629 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
8630 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
8631 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
8633 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
8634 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
8635 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
8636 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
8637 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
8638 around this problem.
8642 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
8643 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
8644 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
8647 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
8648 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
8650 * New native hosts supported
8652 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
8653 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
8655 * New targets supported
8657 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
8659 * New file formats supported
8661 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
8662 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
8666 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
8668 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
8669 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
8671 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
8672 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
8673 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
8675 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
8676 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
8678 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
8679 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
8680 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
8683 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
8684 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
8685 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
8686 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
8687 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
8689 * Internal improvements
8691 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
8692 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
8694 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
8695 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
8696 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
8697 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
8698 shared code that handles any of them.
8700 * New command line options
8702 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
8706 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
8707 General Public License.
8709 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
8711 * Host/native/target split
8713 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
8714 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
8715 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
8716 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
8717 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
8719 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
8720 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
8721 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
8722 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
8723 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
8724 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
8725 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
8727 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
8728 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
8729 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
8731 * New hosts supported
8733 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
8734 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
8735 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
8737 * New targets supported
8739 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
8740 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
8742 * New native hosts supported
8744 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
8745 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
8746 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
8748 * New file formats supported
8750 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
8751 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
8752 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
8756 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
8757 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
8758 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
8760 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
8762 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
8763 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
8764 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
8765 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
8769 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
8770 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
8771 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
8773 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
8777 The crash that occurred when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
8778 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
8781 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
8782 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
8784 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
8785 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
8786 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
8787 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
8788 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
8789 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
8791 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
8792 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
8793 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
8794 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
8798 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
8799 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
8800 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
8801 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
8802 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
8804 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
8805 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
8806 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
8807 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
8811 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
8812 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
8813 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
8814 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
8815 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
8816 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
8817 each instruction being stepped through.
8819 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
8820 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
8822 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
8823 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
8824 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
8825 processor with a serial port.
8829 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
8830 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
8831 supported, and what files each one uses.
8835 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
8836 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
8837 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
8838 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
8840 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
8841 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
8842 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
8843 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
8847 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
8848 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
8849 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
8850 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
8851 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
8852 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
8854 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
8857 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
8859 * Better support for C++ function names
8861 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
8862 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
8863 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
8864 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
8865 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
8867 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
8868 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
8869 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
8870 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
8871 for the list of formats.
8873 * G++ symbol mangling problem
8875 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
8876 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
8877 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
8878 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compiling gdb/symtab.c. The
8879 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
8880 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
8883 * New 'maintenance' command
8885 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
8886 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
8887 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
8889 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
8890 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
8891 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
8892 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
8893 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
8894 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
8896 The following commands are new:
8898 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
8899 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
8900 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
8902 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
8904 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
8905 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
8906 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
8907 read after argv processing.
8909 * New hosts supported
8911 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
8913 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
8915 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
8916 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
8917 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
8918 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
8919 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
8922 * New targets supported
8924 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
8926 * More smarts about finding #include files
8928 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
8929 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
8930 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
8931 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
8932 the one that contains your sources.
8934 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
8935 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
8936 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
8938 * Interesting infernals change
8940 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
8941 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
8942 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
8943 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
8945 * Bug fixes (of course!)
8947 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
8948 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
8949 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
8951 See the ChangeLog for details.
8953 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
8955 * New machines supported (host and target)
8957 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
8959 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
8961 * New malloc package
8963 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
8964 Mmalloc is capable of handling multiple heaps of memory. It is also
8965 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
8966 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
8967 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
8968 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
8972 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
8973 'help info proc' for details.
8975 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
8977 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
8978 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
8981 * File name changes for MS-DOS
8983 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
8984 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
8985 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
8986 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
8987 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
8988 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
8990 * Cross byte order fixes
8992 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
8993 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
8995 * New -mapped and -readnow options
8997 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
8998 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
8999 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
9000 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
9001 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
9002 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
9003 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
9004 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
9005 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
9006 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
9008 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
9009 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
9010 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
9011 slower, but makes future operations faster.
9013 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
9014 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
9015 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
9018 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
9020 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
9021 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
9022 shared across multiple host platforms.
9024 * longjmp() handling
9026 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
9027 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
9028 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
9029 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
9033 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
9034 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
9039 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
9040 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
9041 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
9043 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
9045 * New machines supported (host and target)
9047 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
9049 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
9050 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
9052 * New machines supported (target)
9054 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
9058 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
9059 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
9060 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
9062 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
9063 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
9064 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
9065 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
9066 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
9069 * New features for SVR4
9071 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
9072 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
9073 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
9075 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
9076 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
9077 it prints the address mappings of the process.
9079 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
9080 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
9082 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
9084 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
9085 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
9086 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
9087 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
9088 same code linked statically.
9092 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
9093 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
9094 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
9095 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
9096 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
9097 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
9101 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
9102 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
9103 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
9106 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
9108 * New machines supported (host and target)
9110 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
9111 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
9112 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
9114 * Almost SCO Unix support
9116 We had hoped to support:
9117 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
9118 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
9119 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
9120 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
9122 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
9124 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
9125 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
9126 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
9127 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
9132 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
9133 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
9134 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
9138 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
9139 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
9140 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
9142 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
9144 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
9145 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
9146 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
9148 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
9149 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
9150 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
9151 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
9154 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
9155 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
9156 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
9157 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
9160 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
9161 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
9164 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
9165 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
9166 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
9169 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
9171 * Improved configuration
9173 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
9174 Porting BFD is simpler.
9178 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
9179 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
9180 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
9181 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
9185 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
9187 * New host supported (not target)
9189 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
9192 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
9194 * Multiple source language support
9196 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
9197 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
9198 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
9199 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
9200 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
9201 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
9205 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
9206 currently under development at the State University of New York at
9207 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
9208 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
9210 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
9211 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
9212 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
9214 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
9215 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
9219 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
9220 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
9221 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
9222 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
9225 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
9227 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
9228 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
9229 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
9230 examining core files.
9234 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
9237 * New machines supported (host and target)
9239 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
9240 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
9241 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
9243 * New hosts supported (not targets)
9245 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
9247 * New targets supported (not hosts)
9249 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
9250 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
9251 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
9253 * New remote interfaces
9259 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
9263 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
9265 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
9266 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
9267 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
9268 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
9269 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
9270 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
9271 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
9272 stub on the target system.
9274 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
9276 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
9277 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
9278 object file types such as a.out and coff.
9280 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
9281 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
9284 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
9286 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
9287 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
9289 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
9290 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
9291 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
9293 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
9294 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
9295 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
9296 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
9298 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
9299 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
9300 it is already running. Default is ON.
9302 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
9303 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
9304 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
9305 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
9308 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
9309 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
9310 or the value of the environment variable
9313 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
9314 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
9317 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
9318 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
9319 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
9321 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
9322 history expansion will be performed on
9323 command line input. The default is OFF.
9325 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
9326 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
9327 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
9329 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
9330 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
9331 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
9334 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
9335 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
9336 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
9339 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
9340 ``set width'' instead.
9342 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
9343 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
9344 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
9345 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
9347 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
9350 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
9353 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
9356 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
9359 * Support for Epoch Environment.
9361 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
9362 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
9363 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
9367 * Support for Shared Libraries
9369 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
9370 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
9371 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
9372 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
9373 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
9374 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
9375 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
9376 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
9378 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
9379 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
9380 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
9382 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
9387 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
9388 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
9389 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
9390 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
9391 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
9392 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
9394 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
9396 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
9398 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
9399 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
9400 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
9403 * C++ multiple inheritance
9405 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
9408 * C++ exception handling
9410 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
9411 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
9412 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
9415 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
9416 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
9417 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
9419 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
9420 current stack frame.
9423 * Minor command changes
9425 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
9426 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
9427 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
9429 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
9430 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
9431 frames without printing.
9433 * New directory command
9435 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
9436 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
9437 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
9438 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
9439 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
9441 * Configuring GDB for compilation
9443 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
9446 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
9447 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
9448 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
9449 where the program that you are debugging will run.