1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.5
8 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
10 * New Python-based convenience functions:
12 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
13 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
15 ** $_regex(str, regex)
17 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
20 * New configure options
22 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
23 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
24 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
25 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
26 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
27 options allow the user to override that default.
29 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
32 List the BFDs known to GDB.
36 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
39 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
41 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
42 for more x32 ABI info.
44 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
46 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
48 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
49 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
50 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
51 "info os files" lists file descriptors
52 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
53 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
54 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
55 "info os msg" lists message queues
56 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
58 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
59 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
60 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
61 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
62 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
63 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
65 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
66 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
67 record/replay support.
69 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
73 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
76 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
78 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
79 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
81 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
83 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
84 the source at which the symbol was defined.
86 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
87 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
88 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
91 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
92 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
94 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
95 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
96 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
98 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
99 object associated with a PC value.
101 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
102 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
104 * Go language support.
105 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
108 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
109 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
111 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
112 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
114 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
115 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
116 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
117 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
118 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
121 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
122 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
123 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
126 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
127 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
129 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
132 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
133 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
134 command does. For instance:
136 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
138 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
139 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
140 created, using the "condition" command.
142 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
143 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
145 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
147 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
148 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
149 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
150 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
151 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
152 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
153 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
154 files with older .gdb_index sections.
156 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
157 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
158 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
159 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
160 the .gdb_index section.
162 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
164 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
169 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
171 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
175 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
176 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
177 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
179 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
180 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
182 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
185 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
186 C++ and Java objects.
188 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
189 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
190 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
191 configured with '--with-python'.
193 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
194 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
195 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
196 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
197 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
198 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
199 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
201 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
202 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
203 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
204 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
206 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
207 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
208 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
209 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
211 ** "set print symbol"
213 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
214 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
215 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
217 * Deprecated commands
219 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
220 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
224 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
225 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
227 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
228 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
229 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
230 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
236 show mips compression
237 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
238 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
241 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
243 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
244 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
245 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
246 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
248 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
252 Disable auto-loading globally.
255 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
257 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
258 show auto-load gdb-scripts
259 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
261 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
262 show auto-load python-scripts
263 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
265 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
266 show auto-load local-gdbinit
267 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
269 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
270 show auto-load libthread-db
271 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
273 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
274 show auto-load scripts-directory
275 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
276 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
277 of the directories listed by this option.
278 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
280 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
281 show auto-load safe-path
282 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
283 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
285 set debug auto-load on|off
287 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
289 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
291 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
292 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
293 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
294 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
296 set dprintf-function <expr>
297 show dprintf-function
298 set dprintf-channel <expr>
300 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
301 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
303 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
304 show disconnected-dprintf
305 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
306 after GDB disconnects.
308 * New configure options
311 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
312 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
313 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
314 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
315 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
317 --with-auto-load-safe-path
318 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
319 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
321 --without-auto-load-safe-path
322 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
327 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
329 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
330 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
331 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
332 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
336 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
337 program without GDB involvement.
339 * New command line options
341 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
342 before loading inferior.
343 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
344 execute it before loading inferior.
346 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
348 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
349 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
350 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
351 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
354 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
355 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
357 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
358 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
359 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
360 target hardware watchpoint.
362 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
363 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
364 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
365 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
369 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
370 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
373 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
374 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
375 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
376 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
377 now "message", which just prints the error message without
380 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
383 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
384 modules library. This module provides functionality for
385 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
386 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
389 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
390 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
391 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
394 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
395 static_block will return the global and static blocks
396 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
397 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
399 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
401 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
404 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
405 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
406 available in the CLI.
408 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
409 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
410 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
413 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
416 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
417 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
418 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
419 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
420 any anonymous fields.
424 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
427 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
428 "=breakpoint-modified".
430 ** New command -ada-task-info.
432 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
433 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
434 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
437 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
438 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
439 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
440 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
441 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
443 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
444 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
446 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
447 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
448 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
449 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
450 use this option to specify where to find it.
452 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
453 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
454 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
455 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
456 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
457 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
458 section in the user manual for more details.
460 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
461 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
462 become available after that.
464 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
466 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
467 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
473 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
474 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
478 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
479 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
480 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
482 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
483 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
484 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
486 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
487 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
488 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
489 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
490 name starts with a hyphen.
492 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
493 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
494 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
495 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
496 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
497 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
498 number of bytes that will be collected.
501 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
502 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
503 setting the variable trace-notes.
506 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
507 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
508 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
511 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
512 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
513 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
514 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
515 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
518 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
519 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
520 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
524 set debug dwarf2-read
525 show debug dwarf2-read
526 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
527 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
529 set debug symtab-create
530 show debug symtab-create
531 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
532 creation. The default is off.
536 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
537 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
538 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
539 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
542 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
543 show print entry-values
544 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
545 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
546 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
548 set debug entry-values
549 show debug entry-values
550 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
551 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
553 set basenames-may-differ
554 show basenames-may-differ
555 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
556 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
557 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
558 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
559 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
560 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
561 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
562 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
568 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
569 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
570 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
571 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
574 show trace-stop-notes
575 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
576 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
577 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
578 started by someone else.
584 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
588 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
592 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
596 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
600 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
603 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
604 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
608 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
612 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
614 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
616 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
618 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
620 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
621 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
622 matches the given regular expression.
624 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
626 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
627 dumping the instruction opcodes.
629 * New command line options
631 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
632 This is mostly for testing purposes.
634 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
635 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
637 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
638 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
639 source path list instead of augmenting it.
641 * GDB now understands thread names.
643 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
644 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
646 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
647 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
650 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
651 has been integrated into GDB.
655 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
656 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
657 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
659 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
660 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
661 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
662 and allows for more dynamic content.
664 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
665 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
666 have an is_valid method.
668 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
669 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
670 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
672 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
674 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
675 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
676 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
677 that function like so:
679 result = some_value (10,20)
681 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
682 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
683 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
685 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
686 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
687 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
688 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
689 New function: register_pretty_printer.
691 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
692 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
694 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
696 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
699 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
700 holds the thread's name.
702 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
703 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
704 occurring in the process being debugged.
705 The following events are currently supported:
706 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
707 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
708 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
712 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
713 instantiation. For example, if you have:
715 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
717 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
718 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
719 was added to GCC 4.5.
721 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
722 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
723 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
724 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
725 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
726 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
728 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
729 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
730 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
731 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
732 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
734 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
735 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
736 execution to a label.
738 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
739 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
740 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
741 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
743 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
744 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
745 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
748 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
750 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
751 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
752 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
753 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
754 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
755 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
758 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
760 While now you see this:
763 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
765 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
768 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
769 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
770 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
771 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
773 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
774 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
775 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
776 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
777 section in the user manual for more details.
779 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
781 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
782 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
784 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
786 * New native configurations
788 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
792 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
794 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
795 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
796 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
797 in the GDB user manual.
799 * Guile support was removed.
801 * New features in the GNU simulator
803 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
805 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
807 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
809 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
811 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
812 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
813 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
814 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
815 was always disabled for such configurations.
819 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
821 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
822 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
832 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
833 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
834 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
836 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
838 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
839 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
840 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
841 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
843 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
844 mentioned flavors of operators.
846 ** static const class members
848 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
849 class definition has been fixed.
851 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
853 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
854 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
855 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
856 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
857 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
858 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
862 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
863 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
864 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
865 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
866 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
867 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
868 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
869 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
870 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
871 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
872 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
873 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
874 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
875 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
876 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
877 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
878 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
879 the "New remote packets" section below.
881 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
883 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
884 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
885 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
886 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
890 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
891 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
892 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
893 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
894 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
895 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
896 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
898 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
905 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
909 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
910 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
911 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
912 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
913 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
914 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
918 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
922 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
925 qXfer:statictrace:read
927 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
928 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
929 to gdb's qSupported query.
933 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
937 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
938 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
940 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
941 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
944 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
946 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
947 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
948 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
949 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
951 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
952 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
953 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
954 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
955 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
956 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
957 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
959 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
960 for static tracepoints support.
962 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
964 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
965 it understands register description.
967 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
969 * X86 general purpose registers
971 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
972 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
973 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
974 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
975 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
977 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
978 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
979 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
980 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
981 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
982 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
984 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
985 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
986 in the specified file.
988 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
989 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
990 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
991 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
992 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
993 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
994 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
995 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
996 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
997 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1001 eval template, expressions...
1002 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1003 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1005 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1006 show target-file-system-kind
1007 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1010 save breakpoints <filename>
1011 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1012 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1013 definitions, use the `source' command.
1015 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1018 info static-tracepoint-markers
1019 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1021 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1022 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1023 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1027 Enable and disable observer mode.
1029 set may-write-registers on|off
1030 set may-write-memory on|off
1031 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1032 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1033 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1034 set may-interrupt on|off
1035 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1036 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1037 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1038 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1039 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1040 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1041 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1043 set record memory-query on|off
1044 show record memory-query
1045 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1046 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1051 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1055 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1056 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1057 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1058 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1059 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1061 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
1062 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1063 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1064 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
1066 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
1067 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1069 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
1071 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
1073 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1075 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1076 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1077 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1079 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1080 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1081 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1082 regular breakpoints.
1086 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1088 * D language support.
1089 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1092 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1093 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1094 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1095 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1096 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1098 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1099 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1100 conditions of the form:
1102 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1104 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1105 interface mentioned above.
1107 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
1111 ** Namespace Support
1113 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1114 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1115 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1116 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1117 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1121 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1122 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1127 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1128 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1132 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
1137 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
1140 * Multi-program debugging.
1142 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1143 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1144 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1145 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1146 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1147 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1148 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1149 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1151 * New tracing features
1153 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1155 ** Trace state variables
1157 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1158 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1159 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1160 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1161 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1162 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1163 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1164 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1165 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1166 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
1170 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1171 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1172 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1173 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1174 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1175 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1176 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1177 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1178 the regular trace command.
1180 ** Disconnected tracing
1182 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1183 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1184 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1185 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1186 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1190 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1191 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1192 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1193 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1194 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1195 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1198 ** Circular trace buffer
1200 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1201 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1202 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1203 not be available for all target agents.
1208 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1209 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1212 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1213 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1216 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1217 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1220 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1221 "set script-extension" (see below).
1223 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1225 record save [<FILENAME>]
1226 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1227 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1229 record restore <FILENAME>
1230 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1231 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1233 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1236 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1237 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1238 inferior has loaded.
1243 maint info program-spaces
1244 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1246 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1247 show remote interrupt-sequence
1248 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1249 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1250 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1251 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1252 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1254 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1255 show remote interrupt-on-connect
1256 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1257 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1260 set remotebreak [on | off]
1262 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1264 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1265 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1268 List trace state variables and their values.
1270 delete tvariable $NAME ...
1271 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1274 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1275 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1277 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1278 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1280 * New expression syntax
1282 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1283 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1287 set follow-exec-mode new|same
1288 show follow-exec-mode
1289 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1290 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1291 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1293 set default-collect EXPR, ...
1294 show default-collect
1295 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1296 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1297 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1299 set disconnected-tracing
1300 show disconnected-tracing
1301 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1302 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1305 set circular-trace-buffer
1306 show circular-trace-buffer
1307 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1308 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1309 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1310 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1312 set script-extension off|soft|strict
1313 show script-extension
1314 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1315 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1316 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1317 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1319 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1321 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1322 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1323 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1324 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1325 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1326 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1327 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1330 * Python API Improvements
1332 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1333 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1334 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1336 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1337 `is_base_class' attribute.
1339 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1341 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1342 evaluate an expression.
1344 * New remote packets
1347 Define a trace state variable.
1350 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1353 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1356 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1359 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1363 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1365 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1366 much more reliable. In particular:
1367 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1368 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1369 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1370 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1371 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1372 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1373 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1374 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1375 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1376 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1377 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1378 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1379 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1380 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1381 non-threaded programs.
1383 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1384 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1385 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1388 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1390 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1391 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1392 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1393 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1394 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1396 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1397 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1398 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1399 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1400 for tracepoint actions.
1402 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1403 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1404 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1406 * Process record and replay
1408 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1409 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1410 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1413 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1414 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1415 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1418 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1419 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1422 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1423 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1424 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1425 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1426 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1427 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1428 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1429 the installation instructions for more information.
1431 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1432 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1433 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1434 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1436 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1437 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1439 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1440 now complete on file names.
1442 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1443 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1444 For instance, consider:
1446 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1447 # struct example variable;
1450 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1451 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1453 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1454 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1456 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1457 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1460 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1461 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1462 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1464 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1465 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1466 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1467 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1469 * New remote packets
1472 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1475 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1476 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1477 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1480 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1481 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1484 Obtains additional operating system information
1488 Read or write additional signal information.
1490 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1492 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1493 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1494 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1496 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1497 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1499 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1500 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1501 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1503 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1504 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1506 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1508 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1510 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1511 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1513 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1514 list of section offsets.
1516 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1517 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1518 have also been fixed.
1520 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1521 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1522 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1524 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1527 template<typename T> class C { };
1530 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1532 ptype C<char const *>
1533 ptype C<char const*>
1534 ptype C<const char *>
1535 ptype C<const char*>
1537 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1539 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1540 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1542 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1543 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1544 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1546 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1547 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1549 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1552 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1553 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1555 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1556 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1561 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1562 available is determined at configure time.
1564 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1566 * Ada tasking support
1568 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1572 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1574 Print detailed information about task number N.
1576 Print the task number of the current task.
1578 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1580 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1581 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1583 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1585 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1586 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1587 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1588 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1589 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1590 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1593 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1594 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1597 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1598 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1599 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1600 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1603 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1605 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1606 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1607 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1608 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1609 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1611 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1612 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1613 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1614 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1615 --enable-targets configure option.
1617 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1619 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1620 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1621 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1622 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1623 section in the user manual for more information.
1625 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1626 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1627 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1628 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1629 extensions on linux targets.
1631 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1633 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1634 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1635 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1636 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1637 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1638 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1639 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1640 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1641 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1643 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1645 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1647 maint set python print-stack
1648 maint show python print-stack
1649 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1652 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1657 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1661 Show operating system information about processes.
1664 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1667 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1670 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1673 Kill inferior number NUM.
1677 set spu stop-on-load
1678 show spu stop-on-load
1679 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1681 set spu auto-flush-cache
1682 show spu auto-flush-cache
1683 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1684 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1686 set sh calling-convention
1687 show sh calling-convention
1688 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1691 show debug timestamp
1692 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1694 set disassemble-next-line
1695 show disassemble-next-line
1696 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1699 set remote noack-packet
1700 show remote noack-packet
1701 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1702 under "New remote packets."
1704 set remote query-attached-packet
1705 show remote query-attached-packet
1706 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1708 set remote read-siginfo-object
1709 show remote read-siginfo-object
1710 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1713 set remote write-siginfo-object
1714 show remote write-siginfo-object
1715 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1718 set remote reverse-continue
1719 show remote reverse-continue
1720 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1722 set remote reverse-step
1723 show remote reverse-step
1724 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1726 set displaced-stepping
1727 show displaced-stepping
1728 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1729 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1730 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1733 show debug displaced
1734 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1736 maint set internal-error
1737 maint show internal-error
1738 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1740 maint set internal-warning
1741 maint show internal-warning
1742 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1747 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1749 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1750 show multiple-symbols
1751 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1752 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1753 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1755 set breakpoint always-inserted
1756 show breakpoint always-inserted
1757 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1758 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1759 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1761 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1762 show arm fallback-mode
1763 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1765 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1766 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1767 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1768 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1770 set disable-randomization
1771 show disable-randomization
1772 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1773 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1774 multiple debugging sessions.
1778 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1783 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1784 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1785 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1786 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1788 set target-wide-charset
1789 show target-wide-charset
1790 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1791 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1793 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1795 set tcp connect-timeout
1796 show tcp connect-timeout
1797 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1798 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1799 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1801 set libthread-db-search-path
1802 show libthread-db-search-path
1803 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1806 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1807 show schedule-multiple
1808 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1809 the current process.
1813 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1814 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1815 affecting correctness.
1817 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1818 show interactive-mode
1819 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1820 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1821 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1822 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1823 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1828 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1829 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1830 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1834 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1835 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1836 alias for the `fork' command.
1839 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1840 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1841 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1844 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1845 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1846 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1850 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1851 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1852 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1855 * New native configurations
1857 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1859 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1863 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
1864 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
1865 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
1868 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1869 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1875 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1877 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
1879 * New native configurations
1881 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
1882 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
1886 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
1887 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
1889 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1891 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1892 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1893 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1894 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1896 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1897 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1899 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
1902 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
1903 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1904 and in inlined functions.
1906 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1907 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1908 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1910 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1912 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1913 registers on PowerPC targets.
1915 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1916 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1918 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1919 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1921 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1922 extended-remote mode.
1924 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
1925 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1926 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1927 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
1929 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1930 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1931 target architectures.
1933 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1934 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1935 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1936 stored in two consecutive float registers.
1938 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1941 * Improved support for debugging Ada
1942 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1944 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1945 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1946 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1947 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1949 - Improved command completion in Ada
1952 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1957 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1958 show print frame-arguments
1959 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1960 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1965 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1972 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1974 * New remote packets
1981 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
1984 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1988 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1990 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
1992 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1993 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1994 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1996 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1997 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1998 -Bsymbolic linker option.
2000 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2001 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2004 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2005 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2007 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
2008 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
2010 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2012 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2013 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2014 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2016 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2017 automatically displayed as character or string data.
2019 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2020 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2023 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2024 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
2025 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
2027 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2030 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2031 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2032 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2034 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2036 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2038 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2039 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2040 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2042 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2043 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2045 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2046 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2047 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2048 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2049 Windows and SymbianOS).
2051 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2052 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
2054 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2055 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
2061 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2062 when debugging using remote targets.
2064 set mem inaccessible-by-default
2065 show mem inaccessible-by-default
2066 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2067 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2068 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2069 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2070 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2072 set breakpoint auto-hw
2073 show breakpoint auto-hw
2074 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2075 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2076 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2077 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2078 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2079 including "next" and "finish".
2082 catch exception unhandled
2083 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2086 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2090 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2091 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2092 an alias to "set sysroot".
2095 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2096 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2099 * New native configurations
2101 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2104 unset tdesc filename
2106 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2107 not query the target for its built-in description.
2111 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
2112 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
2113 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
2115 * New remote packets
2118 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2119 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2121 qXfer:features:read:
2122 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2127 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2128 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2130 qXfer:libraries:read:
2131 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2132 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2133 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2134 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2138 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2146 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2147 i[34567]86-*-netware*
2148 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2149 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2151 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2154 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2155 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2164 * Other removed features
2171 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2178 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2183 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2184 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2189 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2190 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2192 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2194 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2195 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2196 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2197 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2199 MIPS ".pdr" sections
2201 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2202 in debugging information.
2206 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2207 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2209 set mips stack-arg-size
2210 set mips saved-gpreg-size
2212 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2214 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
2219 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
2221 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2222 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2223 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2225 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2226 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2229 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2230 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2232 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2233 stub provides the required support.
2235 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2236 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2241 unset substitute-path
2242 show substitute-path
2243 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2244 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2245 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2246 between compilation and debugging.
2250 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2251 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2252 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2256 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2258 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2259 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2261 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2263 * New remote packets
2266 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2267 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2268 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2269 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2273 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2274 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2276 qXfer:memory-map:read:
2277 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2278 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2283 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2285 * Removed remote packets
2288 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2289 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2291 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
2295 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2297 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2301 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2302 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2304 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2306 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2308 restart <n> Return the program state to a
2309 previously saved state.
2311 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2313 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2315 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2316 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2318 info forks List forks of the user program that
2319 are available to be debugged.
2321 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2322 forks of the user program that are
2323 available to be debugged.
2325 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2326 that are available to be debugged (and
2327 kill the forked process).
2329 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2330 that are available to be debugged (and
2331 allow the process to continue).
2335 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2337 * Improved Windows host support
2339 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2340 native console support, and remote communications using either
2341 network sockets or serial ports.
2343 * Improved Modula-2 language support
2345 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2346 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2347 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2348 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2349 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2350 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2354 The ARM rdi-share module.
2356 The Netware NLM debug server.
2358 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2360 * New native configurations
2362 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2363 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2367 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2369 * New command line options
2371 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2372 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2373 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2374 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2375 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2376 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2377 with the --command (-x) option.
2379 * Deprecated commands removed
2381 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2385 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2386 othernames set arm disassembler
2387 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2388 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2389 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2392 * New BSD user-level threads support
2394 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2395 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2398 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2399 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2400 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2402 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2403 are not yet supported.
2405 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2406 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2408 * REMOVED configurations and files
2410 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2411 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2412 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2414 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2416 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2417 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2420 * VAX floating point support
2422 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2424 * User-defined command support
2426 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2427 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2428 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2430 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2432 * New command line option
2434 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2437 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2439 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2440 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2441 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2442 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2443 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
2445 * Internationalization
2447 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2448 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2449 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2453 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2454 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2455 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2457 * New native configurations
2459 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2463 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2464 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2466 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2468 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2469 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2470 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2473 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2474 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2475 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2485 powerpc bdm protocol
2487 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2488 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2490 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2492 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2493 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2494 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2495 permanently REMOVED.
2504 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2506 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2508 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2509 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2512 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2514 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2515 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2516 IRIX long double values).
2520 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2521 command. This problem has been fixed.
2523 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2525 * Fix for ``many threads''
2527 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2528 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2531 ptrace: No such process.
2532 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2534 This problem has been fixed.
2536 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2538 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2541 * New ``start'' command.
2543 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2545 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2547 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2548 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2549 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2551 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2552 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2553 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2554 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2555 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2556 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2557 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2558 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2559 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2561 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2563 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2564 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2565 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2566 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2567 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2569 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2570 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2571 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2573 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2575 * New native configurations
2577 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2578 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2579 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2580 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2581 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2582 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2583 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2585 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2587 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2588 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2589 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2590 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2591 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2592 work, was also included.
2594 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2595 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2605 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2606 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2608 * REMOVED configurations and files
2610 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2611 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2612 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2613 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2614 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2615 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2616 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2617 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2618 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2619 sonymips mips-sony-*
2620 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2622 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2624 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2626 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2627 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2628 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2629 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2632 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2634 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2635 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2636 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2637 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2638 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2639 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2642 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2644 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2646 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2647 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2648 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2650 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2652 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2653 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2655 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2657 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2658 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2659 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2661 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2663 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2664 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2666 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2668 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2669 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2670 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2672 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2674 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2675 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2676 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2678 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2680 * Removed --with-mmalloc
2682 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2683 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2685 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
2687 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2688 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2689 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2690 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2692 * Revised SPARC target
2694 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2695 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2696 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2697 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2698 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2702 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2703 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2704 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2707 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2709 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2710 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2713 * C++ nested types and namespaces
2715 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2716 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2717 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2718 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2719 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2720 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2721 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2722 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2723 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2725 * New native configurations
2727 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2728 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2729 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2730 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2731 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2733 * New debugging protocols
2735 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2737 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2739 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2740 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2741 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2743 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2745 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2746 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2747 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2748 permanently REMOVED.
2750 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2751 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2752 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2753 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2754 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2755 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2756 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2757 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2758 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2759 sonymips mips-sony-*
2760 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2762 * REMOVED configurations and files
2764 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2765 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2766 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2767 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2768 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2769 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2770 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2771 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2772 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2773 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2774 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2775 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2776 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2777 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2778 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2779 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2780 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2782 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2786 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2787 integrated into GDB.
2789 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2791 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2792 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2793 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2796 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2797 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2798 DWARF 2 CFI support.
2802 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2803 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2804 remote protocol documentation for details.
2806 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
2808 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2809 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2810 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2813 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2815 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2816 per-thread variables.
2818 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2820 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2821 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2823 * Separate debug info.
2825 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2826 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2827 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2828 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2829 and optional debug files.
2831 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2833 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2834 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2837 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2838 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2842 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2843 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2844 considered "useable".
2846 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2848 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2849 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2852 * GDB supports logging output to a file
2854 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2855 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
2857 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2859 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2860 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2863 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
2865 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2866 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2870 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2871 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2872 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2873 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2874 data, for more informative profiling results.
2876 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2878 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2879 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
2880 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
2882 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2885 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2886 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2887 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2888 in a subsequent -var-update.
2890 * New native configurations.
2892 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2894 * Multi-arched targets.
2896 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
2897 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2899 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2901 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2902 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2903 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2904 permanently REMOVED.
2906 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2907 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2908 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2909 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2910 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2911 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2912 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2913 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2914 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2915 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2916 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2917 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2919 * REMOVED configurations and files
2922 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2923 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2924 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2925 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2926 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2927 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2929 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2930 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2931 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2932 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2933 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2934 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2936 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
2938 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2939 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2940 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2941 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2942 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2944 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
2946 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2948 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2949 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2950 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2951 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2952 shared libs like mad''.
2954 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
2956 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2957 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2958 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2959 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
2961 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2963 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2964 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2967 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2968 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2970 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2971 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2973 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2974 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2975 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2976 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2978 * Multi-arched targets.
2980 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2981 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2983 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
2984 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2985 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2989 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2992 * New native configurations
2994 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
2995 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
2996 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
2997 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
2999 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3001 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3002 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3003 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3004 permanently REMOVED.
3006 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3007 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3008 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3009 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3010 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3011 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3012 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3013 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3014 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3015 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3017 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3018 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3020 * OBSOLETE languages
3022 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3024 * REMOVED configurations and files
3026 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3027 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3028 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3029 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3030 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3032 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3034 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3036 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3037 commands. The default is 1024.
3039 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3041 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3043 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3045 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3046 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3047 from a file into memory (restore).
3049 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3051 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3052 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3053 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3055 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3063 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3064 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3065 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3067 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3068 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3069 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3071 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3072 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3073 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3075 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3076 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3077 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3079 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
3081 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3083 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3084 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3085 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3086 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3087 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3088 (notably embedded) targets.
3090 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3092 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3093 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3094 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3095 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
3097 * New command line option
3099 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3101 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3103 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3104 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3105 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3106 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3107 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3108 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3109 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3110 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3111 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3112 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3114 * Changes in ARM configurations.
3116 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3117 configuration is fully multi-arch.
3119 * New native configurations
3121 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
3122 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
3123 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
3124 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
3128 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3130 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3132 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3133 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3134 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3135 permanently REMOVED.
3137 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3138 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3139 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3140 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3141 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3143 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3145 * REMOVED configurations and files
3147 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3149 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3150 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3151 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3152 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3153 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3154 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3155 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3156 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3157 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3158 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3159 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
3161 * Changes to command line processing
3163 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3164 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3166 * Changes to key bindings
3168 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3170 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3172 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3174 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3177 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3179 Numerous documentation fixes.
3181 Numerous testsuite fixes.
3183 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
3185 * New native configurations
3187 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3188 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
3189 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
3190 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3191 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
3192 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
3196 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
3198 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
3200 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3202 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
3203 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3204 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3205 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3206 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3208 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3209 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3210 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3211 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3212 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3213 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3214 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3215 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
3217 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3218 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3220 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3221 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3222 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3223 permanently REMOVED.
3225 * REMOVED configurations and files
3227 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3228 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3230 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3234 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
3236 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
3237 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3242 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3244 * The MI enabled by default.
3246 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3247 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3248 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3249 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3250 which is now deprecated.
3252 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3254 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3255 main features are supported:
3257 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3259 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3262 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3264 - a Pascal expression parser.
3266 However, some important features are not yet supported.
3268 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3270 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3272 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3273 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3275 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3277 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3279 * Changes in completion.
3281 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3282 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3283 users expect at the shell prompt.
3285 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3286 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3287 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3288 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3289 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3290 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3291 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3293 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3295 * New platform-independent commands:
3297 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3298 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3299 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3301 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3303 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3304 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3305 many threads as your system allows you to have.
3307 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3309 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3310 multi-threaded programs though.
3312 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
3314 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3316 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3317 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3320 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3322 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3323 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3324 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3325 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3326 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3329 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3330 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3331 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3333 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3335 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3336 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3338 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3339 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3342 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3343 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3344 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3345 a given linear address.
3347 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3348 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3349 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3351 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3353 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3355 * Changes in documentation.
3357 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3358 Documentation License.
3360 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3363 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3365 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3368 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3369 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3370 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3372 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3374 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3375 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3376 contents of this file.
3380 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3382 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3384 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3386 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3387 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3388 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3389 greater level of detail.
3391 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3393 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3394 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3395 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3398 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3400 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3401 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3402 machines ``out of the box''.
3404 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3405 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3406 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3407 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3408 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3410 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3411 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3412 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3413 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3414 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3416 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3417 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3420 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3423 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3424 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3425 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3426 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3428 * New native configurations
3430 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3431 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3435 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3436 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3437 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
3438 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3440 * OBSOLETE configurations
3442 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3443 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3445 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3448 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3449 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3450 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3451 be permanently REMOVED.
3453 * Gould support removed
3455 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3457 * New features for SVR4
3459 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3460 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3461 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3463 * Many C++ enhancements
3465 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3466 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3468 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3470 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3471 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3472 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3473 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3475 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3476 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3478 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3480 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3481 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3482 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3484 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3485 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3487 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3489 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3490 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3491 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3493 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3495 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3496 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3497 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3499 * ``apropos'' command added.
3501 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3502 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3503 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3507 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3508 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3509 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3510 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3511 enabled by configuring with:
3513 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3515 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3517 * New native configurations
3519 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3520 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3521 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3525 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3526 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3527 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3529 * OBSOLETE configurations
3531 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3533 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3534 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3535 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3536 be permanently REMOVED.
3540 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3541 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3542 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3543 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3544 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3545 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3546 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3551 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3553 * set extension-language
3555 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3556 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3557 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3558 set extension-language .c c++
3559 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3560 and their associated languages.
3562 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3564 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3565 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3566 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3570 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3571 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3573 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3574 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3576 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3577 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3578 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3579 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3580 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3581 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3582 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3583 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3585 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3586 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3587 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3588 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3592 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3593 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3594 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3595 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3596 for xdb and dbx commands.
3600 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3601 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3602 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3604 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3605 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3606 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3608 * Debugging across forks
3610 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3615 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3616 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3617 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3619 * GDB remote protocol additions
3621 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3622 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3623 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3624 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3626 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3627 full 64-bit address. The command
3629 set remoteaddresssize 32
3631 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3632 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3635 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3636 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3638 maint packet heythere
3640 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3641 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3644 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3645 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3646 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3648 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3650 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3651 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3652 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3654 * mask-address variable for Mips
3656 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3657 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3658 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3660 * Higher serial baud rates
3662 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3663 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3664 to achieve all of these rates.)
3668 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3669 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3672 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3674 * New native configurations
3676 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3677 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3678 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3679 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3680 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3681 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3682 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3686 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3687 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3688 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3689 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3690 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3691 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3692 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3693 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3694 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3695 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3696 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3698 * New debugging protocols
3700 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3701 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3702 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3703 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3704 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3705 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3709 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3710 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3715 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3716 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3718 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3720 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3721 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3722 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3724 * Live range splitting
3726 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3727 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3728 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3732 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3733 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3737 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3738 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3739 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3744 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3749 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3750 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3751 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3752 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3753 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3754 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3758 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3759 the symbol at the specified address.
3763 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3764 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3765 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3766 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3767 file tracepoint.c for more details.
3771 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3772 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3773 of most MIPS variants.
3777 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3778 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3779 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3783 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3784 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3785 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3786 the possible architectures.
3788 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3790 * New native configurations
3792 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3793 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3794 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3795 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3796 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3797 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3801 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3802 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3803 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3804 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3805 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3807 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3811 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3812 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3813 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3814 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3815 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3819 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3821 * Windows 95/NT native
3823 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3824 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3825 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3826 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3827 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3829 * dont-repeat command
3831 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3832 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3833 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3834 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3836 * Send break instead of ^C
3838 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3839 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3840 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3842 * Remote protocol timeout
3844 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3845 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3846 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3848 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3850 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3851 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3852 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3853 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3854 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3856 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3857 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3858 automatically on hpux10.
3860 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3862 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3864 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3866 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3867 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3868 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3869 every character. The default value is 1050.
3871 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3873 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3874 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3875 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3876 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3877 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3878 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3880 * Speedups for remote debugging
3882 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3883 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3884 and more efficient S-record downloading.
3886 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3888 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3889 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3891 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3893 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
3895 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3896 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3898 * Remote targets use caching
3900 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3901 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3902 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3903 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3904 off' turns the the data cache off.
3906 * Remote targets may have threads
3908 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3909 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3910 gdb/remote.c for details.
3914 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3915 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3916 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3917 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3918 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3919 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3920 sequence is something like
3922 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3924 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3928 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3929 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3930 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3931 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3932 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3933 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3934 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3935 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3939 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3940 but does simplify configuration and building.
3944 GDB now supports hpux10.
3946 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3948 * New native configurations
3950 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3951 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3952 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3953 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3957 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3958 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3959 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3960 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3963 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3965 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3966 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3967 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3968 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3969 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3971 * Arguments to user-defined commands
3973 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3974 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3977 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3979 To execute the command use:
3982 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3983 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3984 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3986 * New `if' and `while' commands
3988 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3989 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3990 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3991 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3992 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3993 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3994 if the expression is zero.
3996 * Fortran source language mode
3998 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3999 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4000 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4001 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4004 * Better HPUX support
4006 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4007 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4008 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4009 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4010 that behavior do the following before running the program:
4016 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4017 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4023 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4024 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4027 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4028 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4030 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4032 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4033 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4034 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4035 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4036 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4037 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4039 * New DOS host serial code
4041 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4042 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4045 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4047 * New "complete" command
4049 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4050 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4052 * Trailing space optional in prompt
4054 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4055 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4057 * Breakpoint hit counts
4059 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4060 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4061 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4062 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4063 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4066 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4068 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4069 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4070 arrays actually contain only short strings.
4072 * Shared library breakpoints
4074 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4075 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4077 * Hardware watchpoints
4079 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4080 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4082 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
4086 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4087 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4089 * Improved Irix 5 support
4091 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4093 * Improved HPPA support
4095 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4097 * New native configurations
4099 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4100 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4101 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4102 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4106 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4107 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4110 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4112 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4113 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4117 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4118 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4120 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4122 * Irix 5 is now supported
4126 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4127 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4128 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4129 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4130 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4133 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4135 * User visible changes:
4139 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4140 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4141 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4142 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4143 debugging info for the mips target).
4145 * DEC Alpha native support
4147 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4148 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4149 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4150 Alpha-specific notes.
4152 * Preliminary thread implementation
4154 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4156 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
4158 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4159 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4162 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4164 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4165 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4166 call methods, ...etc.
4168 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4170 * User visible changes:
4172 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4173 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4174 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4175 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4177 Filename completion now works.
4179 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4180 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4181 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4183 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4184 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4185 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4186 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4187 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4191 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4192 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4195 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4199 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4200 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4201 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4205 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4206 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4207 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4208 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4209 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4213 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4214 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4215 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4217 * New targets supported
4219 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4220 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4221 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4222 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4223 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4225 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4226 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4227 GO32 memory extender.
4229 * New remote protocols
4231 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4233 * New source languages supported
4235 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4236 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4237 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4240 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4242 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4244 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4245 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4246 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4247 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4248 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4249 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4251 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4253 * Faster and better demangling
4255 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4256 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4257 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4258 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4259 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4260 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4263 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4264 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4265 compiler does not actually implement.
4267 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4269 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4270 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4271 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4272 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4273 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4274 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4277 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4278 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4280 * Improved configure script
4282 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4283 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4284 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4285 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4287 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4288 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4289 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4290 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4291 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4292 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4294 * Documentation improvements
4296 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4297 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4298 before submitting changes.
4300 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4301 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4302 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4303 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4304 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4306 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4307 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4308 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4309 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4310 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4311 around this problem.
4315 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4316 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4317 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4320 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4321 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4323 * New native hosts supported
4325 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4326 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4328 * New targets supported
4330 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4332 * New file formats supported
4334 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4335 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4339 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4341 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4342 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4344 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4345 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4346 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4348 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4349 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4351 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4352 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4353 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4356 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4357 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4358 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4359 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4360 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4362 * Internal improvements
4364 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4365 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4367 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4368 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4369 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4370 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4371 shared code that handles any of them.
4373 * New command line options
4375 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4379 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4380 General Public License.
4382 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4384 * Host/native/target split
4386 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4387 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4388 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4389 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4390 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4392 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4393 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4394 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4395 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4396 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4397 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4398 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4400 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4401 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4402 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4404 * New hosts supported
4406 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4407 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4408 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4410 * New targets supported
4412 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4413 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4415 * New native hosts supported
4417 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4418 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4419 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4421 * New file formats supported
4423 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4424 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4425 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4429 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4430 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4431 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4433 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4435 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4436 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4437 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4438 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4442 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4443 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4444 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4446 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4450 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4451 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4454 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4455 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4457 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4458 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4459 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4460 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4461 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4462 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4464 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4465 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4466 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4467 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4471 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4472 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4473 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4474 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4475 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4477 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4478 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4479 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4480 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4484 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4485 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4486 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4487 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4488 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4489 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4490 each instruction being stepped through.
4492 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4493 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4495 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4496 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4497 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4498 processor with a serial port.
4502 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4503 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4504 supported, and what files each one uses.
4508 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4509 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4510 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4511 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4513 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4514 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4515 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4516 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4520 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4521 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4522 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4523 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4524 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4525 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4527 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4530 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4532 * Better support for C++ function names
4534 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4535 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4536 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4537 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4538 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4540 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4541 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4542 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4543 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4544 for the list of formats.
4546 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4548 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4549 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4550 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4551 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4552 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4553 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4556 * New 'maintenance' command
4558 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4559 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4560 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4562 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4563 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4564 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4565 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4566 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4567 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4569 The following commands are new:
4571 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4572 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4573 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4575 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4577 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4578 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4579 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4580 read after argv processing.
4582 * New hosts supported
4584 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4586 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4588 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4589 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4590 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4591 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4592 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4595 * New targets supported
4597 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4599 * More smarts about finding #include files
4601 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4602 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4603 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4604 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4605 the one that contains your sources.
4607 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4608 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4609 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4611 * Interesting infernals change
4613 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4614 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4615 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4616 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4618 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4620 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4621 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4622 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4624 See the ChangeLog for details.
4626 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4628 * New machines supported (host and target)
4630 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4632 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4634 * New malloc package
4636 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4637 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4638 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4639 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4640 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4641 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4645 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4646 'help info proc' for details.
4648 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4650 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4651 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4654 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4656 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4657 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4658 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4659 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4660 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4661 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4663 * Cross byte order fixes
4665 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4666 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4668 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4670 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4671 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4672 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4673 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4674 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4675 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4676 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4677 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4678 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4679 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4681 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4682 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4683 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4684 slower, but makes future operations faster.
4686 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4687 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4688 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4691 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4693 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4694 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4695 shared across multiple host platforms.
4697 * longjmp() handling
4699 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4700 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4701 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4702 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4706 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4707 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4712 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4713 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4714 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4716 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4718 * New machines supported (host and target)
4720 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4722 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4723 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4725 * New machines supported (target)
4727 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4731 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4732 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4733 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4735 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4736 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4737 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4738 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4739 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4742 * New features for SVR4
4744 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4745 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4746 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4748 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4749 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4750 it prints the address mappings of the process.
4752 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4753 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4755 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4757 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4758 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4759 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4760 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4761 same code linked statically.
4765 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4766 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4767 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4768 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4769 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4770 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4774 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4775 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4776 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4779 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4781 * New machines supported (host and target)
4783 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4784 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4785 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4787 * Almost SCO Unix support
4789 We had hoped to support:
4790 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4791 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4792 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4793 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4795 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4797 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4798 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4799 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4800 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4805 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4806 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4807 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4811 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4812 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4813 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4815 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4817 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4818 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4819 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4821 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4822 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4823 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4824 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4827 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4828 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4829 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4830 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4833 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4834 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4837 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4838 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4839 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4842 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4844 * Improved configuration
4846 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4847 Porting BFD is simpler.
4851 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4852 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4853 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4854 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4858 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4860 * New host supported (not target)
4862 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4865 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4867 * Multiple source language support
4869 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4870 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4871 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4872 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4873 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4874 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4878 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4879 currently under development at the State University of New York at
4880 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4881 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4883 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4884 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4885 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4887 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4888 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4892 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4893 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4894 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4895 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4898 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4900 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4901 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4902 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4903 examining core files.
4907 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4910 * New machines supported (host and target)
4912 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4913 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4914 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4916 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4918 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4920 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4922 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4923 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4924 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4926 * New remote interfaces
4932 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4936 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4938 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4939 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4940 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4941 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4942 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4943 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4944 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4945 stub on the target system.
4947 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4949 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4950 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4951 object file types such as a.out and coff.
4953 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4954 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4957 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4959 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4960 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4962 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4963 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4964 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4966 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4967 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4968 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4969 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4971 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4972 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4973 it is already running. Default is ON.
4975 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4976 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4977 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4978 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4981 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4982 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4983 or the value of the environment variable
4986 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4987 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4990 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4991 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4992 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4994 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4995 history expansion will be performed on
4996 command line input. The default is OFF.
4998 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4999 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5000 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5002 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5003 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5004 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5007 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5008 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5009 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5012 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5013 ``set width'' instead.
5015 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5016 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5017 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5018 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5020 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5023 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5026 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5029 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5032 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5034 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5035 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5036 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5040 * Support for Shared Libraries
5042 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5043 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5044 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5045 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5046 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5047 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5048 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5049 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5051 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5052 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5053 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5055 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5060 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5061 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5062 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5063 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5064 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5065 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5067 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5069 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5071 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5072 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5073 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5076 * C++ multiple inheritance
5078 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5081 * C++ exception handling
5083 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5084 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5085 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5088 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5089 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5090 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5092 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5093 current stack frame.
5096 * Minor command changes
5098 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5099 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5100 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5102 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5103 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5104 frames without printing.
5106 * New directory command
5108 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5109 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5110 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5111 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5112 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5114 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5116 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5119 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5120 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5121 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5122 where the program that you are debugging will run.