1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 10
8 ** '-break-insert --qualified' and '-dprintf-insert --qualified'
10 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
11 new "--qualified" option that makes GDB interpret a specified
12 function name as a complete fully-qualified name. This is the
13 equivalent of the CLI's "break -qualified" and "dprintf
16 * GDB now supports core file debugging for x86_64 Cygwin programs.
22 Control the display of debug output about GDB's event loop.
26 break [PROBE_MODIFIER] [LOCATION] [thread THREADNUM]
27 [-force-condition] [if CONDITION]
28 This command would previously refuse setting a breakpoint if the
29 CONDITION expression is invalid at a location. It now accepts and
30 defines the breakpoint if there is at least one location at which
31 the CONDITION is valid. The locations for which the CONDITION is
32 invalid, are automatically disabled. If CONDITION is invalid at all
33 of the locations, setting the breakpoint is still rejected. However,
34 the '-force-condition' flag can be used in this case for forcing GDB to
35 define the breakpoint, making all the current locations automatically
36 disabled. This may be useful if the user knows the condition will
37 become meaningful at a future location, e.g. due to a shared library
40 condition [-force] N COND
41 The behavior of this command is changed the same way for the 'break'
42 command as explained above. The '-force' flag can be used to force
43 GDB into defining the condition even when COND is invalid for all the
44 current locations of breakpoint N.
48 * There are new feature names for ARC targets: "org.gnu.gdb.arc.core"
49 and "org.gnu.gdb.arc.aux". The old names are still supported but
50 must be considered obsolete. They will be deprecated after some
53 * Help and apropos commands will now show the documentation of a
54 command only once, even if that command has one or more aliases.
55 These commands now show the command name, then all of its aliases,
56 and finally the description of the command.
58 * 'help aliases' now shows only the user defined aliases. GDB predefined
59 aliases are shown together with their aliased command.
61 * GDB now supports debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF
62 debugging information as well as source code.
64 When built with debuginfod, GDB can automatically query debuginfod
65 servers for the separate debug files and source code of the executable
68 To build GDB with debuginfod, pass --with-debuginfod to configure (this
69 requires libdebuginfod, the debuginfod client library).
71 debuginfod is distributed with elfutils, starting with version 0.178.
73 You can get the latest version from https://sourceware.org/elfutils.
75 * Multi-target debugging support
77 GDB now supports debugging multiple target connections
78 simultaneously. For example, you can now have each inferior
79 connected to different remote servers running in different machines,
80 or have one inferior debugging a local native process, an inferior
81 debugging a core dump, etc.
83 This support is experimental and comes with some limitations -- you
84 can only resume multiple targets simultaneously if all targets
85 support non-stop mode, and all remote stubs or servers must support
86 the same set of remote protocol features exactly. See also "info
87 connections" and "add-inferior -no-connection" below, and "maint set
88 target-non-stop" in the user manual.
90 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
92 ** GDBserver is now supported on ARC GNU/Linux.
94 ** GDBserver is now supported on RISC-V GNU/Linux.
96 ** GDBserver no longer supports these host triplets:
107 i[34567]86-*-mingw32ce*
109 * Debugging MS-Windows processes now sets $_exitsignal when the
110 inferior is terminated by a signal, instead of setting $_exitcode.
112 * Multithreaded symbol loading has now been enabled by default on systems
113 that support it (see entry for GDB 9, below), providing faster
114 performance for programs with many symbols.
116 * The $_siginfo convenience variable now also works on Windows targets,
117 and will display the EXCEPTION_RECORD of the last handled exception.
119 * TUI windows can now be arranged horizontally.
121 * The command history filename can now be set to the empty string
122 either using 'set history filename' or by setting 'GDBHISTFILE=' in
123 the environment. The effect of setting this filename to the empty
124 string is that GDB will not try to load any previous command
127 * On Windows targets, it is now possible to debug 32-bit programs with a
132 set exec-file-mismatch -- Set exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
133 show exec-file-mismatch -- Show exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
134 Set or show the option 'exec-file-mismatch'. When GDB attaches to a
135 running process, this new option indicates whether to detect
136 a mismatch between the current executable file loaded by GDB and the
137 executable file used to start the process. If 'ask', the default,
138 display a warning and ask the user whether to load the process
139 executable file; if 'warn', just display a warning; if 'off', don't
140 attempt to detect a mismatch.
142 tui new-layout NAME WINDOW WEIGHT [WINDOW WEIGHT]...
143 Define a new TUI layout, specifying its name and the windows that
146 maintenance print xml-tdesc [FILE]
147 Prints the current target description as an XML document. If the
148 optional FILE is provided (which is an XML target description) then
149 the target description is read from FILE into GDB, and then
152 maintenance print core-file-backed-mappings
153 Prints file-backed mappings loaded from a core file's note section.
154 Output is expected to be similar to that of "info proc mappings".
158 alias [-a] [--] ALIAS = COMMAND [DEFAULT-ARGS...]
159 The alias command can now specify default args for an alias.
160 GDB automatically prepends the alias default args to the argument list
161 provided explicitly by the user.
162 For example, to have a backtrace with full details, you can define
164 'alias bt_ALL = backtrace -entry-values both -frame-arg all
165 -past-main -past-entry -full'.
166 Alias default arguments can also use a set of nested 'with' commands,
167 e.g. 'alias pp10 = with print pretty -- with print elem 10 -- print'
168 defines the alias pp10 that will pretty print a maximum of 10 elements
169 of the given expression (if the expression is an array).
173 GNU/Linux/RISC-V (gdbserver) riscv*-*-linux*
178 ** gdb.register_window_type can be used to implement new TUI windows
181 ** Dynamic types can now be queried. gdb.Type has a new attribute,
182 "dynamic", and gdb.Type.sizeof can be None for a dynamic type. A
183 field of a dynamic type may have None for its "bitpos" attribute
186 ** Commands written in Python can be in the "TUI" help class by
187 registering with the new constant gdb.COMMAND_TUI.
189 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.architecture () to retrieve the
190 architecture of the pending frame.
192 ** New gdb.Architecture.registers method that returns a
193 gdb.RegisterDescriptorIterator object, an iterator that returns
194 gdb.RegisterDescriptor objects. The new RegisterDescriptor is a
195 way to query the registers available for an architecture.
197 ** New gdb.Architecture.register_groups method that returns a
198 gdb.RegisterGroupIterator object, an iterator that returns
199 gdb.RegisterGroup objects. The new RegisterGroup is a way to
200 discover the available register groups.
204 ** GDB can now be built with GNU Guile 3.0 and 2.2 in addition to 2.0.
206 ** Procedures 'memory-port-read-buffer-size',
207 'set-memory-port-read-buffer-size!', 'memory-port-write-buffer-size',
208 and 'set-memory-port-write-buffer-size!' are deprecated. When
209 using Guile 2.2 and later, users who need to control the size of
210 a memory port's internal buffer can use the 'setvbuf' procedure.
214 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
216 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
217 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
218 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
219 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
220 such as in system-wide init files.
222 * New built-in convenience functions $_gdb_setting, $_gdb_setting_str,
223 $_gdb_maint_setting and $_gdb_maint_setting_str provide access to values
224 of the GDB settings and the GDB maintenance settings. They are handy
225 for changing the logic of user defined commands depending on the
226 current GDB settings.
228 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
229 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
230 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
231 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
233 * Support for Pointer Authentication (PAC) on AArch64 Linux. Return
234 addresses that required unmasking are shown in the backtrace with the
237 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
238 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
240 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
241 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
242 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
244 * The command define-prefix can now define user defined prefix commands.
245 User defined commands can now be defined using these user defined prefix
248 * Command names can now use the . character.
250 * The RX port now supports XML target descriptions.
252 * GDB now shows the Ada task names at more places, e.g. in task switching
255 * GDB can now be compiled with Python 3 on Windows.
257 * New convenience variable $_ada_exception holds the address of the
258 Ada exception being thrown. This is set by Ada-related catchpoints.
260 * GDB can now place breakpoints on nested functions and subroutines in
261 Fortran code. The '::' operator can be used between parent and
262 child scopes when placing breakpoints, for example:
264 (gdb) break outer_function::inner_function
266 The 'outer_function::' prefix is only needed if 'inner_function' is
267 not visible in the current scope.
269 * In addition to the system-wide gdbinit file, if configured with
270 --with-system-gdbinit-dir, GDB will now also load files in that directory
271 as system gdbinit files, unless the -nx or -n flag is provided. Files
272 with extensions .gdb, .py and .scm are supported as long as GDB was
273 compiled with support for that language.
275 * GDB now supports multithreaded symbol loading for higher performance.
276 This feature is still in testing, so it is disabled by default. You
277 can turn it on using 'maint set worker-threads unlimited'.
281 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
282 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
283 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
284 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
285 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
287 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
290 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
291 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
292 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
295 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
296 symbols with static linkage.
298 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbols can be used to look up
299 all static symbols with static linkage.
301 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
302 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
304 ** gdb.Block now supports the dictionary syntax for accessing symbols in
305 this block (e.g. block['local_variable']).
309 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
310 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
311 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
312 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
313 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
314 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
315 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
317 define-prefix COMMAND
318 Define or mark a command as a user-defined prefix command.
320 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
321 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
322 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
323 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
324 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
325 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
326 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
327 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
328 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
329 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
330 of array elements to print.
332 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
333 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
335 set may-call-functions [on|off]
336 show may-call-functions
337 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
338 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
339 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
340 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
341 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
342 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
345 set print finish [on|off]
347 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
348 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
349 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
354 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
355 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
356 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
357 the old behavior back.
359 set print raw-values [on|off]
360 show print raw-values
361 By default, GDB applies the enabled pretty printers when printing a
362 value. This allows to ignore the enabled pretty printers for a series
363 of commands. The default is 'off'.
365 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
366 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
367 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
369 set style title foreground COLOR
370 set style title background COLOR
371 set style title intensity VALUE
372 Control the styling of titles.
374 set style highlight foreground COLOR
375 set style highlight background COLOR
376 set style highlight intensity VALUE
377 Control the styling of highlightings.
379 maint set worker-threads
380 maint show worker-threads
381 Control the number of worker threads that can be used by GDB. The
382 default is 0. "unlimited" lets GDB choose a number that is
383 reasonable. Currently worker threads are only used when demangling
384 the names of linker symbols.
386 set style tui-border foreground COLOR
387 set style tui-border background COLOR
388 Control the styling of TUI borders.
390 set style tui-active-border foreground COLOR
391 set style tui-active-border background COLOR
392 Control the styling of the active TUI border.
394 maint set test-settings KIND
395 maint show test-settings KIND
396 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
399 maint set tui-resize-message [on|off]
400 maint show tui-resize-message
401 Control whether GDB prints a message each time the terminal is
402 resized when in TUI mode. This is primarily useful for testing the
405 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
406 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
407 show print frame-info
408 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
409 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
410 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
411 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
413 set tui compact-source
414 show tui compact-source
416 Enable the "compact" display mode for the TUI source window. The
417 compact display uses only as much space as is needed for the line
418 numbers in the current file, and only a single space to separate the
419 line numbers from the source.
421 info modules [-q] [REGEXP]
422 Return a list of Fortran modules matching REGEXP, or all modules if
425 info module functions [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
426 Return a list of functions within all modules, grouped by module.
427 The list of functions can be restricted with the optional regular
428 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
429 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the function type signature, and REGEXP
430 matches against the function name.
432 info module variables [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
433 Return a list of variables within all modules, grouped by module.
434 The list of variables can be restricted with the optional regular
435 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
436 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the variable type, and REGEXP matches
437 against the variable name.
439 set debug remote-packet-max-chars
440 show debug remote-packet-max-chars
441 Controls the number of characters to output in a remote packet when using
443 The default is 512 bytes.
446 Lists the target connections currently in use.
451 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
452 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
456 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
457 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
458 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
459 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
460 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
464 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
465 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
466 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
467 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
469 info sources [-dirname | -basename] [--] [REGEXP]
470 This command has now optional arguments to only print the files
471 whose names match REGEXP. The arguments -dirname and -basename
472 allow to restrict matching respectively to the dirname and basename
476 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
477 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
478 the user visualize the different styles.
480 set print frame-arguments
481 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
482 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
484 set print raw-frame-arguments
485 show print raw-frame-arguments
487 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
488 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
489 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
492 add-inferior [-no-connection]
493 The add-inferior command now supports a "-no-connection" flag that
494 makes the new inferior start with no target connection associated.
495 By default, the new inferior inherits the target connection of the
496 current inferior. See also "info connections".
499 This command's output now includes a new "Connection" column
500 indicating which target connection an inferior is bound to. See
501 "info connections" above.
503 maint test-options require-delimiter
504 maint test-options unknown-is-error
505 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
506 maint show test-options-completion-result
507 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
510 focus, winheight, +, -, >, <
511 These commands are now case-sensitive.
513 * New command options, command completion
515 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
516 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
517 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
518 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
519 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
520 number of commands got support for new command options in this
523 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
524 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
525 set by "set print" subcommands:
529 -array-indexes [on|off]
530 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
535 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
536 -static-members [on|off]
541 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
542 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
543 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
544 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
546 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
547 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
548 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
550 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
551 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
552 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
553 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
554 |location-and-address|short-location
558 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
559 exposed as command options too:
565 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
566 support the following options:
571 ** The new "info sources" options -dirname and -basename options
572 are using the standard '-OPT' infrastructure.
574 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
575 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
576 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
579 (gdb) p -ra -p -o 0 -- *myptr
581 The above is equivalent to:
583 (gdb) print -raw-values -pretty -object off -- *myptr
585 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
586 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
587 variables" and "info functions".
589 ** The "info variables", "info functions", and "whereis" commands
590 now take a '-n' flag that excludes non-debug symbols (symbols
591 from the symbol table, not from the debug info such as DWARF)
594 * Completion improvements
596 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
597 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
600 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
601 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
604 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
605 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
606 completes on filenames.
608 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
609 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
611 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
613 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
619 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
620 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
621 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
623 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
624 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
625 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
627 -symbol-info-functions, -symbol-info-types, and -symbol-info-variables
628 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
629 functions', 'info types', and 'info variables' respectively.
631 -symbol-info-modules, this is the MI equivalent of the CLI 'info
634 -symbol-info-module-functions and -symbol-info-module-variables.
635 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
636 module functions' and 'info module variables'.
640 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
642 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
643 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
644 the following commands and events:
648 - =breakpoint-created
649 - =breakpoint-modified
651 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
652 this behavior with previous MI versions.
654 ** Backtraces and frames include a new optional field addr_flags which is
655 given after the addr field. On AArch64 this contains PAC if the address
656 has been masked in the frame. On all other targets the field is not
661 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
662 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
663 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
664 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
666 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.82.
668 Using another implementation of the make program or an earlier version of
669 GNU make to build GDB or GDBserver is not supported.
671 * Building GDB now requires GNU readline >= 7.0.
673 GDB now bundles GNU readline 8.0, but if you choose to use
674 --with-system-readline, only readline >= 7.0 can be used.
676 * The TUI SingleKey keymap is now named "SingleKey". This can be used
677 from .inputrc to bind keys in this keymap. This feature is only
678 available when gdb is built against GNU readline 8.0 or later.
680 * Removed targets and native configurations
682 GDB no longer supports debugging the Cell Broadband Engine. This includes
683 both debugging standalone Cell/B.E. SPU applications and integrated debugging
684 of Cell/B.E. applications that use both the PPU and SPU architectures.
690 * Removed targets and native configurations
692 Solaris 10 i?86-*-solaris2.10, x86_64-*-solaris2.10,
695 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
697 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
698 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
701 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
702 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
703 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
706 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
709 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
710 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
711 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
713 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
714 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
716 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
717 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
718 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
719 in the GDB user manual.
721 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
724 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
726 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
727 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
728 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
729 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
730 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
731 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
732 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
733 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
734 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
735 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
736 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
737 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
739 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
740 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
741 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
744 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
749 set debug compile-cplus-types
750 show debug compile-cplus-types
751 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
752 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiling
757 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
760 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
761 Apply a command to some frames.
762 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
763 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
766 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
767 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
770 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
771 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
774 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
776 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
778 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
779 maint show dwarf unwinders
780 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
783 Display a list of open files for a process.
787 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
788 These commands all now take a frame specification which
789 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
790 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
791 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
792 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
793 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
795 target remote FILENAME
796 target extended-remote FILENAME
797 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
798 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
800 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
801 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
802 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
803 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
804 These commands can now print only the searched entities
805 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
806 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
807 printing headers or informations messages.
813 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
814 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
815 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
818 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
819 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
820 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
821 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
823 set tui tab-width NCHARS
824 show tui tab-width NCHARS
825 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
827 set style enabled [on|off]
829 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
830 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
832 set style sources [on|off]
834 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
835 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
836 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
838 set style filename foreground COLOR
839 set style filename background COLOR
840 set style filename intensity VALUE
841 Control the styling of file names.
843 set style function foreground COLOR
844 set style function background COLOR
845 set style function intensity VALUE
846 Control the styling of function names.
848 set style variable foreground COLOR
849 set style variable background COLOR
850 set style variable intensity VALUE
851 Control the styling of variable names.
853 set style address foreground COLOR
854 set style address background COLOR
855 set style address intensity VALUE
856 Control the styling of addresses.
860 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
861 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
862 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
863 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
864 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
866 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
867 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
869 * New native configurations
871 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
872 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
876 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
878 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
879 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
881 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
885 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
890 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
892 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
893 space associated to that inferior.
895 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
896 of objfiles associated to that program space.
898 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
899 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
902 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
903 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
904 correct and did not work properly.
906 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
907 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
913 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
914 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
915 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
916 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
917 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
919 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
921 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
924 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
925 offset to all sections.
927 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
928 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
929 address of individual sections using '-s'.
931 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
932 (address of the text section).
934 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
935 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
936 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
937 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
940 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
941 for the rest of the current command.
943 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
944 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
946 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
947 files created on FreeBSD systems.
949 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
952 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
953 the vector length while the process is running.
959 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
961 set|show varsize-limit
962 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
963 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
964 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
966 set|show record btrace cpu
967 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
970 maint check libthread-db
971 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
974 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
975 maint show check-libthread-db
976 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
977 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
982 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
984 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
985 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
987 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
989 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
990 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
991 of convenience variables.
993 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
994 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
995 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
999 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
1001 * Removed targets and native configurations
1003 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
1004 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
1005 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
1006 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
1008 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
1010 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
1011 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
1012 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
1013 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
1014 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
1015 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
1020 --enable-codesign=CERT
1021 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
1022 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
1023 gdb to work properly.
1025 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
1026 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
1028 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
1030 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
1031 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
1032 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
1034 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
1035 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
1037 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
1038 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
1039 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
1040 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
1041 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
1043 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
1044 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
1045 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
1046 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
1048 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
1049 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
1051 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
1052 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
1053 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
1055 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
1056 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
1057 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
1059 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
1060 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
1061 environment" command.
1063 * Completion improvements
1065 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
1066 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
1067 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
1068 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
1071 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
1072 (gdb) b function(int)
1074 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
1075 C++ anonymous namespaces:
1078 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
1079 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
1080 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
1082 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
1083 completion support, that better understands what you're
1084 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
1085 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
1086 setting a breakpoint.
1088 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
1090 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
1092 * New command line options (gcore)
1095 Dump all memory mappings.
1097 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
1099 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
1100 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
1101 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
1103 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
1108 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
1111 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
1112 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
1113 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
1114 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
1115 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
1116 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
1117 a breakpoint from Python.
1119 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1121 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1122 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
1123 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
1125 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
1127 function[abi:cxx11](int)
1130 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
1133 (gdb) b function(int)
1135 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
1137 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
1139 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
1143 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
1144 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
1145 description of these.
1147 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
1148 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
1149 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
1151 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
1152 manual for a further description of this feature.
1155 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1157 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
1158 specified initial working directory.
1160 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
1161 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
1163 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
1164 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
1166 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
1167 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
1169 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
1170 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
1171 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
1172 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
1173 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
1175 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
1176 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
1177 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
1179 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
1180 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
1181 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
1182 in the *stopped notification.
1184 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
1185 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
1187 * New remote packets
1189 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
1190 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
1191 the inferior when starting it.
1194 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
1195 before starting the remote inferior.
1198 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
1199 user-set environment variables should be unset).
1202 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
1205 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
1208 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
1209 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
1211 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
1212 filter the tests to be run.
1214 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
1215 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
1220 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
1222 set|show compile-gcc
1223 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
1224 with the 'compile' commands.
1226 set debug separate-debug-file
1227 show debug separate-debug-file
1228 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
1230 set dump-excluded-mappings
1231 show dump-excluded-mappings
1232 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
1233 dumped when generating a core file.
1235 maint info selftests
1236 List the registered selftests.
1239 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
1242 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
1244 set|show print type nested-type-limit
1245 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
1246 type printer will show.
1248 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
1251 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
1253 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
1256 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
1257 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
1258 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
1259 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
1261 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
1262 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
1263 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
1264 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
1265 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
1266 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
1268 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
1269 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
1270 unless you tell it the variable's type:
1273 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
1277 * New native configurations
1279 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
1280 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
1284 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
1285 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
1286 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
1288 * Removed targets and native configurations
1290 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
1292 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
1294 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
1295 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
1296 available in future Intel CPUs.
1298 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
1302 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
1303 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
1305 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
1308 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
1310 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
1312 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
1313 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
1316 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
1318 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
1319 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
1321 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
1323 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
1324 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
1325 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
1326 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
1329 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
1331 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
1332 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
1335 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
1337 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
1338 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
1340 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
1342 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
1347 eval "print $arg%d", $i
1352 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
1354 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
1355 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
1357 * New native configurations
1359 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1363 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
1364 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1366 * Removed targets and native configurations
1368 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1369 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
1374 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
1376 maint print arc arc-instruction address
1377 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
1381 set disassembler-options
1382 show disassembler-options
1383 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
1384 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
1385 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
1386 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
1387 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
1392 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
1393 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
1395 -file-list-shared-libraries
1396 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
1397 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
1400 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
1401 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
1403 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
1405 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
1407 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
1408 default. One must now explicitly configure with
1409 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
1410 option will be removed in a future release.
1412 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
1415 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
1416 memory backward from the given address. For example:
1419 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
1420 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
1421 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
1422 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
1423 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
1424 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
1425 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
1426 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
1427 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
1429 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
1430 arrays of dynamic types.
1432 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
1433 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1434 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1435 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1436 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1437 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
1439 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
1442 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
1443 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
1444 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
1446 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
1448 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
1449 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
1450 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
1451 signal received and code location.
1455 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
1456 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
1457 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
1458 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
1460 * Rust language support.
1461 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
1462 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
1465 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
1467 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
1468 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
1469 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
1470 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
1471 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
1472 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
1473 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
1474 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
1475 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
1476 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
1479 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
1481 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
1482 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
1487 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
1488 skip -function function
1489 skip -rfunction regular-expression
1490 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
1491 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
1492 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
1494 maint info line-table REGEXP
1495 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data structure.
1498 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
1501 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
1502 using the TTY file for input/output.
1506 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
1507 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
1508 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
1509 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
1510 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
1512 signal-event EVENTID
1513 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
1514 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
1515 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
1516 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
1517 signalling an event.
1519 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
1520 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
1521 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
1523 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
1526 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
1527 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
1528 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
1529 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
1530 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
1531 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
1533 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
1534 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
1535 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
1536 bytecode into native code.
1538 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
1539 recording. For example:
1541 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
1543 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
1545 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
1549 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
1551 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
1553 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
1555 * Per-inferior thread numbers
1557 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
1558 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
1559 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
1563 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
1564 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
1565 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
1566 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
1568 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
1569 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
1570 are no longer unique between inferiors.
1572 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
1573 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
1574 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
1576 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
1579 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
1580 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
1583 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
1586 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
1587 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
1588 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
1589 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
1592 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
1595 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
1598 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
1601 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
1602 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
1605 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
1606 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
1608 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
1610 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
1612 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
1613 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
1615 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
1616 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
1619 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1620 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
1623 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
1624 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
1627 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1629 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
1630 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
1631 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
1633 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
1634 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
1638 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
1639 maint show target-non-stop
1640 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
1641 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
1642 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
1644 maint set bfd-sharing
1645 maint show bfd-sharing
1646 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
1649 show debug bfd-cache
1650 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
1654 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
1656 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1657 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1658 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
1660 set remote thread-events
1661 show remote thread-events
1662 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
1664 set ada print-signatures on|off
1665 show ada print-signatures"
1666 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
1667 selection menus. It is activated (@code{on}) by default.
1671 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
1672 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
1673 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
1675 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1676 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
1677 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
1678 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
1679 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
1680 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
1682 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1683 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
1685 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
1686 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
1688 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
1690 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
1691 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
1692 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
1693 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
1694 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
1695 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
1697 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
1698 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1701 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1703 * New remote packets
1706 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1708 exec-events feature in qSupported
1709 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1710 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1711 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1712 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1715 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1718 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1719 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1721 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1722 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1725 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1726 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1727 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1728 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1729 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1730 stop for that same thread.
1733 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1734 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1735 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1738 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1739 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1741 syscall_entry stop reason
1742 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1744 syscall_return stop reason
1745 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1747 * Extended-remote exec events
1749 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1750 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1751 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1753 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1754 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1755 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1757 * Thread names in remote protocol
1759 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1762 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1764 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1765 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1766 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1767 fork and exec catchpoints.
1769 * Remote syscall events
1771 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1772 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1774 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1775 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1776 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1780 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1781 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1786 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1787 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1788 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1789 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1790 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1791 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1793 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1795 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1796 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1797 including advance SIMD instructions.
1799 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1801 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1802 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1803 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1804 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1805 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1806 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1807 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1809 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1811 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1813 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1814 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1817 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1818 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
1819 and may include things like its command line arguments.
1821 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
1822 is now available on all platforms.
1824 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
1825 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
1826 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
1827 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
1828 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
1829 backward compatibility.
1831 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
1832 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
1833 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
1834 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
1836 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
1837 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
1838 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
1839 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
1842 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
1844 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
1846 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
1847 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
1848 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
1849 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
1850 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
1851 See "New remote packets" below.
1853 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
1854 available register groups, including target specific groups.
1856 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
1857 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
1858 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
1859 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
1864 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
1868 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
1869 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
1870 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
1871 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
1872 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
1873 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
1874 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
1875 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
1876 "const" version of the value respectively.
1880 maint print symbol-cache
1881 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
1883 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
1884 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
1886 maint flush-symbol-cache
1887 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
1891 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
1894 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
1898 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
1901 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
1902 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
1906 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
1909 Print information about branch tracing internals.
1911 maint btrace packet-history
1912 Print the raw branch tracing data.
1914 maint btrace clear-packet-history
1915 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
1918 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
1919 anew by the next "record" command.
1924 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
1925 show debug dwarf-die
1926 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
1928 set debug dwarf-read
1929 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
1930 show debug dwarf-read
1931 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
1933 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
1934 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1935 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
1936 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1938 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
1939 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1940 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
1941 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1943 set debug dwarf-line
1944 show debug dwarf-line
1945 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
1948 show max-completions
1949 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
1950 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
1951 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
1952 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
1954 set history remove-duplicates
1955 show history remove-duplicates
1956 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1958 maint set symbol-cache-size
1959 maint show symbol-cache-size
1960 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1962 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1963 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1965 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1966 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1968 set debug linux-namespaces
1969 show debug linux-namespaces
1970 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1972 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1973 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1974 Intel Processor Trace format.
1975 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1976 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1978 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1979 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1982 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
1983 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
1985 * Python/Guile scripting
1987 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
1988 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
1990 * New remote packets
1992 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
1993 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
1995 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
1996 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
1999 Enable Intel Processor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
2000 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
2003 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
2004 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
2008 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
2009 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
2010 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
2014 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
2015 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
2018 Return information about files on the remote system.
2020 qXfer:exec-file:read
2021 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
2022 create a process running on the remote system.
2025 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
2026 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
2027 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
2028 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
2031 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
2034 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
2036 vforkdone stop reason
2037 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
2038 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
2040 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
2041 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
2042 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
2043 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
2044 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
2045 whether these features are enabled.
2047 * Extended-remote fork events
2049 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
2050 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
2051 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
2052 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
2054 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
2055 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
2056 the btrace record target.
2057 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
2059 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
2060 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
2062 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
2065 * Removed command line options
2067 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
2069 * Removed targets and native configurations
2071 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
2072 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
2074 * New configure options
2077 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
2078 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
2080 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
2081 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
2082 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
2083 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
2085 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
2089 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
2091 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
2093 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
2097 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
2098 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
2099 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
2100 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
2101 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
2102 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
2103 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
2104 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
2105 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
2106 selecting a new file to debug.
2107 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
2108 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
2110 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
2113 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
2114 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
2115 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
2116 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
2118 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2120 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2121 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2122 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2123 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2125 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
2126 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
2127 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
2128 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
2129 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
2130 interface with this new feature are:
2132 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
2133 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
2137 demangle [-l language] [--] name
2138 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
2139 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
2140 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
2141 as "maint demangler-warning".
2143 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
2144 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
2146 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
2147 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
2150 maint print user-registers
2151 List all currently available "user" registers.
2153 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
2154 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
2155 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
2157 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
2158 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
2159 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
2162 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
2163 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
2164 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
2165 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
2168 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
2169 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
2170 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
2171 switched threads meanwhile.
2173 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
2175 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
2176 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
2177 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
2178 is now the default mode.
2182 set debug symbol-lookup
2183 show debug symbol-lookup
2184 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
2188 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
2189 inferiors that have exited.
2193 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
2197 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2199 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
2200 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
2201 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
2202 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
2203 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
2205 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2206 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2207 its alias "share", instead.
2209 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
2211 * New command line options
2214 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
2216 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
2217 as specified in ISO C99.
2219 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
2220 with or without disassembly.
2224 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
2225 available is determined at configure time.
2226 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
2227 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
2229 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2233 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
2237 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
2239 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
2240 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
2242 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
2243 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
2247 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
2248 show print symbol-loading
2249 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
2250 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
2251 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
2252 becomes less useful.
2254 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
2255 show guile print-stack
2256 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
2258 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
2259 show auto-load guile-scripts
2260 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
2262 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
2263 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
2264 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
2265 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
2266 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
2267 usage of this option.
2269 set auto-connect-native-target
2271 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
2272 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
2273 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
2275 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
2276 show record btrace replay-memory-access
2277 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
2279 maint set target-async (on|off)
2280 maint show target-async
2281 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
2282 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
2283 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
2284 occurring only in synchronous mode.
2286 set mi-async (on|off)
2288 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
2289 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
2291 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
2292 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
2294 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
2295 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
2296 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
2297 "set target-async on" command.
2299 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2301 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
2302 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
2303 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
2304 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
2305 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
2307 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
2308 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
2309 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
2311 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
2312 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
2313 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
2314 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
2315 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
2316 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
2317 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
2319 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
2320 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
2322 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
2323 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
2324 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
2326 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
2327 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
2328 memory or registers.
2330 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
2332 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
2333 remote. It now works with all targets.
2335 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
2336 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
2337 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
2338 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
2339 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
2340 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
2341 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
2342 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
2343 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
2346 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
2347 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
2348 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
2350 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
2352 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
2353 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
2354 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
2356 * New remote packets
2358 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
2359 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
2360 branch trace incrementally.
2364 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
2365 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
2367 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
2368 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
2369 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
2370 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
2371 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
2374 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
2376 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2377 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2378 its alias "share", instead.
2380 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
2381 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
2386 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
2387 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
2388 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
2389 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
2390 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
2391 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
2392 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
2393 commands and CLI execution commands.
2395 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
2397 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
2398 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
2399 recording has been added.
2401 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2403 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
2404 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
2406 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
2407 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
2408 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
2409 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
2410 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
2411 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
2414 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
2416 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
2418 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
2419 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
2420 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
2421 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
2426 (gdb) info registers rax
2429 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
2430 "*value not available*".
2432 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
2437 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
2438 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
2439 ** Line tables representation has been added.
2440 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
2441 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
2442 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
2446 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
2447 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
2448 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
2450 * Removed native configurations
2452 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
2453 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
2455 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2456 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2457 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
2458 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
2459 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2460 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2461 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2465 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
2466 maint check-psymtabs
2467 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
2469 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
2470 maint expand-symtabs
2471 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
2474 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2476 maint set|show per-command
2477 maint set|show per-command space
2478 maint set|show per-command time
2479 maint set|show per-command symtab
2480 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
2482 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
2483 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
2484 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
2485 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
2486 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
2489 info exceptions REGEXP
2490 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
2491 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
2496 set debug symfile off|on
2498 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
2499 symbol tables within those files
2501 set print raw frame-arguments
2502 show print raw frame-arguments
2503 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
2504 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
2506 set remote trace-status-packet
2507 show remote trace-status-packet
2508 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
2512 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
2516 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
2518 set startup-with-shell
2519 show startup-with-shell
2520 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
2525 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
2526 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
2528 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
2529 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
2530 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
2531 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
2534 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
2535 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
2536 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
2538 * New command-line options
2540 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2542 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
2543 buffer in Common Trace Format.
2545 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
2548 * GDB now implements the C++ 'typeid' operator.
2550 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
2551 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
2553 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
2554 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
2556 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
2557 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
2558 due to an uncaught signal.
2562 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
2563 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
2564 command, which should contain "language-option".
2566 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
2567 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
2569 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
2570 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
2571 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
2572 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2573 "undefined-command-error-code".
2575 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
2578 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
2580 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
2581 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
2584 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
2585 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
2587 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
2588 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
2589 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
2591 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
2592 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
2593 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
2594 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
2595 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2596 "exec-run-start-option".
2598 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
2599 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
2601 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
2602 the new "info exceptions" command.
2604 * New system-wide configuration scripts
2605 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
2606 configuration scripts for the following systems:
2610 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
2611 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
2612 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
2615 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
2616 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
2618 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
2619 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
2620 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
2622 * New remote packets
2626 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
2627 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
2628 involvemement at each single-step.
2630 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
2631 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
2632 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
2633 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
2634 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
2635 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
2638 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2640 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
2641 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
2643 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
2644 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
2645 trace state variables.
2647 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
2650 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
2651 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
2653 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
2655 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
2656 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
2657 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
2658 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2660 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
2662 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
2663 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
2664 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
2665 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
2667 set|show record full insn-number-max
2668 set|show record full stop-at-limit
2669 set|show record full memory-query
2671 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
2672 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
2673 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
2674 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
2675 This new recording method can be enabled using:
2679 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
2680 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
2682 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
2683 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
2684 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
2686 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
2687 instruction granularity
2689 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
2690 function granularity
2692 * New native configurations
2694 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
2695 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
2696 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2697 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2701 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2702 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2703 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2704 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2705 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2707 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2708 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2709 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2710 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2711 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2712 --data-directory command-line option.
2714 * New command line options:
2716 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2717 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2719 * Removed command line options
2721 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2724 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2727 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2731 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2733 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2735 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2737 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2739 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2740 of architecture in the Python API.
2742 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2743 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2745 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2747 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2748 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2750 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2752 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2755 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2756 default for GCC since November 2000.
2758 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2760 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2761 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2763 * New configure options
2765 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2766 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2767 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2768 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2769 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2770 options allow the user to override that default.
2771 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2772 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2773 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2775 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2778 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2779 conditions to be attached.
2782 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2784 python-interactive [command]
2786 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2787 and print the result of expressions.
2790 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2792 enable type-printer [name]...
2793 disable type-printer [name]...
2794 Enable or disable type printers.
2798 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2799 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2804 set print type methods (on|off)
2805 show print type methods
2806 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2807 The default is to show them.
2809 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2810 show print type typedefs
2811 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2812 The default is to show them.
2814 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2815 show filename-display
2816 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2817 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
2819 set trace-buffer-size
2820 show trace-buffer-size
2821 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
2823 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
2824 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
2825 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
2829 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
2832 set debug coff-pe-read
2833 show debug coff-pe-read
2834 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
2839 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
2842 set debug notification
2843 show debug notification
2844 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
2848 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
2849 "=cmd-param-changed".
2850 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
2851 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
2852 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
2853 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
2854 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
2855 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
2856 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
2857 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
2859 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
2860 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
2861 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
2862 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
2863 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
2864 library load/unload events.
2865 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
2866 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
2867 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
2868 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
2869 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
2870 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
2871 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
2872 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
2874 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
2875 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
2876 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
2877 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
2879 * New remote packets
2882 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
2883 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2886 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
2887 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
2891 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
2892 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2895 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
2896 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2898 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
2900 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
2901 for more x32 ABI info.
2903 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
2905 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
2907 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2908 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
2909 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
2910 "info os files" lists file descriptors
2911 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
2912 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
2913 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
2914 "info os msg" lists message queues
2915 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
2917 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
2918 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
2919 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
2920 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
2921 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
2922 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
2924 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
2925 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
2926 record/replay support.
2928 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
2932 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
2935 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
2937 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
2938 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
2940 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
2942 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
2943 the source at which the symbol was defined.
2945 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
2946 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
2947 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
2950 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
2951 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
2953 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2954 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2955 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2957 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2958 object associated with a PC value.
2960 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2961 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2963 * Go language support.
2964 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2967 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2968 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2970 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2971 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2973 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2974 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2975 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2976 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2977 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2980 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
2981 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
2982 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
2983 build/libcpp/expr.c.
2985 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
2986 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
2988 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
2989 since December 2007.
2991 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
2992 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
2993 command does. For instance:
2995 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
2997 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
2998 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
2999 created, using the "condition" command.
3001 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
3002 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
3004 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
3006 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
3007 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
3008 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
3009 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
3010 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
3011 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
3012 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
3013 files with older .gdb_index sections.
3015 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
3016 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
3017 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
3018 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
3019 the .gdb_index section.
3021 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
3023 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
3028 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
3030 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
3034 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
3035 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
3036 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
3038 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
3039 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
3041 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
3044 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
3045 C++ and Java objects.
3047 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
3048 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
3049 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
3050 configured with '--with-python'.
3052 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
3053 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
3054 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
3055 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
3056 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
3057 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
3058 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
3060 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
3061 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
3062 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
3063 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
3065 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
3066 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
3067 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
3068 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
3070 ** "set print symbol"
3072 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
3073 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
3074 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
3076 * Deprecated commands
3078 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
3079 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
3083 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3084 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
3086 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
3087 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
3088 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
3089 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
3094 set mips compression
3095 show mips compression
3096 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
3097 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
3100 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
3102 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
3103 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
3104 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
3105 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
3107 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
3111 Disable auto-loading globally.
3114 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
3116 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
3117 show auto-load gdb-scripts
3118 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
3120 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
3121 show auto-load python-scripts
3122 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
3124 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
3125 show auto-load local-gdbinit
3126 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
3128 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
3129 show auto-load libthread-db
3130 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
3132 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3133 show auto-load scripts-directory
3134 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
3135 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
3136 of the directories listed by this option.
3137 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3139 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3140 show auto-load safe-path
3141 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
3142 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3144 set debug auto-load on|off
3145 show debug auto-load
3146 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
3148 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
3150 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
3151 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
3152 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
3153 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
3155 set dprintf-function <expr>
3156 show dprintf-function
3157 set dprintf-channel <expr>
3158 show dprintf-channel
3159 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
3160 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
3162 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
3163 show disconnected-dprintf
3164 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
3165 after GDB disconnects.
3167 * New configure options
3169 --with-auto-load-dir
3170 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
3171 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
3172 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
3173 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
3174 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
3176 --with-auto-load-safe-path
3177 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
3178 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
3180 --without-auto-load-safe-path
3181 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
3184 * New remote packets
3186 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
3188 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
3189 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
3190 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
3191 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
3195 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
3196 program without GDB involvement.
3198 * New command line options
3200 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
3201 before loading inferior.
3202 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
3203 execute it before loading inferior.
3205 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
3207 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
3208 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
3209 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
3210 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
3213 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
3214 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
3216 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
3217 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
3218 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
3219 target hardware watchpoint.
3221 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
3222 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
3223 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
3224 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
3228 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
3229 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
3232 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
3233 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
3234 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
3235 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
3236 now "message", which just prints the error message without
3239 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3242 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
3243 modules library. This module provides functionality for
3244 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
3245 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
3246 corresponding value.
3248 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
3249 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
3250 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
3253 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
3254 static_block will return the global and static blocks
3255 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
3256 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
3258 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
3260 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
3263 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
3264 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
3265 available in the CLI.
3267 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
3268 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
3269 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
3270 "some_type.items()".
3272 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
3275 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
3276 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
3277 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
3278 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
3279 any anonymous fields.
3283 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
3286 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
3287 "=breakpoint-modified".
3289 ** New command -ada-task-info.
3291 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
3292 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
3293 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
3296 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
3297 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
3298 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
3299 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
3300 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
3302 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
3303 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
3305 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
3306 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
3307 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
3308 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
3309 use this option to specify where to find it.
3311 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3312 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
3313 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
3314 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
3315 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
3316 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3317 section in the user manual for more details.
3319 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
3320 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
3321 become available after that.
3323 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
3325 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
3326 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
3332 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
3333 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
3337 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
3338 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
3339 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
3341 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
3342 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
3343 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
3345 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
3346 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
3347 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
3348 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
3349 name starts with a hyphen.
3351 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
3352 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
3353 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
3354 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
3355 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
3356 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
3357 number of bytes that will be collected.
3360 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
3361 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
3362 setting the variable trace-notes.
3365 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
3366 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
3367 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
3370 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
3371 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
3372 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
3373 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
3374 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
3377 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
3378 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
3379 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
3383 set debug dwarf2-read
3384 show debug dwarf2-read
3385 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
3386 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
3388 set debug symtab-create
3389 show debug symtab-create
3390 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
3391 creation. The default is off.
3394 show extended-prompt
3395 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
3396 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
3397 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
3398 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
3399 prompt is displayed.
3401 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
3402 show print entry-values
3403 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
3404 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
3405 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
3407 set debug entry-values
3408 show debug entry-values
3409 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
3410 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
3412 set basenames-may-differ
3413 show basenames-may-differ
3414 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
3415 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
3416 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
3417 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
3418 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
3419 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
3420 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
3421 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
3427 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
3428 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
3429 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
3430 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
3432 set trace-stop-notes
3433 show trace-stop-notes
3434 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
3435 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
3436 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
3437 started by someone else.
3439 * New remote packets
3443 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3447 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3451 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
3455 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
3459 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
3462 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
3463 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
3467 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
3471 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3473 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
3475 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
3477 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
3479 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
3480 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
3481 matches the given regular expression.
3483 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
3485 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
3486 dumping the instruction opcodes.
3488 * New command line options
3490 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
3491 This is mostly for testing purposes.
3493 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
3494 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
3496 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
3497 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
3498 source path list instead of augmenting it.
3500 * GDB now understands thread names.
3502 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
3503 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
3505 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
3506 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
3509 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
3510 has been integrated into GDB.
3514 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
3515 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
3516 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
3518 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3519 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
3520 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
3521 and allows for more dynamic content.
3523 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
3524 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
3525 have an is_valid method.
3527 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3528 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
3529 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
3531 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
3533 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
3534 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
3535 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
3536 that function like so:
3538 result = some_value (10,20)
3540 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
3541 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
3542 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
3544 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
3545 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
3546 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
3547 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
3548 New function: register_pretty_printer.
3550 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
3551 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
3553 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
3555 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
3558 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
3559 holds the thread's name.
3561 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
3562 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
3563 occurring in the process being debugged.
3564 The following events are currently supported:
3565 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
3566 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
3567 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
3571 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
3572 instantiation. For example, if you have:
3574 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
3576 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
3577 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
3578 was added to GCC 4.5.
3580 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
3581 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
3582 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
3583 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
3584 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
3585 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
3587 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
3588 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
3589 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
3590 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
3591 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
3593 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
3594 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
3595 execution to a label.
3597 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
3598 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
3599 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
3600 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
3602 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
3603 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
3604 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
3607 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
3609 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
3610 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
3611 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
3612 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
3613 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
3614 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
3617 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
3619 While now you see this:
3622 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
3624 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
3627 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
3628 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
3629 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
3630 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
3632 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3633 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
3634 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
3635 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3636 section in the user manual for more details.
3638 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3640 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
3641 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
3643 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
3645 * New native configurations
3647 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3651 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
3653 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
3654 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
3655 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
3656 in the GDB user manual.
3658 * Guile support was removed.
3660 * New features in the GNU simulator
3662 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
3664 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
3666 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
3668 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
3670 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
3671 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
3672 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
3673 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
3674 was always disabled for such configurations.
3678 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
3680 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
3681 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
3691 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
3692 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
3693 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
3695 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
3697 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
3698 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
3699 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
3700 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3702 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3703 mentioned flavors of operators.
3705 ** static const class members
3707 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3708 class definition has been fixed.
3710 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3712 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3713 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3714 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3715 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3716 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3717 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3719 * Static tracepoints
3721 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3722 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3723 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3724 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3725 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3726 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3727 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3728 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3729 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3730 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3731 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3732 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3733 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3734 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3735 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3736 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3737 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3738 the "New remote packets" section below.
3740 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3742 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3743 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3744 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3745 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3749 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3750 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3751 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3752 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3753 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3754 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3755 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3757 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3760 * New remote packets
3764 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3768 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3769 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3770 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3771 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3772 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3773 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3777 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3781 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3784 qXfer:statictrace:read
3786 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3787 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3788 to gdb's qSupported query.
3792 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3796 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3797 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3799 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3800 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3803 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3805 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3806 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3807 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3808 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3810 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3811 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3812 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3813 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3814 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3815 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3816 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3818 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
3819 for static tracepoints support.
3821 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
3823 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
3824 it understands register description.
3826 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
3828 * X86 general purpose registers
3830 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
3831 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
3832 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
3833 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
3834 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
3836 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
3837 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
3838 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
3839 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
3840 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
3841 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
3843 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
3844 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
3845 in the specified file.
3847 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
3848 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
3849 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
3850 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
3851 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
3852 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
3853 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
3854 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
3855 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
3856 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
3860 eval template, expressions...
3861 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
3862 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
3864 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
3865 show target-file-system-kind
3866 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
3869 save breakpoints <filename>
3870 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
3871 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
3872 definitions, use the `source' command.
3874 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
3877 info static-tracepoint-markers
3878 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
3880 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
3881 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
3882 function, line, address, or marker ID.
3886 Enable and disable observer mode.
3888 set may-write-registers on|off
3889 set may-write-memory on|off
3890 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
3891 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
3892 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
3893 set may-interrupt on|off
3894 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
3895 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
3896 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
3897 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
3898 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
3899 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
3900 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
3902 set record memory-query on|off
3903 show record memory-query
3904 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
3905 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
3910 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
3914 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
3915 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
3916 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
3917 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
3918 GDB using Python' in the manual.
3920 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
3921 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
3922 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
3923 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
3925 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
3926 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
3928 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
3930 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
3932 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
3934 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
3935 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
3936 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
3938 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
3939 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
3940 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
3941 regular breakpoints.
3945 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
3947 * D language support.
3948 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
3951 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
3952 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
3953 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3954 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3955 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3957 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3958 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3959 conditions of the form:
3961 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3963 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3964 interface mentioned above.
3966 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
3970 ** Namespace Support
3972 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3973 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3974 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3975 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3976 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3980 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
3981 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
3986 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
3987 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
3991 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
3996 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
3999 * Multi-program debugging.
4001 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
4002 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
4003 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
4004 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
4005 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
4006 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
4007 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
4008 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
4010 * New tracing features
4012 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
4014 ** Trace state variables
4016 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
4017 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
4018 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
4019 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
4020 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
4021 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
4022 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
4023 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
4024 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
4025 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
4029 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
4030 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
4031 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
4032 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
4033 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
4034 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
4035 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
4036 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
4037 the regular trace command.
4039 ** Disconnected tracing
4041 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
4042 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
4043 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
4044 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
4045 connection is lost unexpectedly.
4049 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
4050 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
4051 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
4052 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
4053 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
4054 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
4057 ** Circular trace buffer
4059 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
4060 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
4061 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
4062 not be available for all target agents.
4067 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
4068 the arguments to be comma-separated.
4071 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
4072 which only declare a variable are not shown.
4075 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
4076 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
4079 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
4080 "set script-extension" (see below).
4082 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4084 record save [<FILENAME>]
4085 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
4086 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
4088 record restore <FILENAME>
4089 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
4090 earlier time, for replay debugging.
4092 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
4095 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
4096 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
4097 inferior has loaded.
4102 maint info program-spaces
4103 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
4105 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
4106 show remote interrupt-sequence
4107 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
4108 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
4109 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
4110 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
4111 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
4113 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
4114 show remote interrupt-on-connect
4115 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
4116 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
4119 set remotebreak [on | off]
4121 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
4123 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
4124 Create or modify a trace state variable.
4127 List trace state variables and their values.
4129 delete tvariable $NAME ...
4130 Delete one or more trace state variables.
4133 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
4134 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
4136 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
4137 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
4139 * New expression syntax
4141 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
4142 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
4146 set follow-exec-mode new|same
4147 show follow-exec-mode
4148 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
4149 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
4150 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
4152 set default-collect EXPR, ...
4153 show default-collect
4154 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
4155 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
4156 such as registers or a critical global variable.
4158 set disconnected-tracing
4159 show disconnected-tracing
4160 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
4161 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
4164 set circular-trace-buffer
4165 show circular-trace-buffer
4166 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
4167 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
4168 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
4169 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
4171 set script-extension off|soft|strict
4172 show script-extension
4173 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
4174 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
4175 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
4176 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
4178 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
4180 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
4181 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
4182 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
4183 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
4184 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
4185 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
4186 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
4189 * Python API Improvements
4191 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
4192 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
4193 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
4195 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
4196 `is_base_class' attribute.
4198 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
4200 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
4201 evaluate an expression.
4203 * New remote packets
4206 Define a trace state variable.
4209 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
4212 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
4215 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
4218 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
4222 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
4224 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
4225 much more reliable. In particular:
4226 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
4227 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
4228 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
4229 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
4230 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
4231 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
4232 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
4233 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
4234 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
4235 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
4236 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
4237 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
4238 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
4239 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
4240 non-threaded programs.
4242 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
4243 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
4244 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
4247 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
4249 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
4250 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
4251 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
4252 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
4253 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
4255 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
4256 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
4257 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
4258 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
4259 for tracepoint actions.
4261 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
4262 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
4263 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
4265 * Process record and replay
4267 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
4268 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
4269 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
4272 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
4273 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
4274 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
4277 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
4278 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
4281 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
4282 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
4283 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
4284 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
4285 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
4286 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
4287 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
4288 the installation instructions for more information.
4290 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
4291 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
4292 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
4293 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
4295 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
4296 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
4298 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
4299 now complete on file names.
4301 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
4302 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
4303 For instance, consider:
4305 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
4306 # struct example variable;
4309 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
4310 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
4312 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
4313 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
4315 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
4316 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
4319 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
4320 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
4321 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
4323 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
4324 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
4325 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
4326 and simulator targets may also provide them.
4328 * New remote packets
4331 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4334 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
4335 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
4336 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
4339 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
4340 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
4343 Obtains additional operating system information
4347 Read or write additional signal information.
4349 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
4351 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
4352 packet that permitted the stub to pass a process id was removed.
4353 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
4355 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
4356 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
4358 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
4359 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
4360 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
4362 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
4363 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
4365 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
4367 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
4369 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
4370 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
4372 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote protocol packet now allows passing a
4373 list of section offsets.
4375 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
4376 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
4377 have also been fixed.
4379 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
4380 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
4381 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
4383 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
4386 template<typename T> class C { };
4389 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
4391 ptype C<char const *>
4392 ptype C<char const*>
4393 ptype C<const char *>
4394 ptype C<const char*>
4396 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
4398 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
4399 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4401 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
4402 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4403 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
4405 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
4406 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
4408 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
4411 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
4412 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4414 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
4415 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
4420 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
4421 available is determined at configure time.
4423 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
4425 * Ada tasking support
4427 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
4431 Print the list of Ada tasks.
4433 Print detailed information about task number N.
4435 Print the task number of the current task.
4437 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
4439 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
4440 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
4442 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
4444 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
4445 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
4446 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
4447 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
4448 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
4449 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
4452 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
4453 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
4456 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
4457 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
4458 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
4459 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
4462 * Multi-architecture debugging.
4464 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
4465 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
4466 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
4467 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
4468 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
4470 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
4471 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
4472 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
4473 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
4474 --enable-targets configure option.
4476 * Non-stop mode debugging.
4478 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
4479 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
4480 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
4481 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
4482 section in the user manual for more information.
4484 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
4485 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
4486 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
4487 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
4488 extensions on linux targets.
4490 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4492 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
4493 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
4494 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
4495 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
4496 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
4497 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
4498 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
4499 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
4500 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
4502 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
4504 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4506 maint set python print-stack
4507 maint show python print-stack
4508 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
4511 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
4516 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
4520 Show operating system information about processes.
4523 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
4526 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
4529 Detach from inferior number NUM.
4532 Kill inferior number NUM.
4536 set spu stop-on-load
4537 show spu stop-on-load
4538 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4540 set spu auto-flush-cache
4541 show spu auto-flush-cache
4542 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
4543 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4545 set sh calling-convention
4546 show sh calling-convention
4547 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
4550 show debug timestamp
4551 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
4553 set disassemble-next-line
4554 show disassemble-next-line
4555 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
4558 set remote noack-packet
4559 show remote noack-packet
4560 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
4561 under "New remote packets."
4563 set remote query-attached-packet
4564 show remote query-attached-packet
4565 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
4567 set remote read-siginfo-object
4568 show remote read-siginfo-object
4569 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
4572 set remote write-siginfo-object
4573 show remote write-siginfo-object
4574 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
4577 set remote reverse-continue
4578 show remote reverse-continue
4579 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
4581 set remote reverse-step
4582 show remote reverse-step
4583 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
4585 set displaced-stepping
4586 show displaced-stepping
4587 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
4588 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
4589 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
4592 show debug displaced
4593 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
4595 maint set internal-error
4596 maint show internal-error
4597 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
4599 maint set internal-warning
4600 maint show internal-warning
4601 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
4606 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4608 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
4609 show multiple-symbols
4610 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
4611 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
4612 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
4614 set breakpoint always-inserted
4615 show breakpoint always-inserted
4616 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
4617 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
4618 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
4620 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4621 show arm fallback-mode
4622 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4624 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
4625 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
4626 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
4627 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
4629 set disable-randomization
4630 show disable-randomization
4631 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
4632 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
4633 multiple debugging sessions.
4637 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
4642 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
4643 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
4644 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
4645 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
4647 set target-wide-charset
4648 show target-wide-charset
4649 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
4650 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
4652 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
4654 set tcp connect-timeout
4655 show tcp connect-timeout
4656 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
4657 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
4658 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
4660 set libthread-db-search-path
4661 show libthread-db-search-path
4662 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
4665 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
4666 show schedule-multiple
4667 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
4668 the current process.
4672 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
4673 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
4674 affecting correctness.
4676 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
4677 show interactive-mode
4678 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
4679 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
4680 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
4681 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
4682 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
4687 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
4688 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
4689 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
4693 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
4694 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
4695 alias for the `fork' command.
4698 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
4699 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
4700 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4703 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4704 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4705 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4709 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4710 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4711 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4714 * New native configurations
4716 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4718 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4722 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4723 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4724 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4727 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4728 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4734 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4736 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4738 * New native configurations
4740 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4741 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4745 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4746 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4748 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4750 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4751 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4752 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4753 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4755 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4756 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4758 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4761 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4762 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4763 and in inlined functions.
4765 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4766 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4767 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4769 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4771 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4772 registers on PowerPC targets.
4774 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4775 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4777 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4778 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4780 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4781 extended-remote mode.
4783 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4784 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4785 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4786 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4788 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4789 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4790 target architectures.
4792 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4793 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4794 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4795 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4797 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4800 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4801 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4803 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4804 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4805 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4806 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4808 - Improved command completion in Ada
4811 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4816 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4817 show print frame-arguments
4818 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
4819 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
4824 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4831 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4833 * New remote packets
4840 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
4843 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
4847 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
4849 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
4851 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
4852 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
4853 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
4855 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
4856 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
4857 -Bsymbolic linker option.
4859 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
4860 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
4863 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
4864 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
4866 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
4867 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
4869 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
4871 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
4872 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
4873 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
4875 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
4876 automatically displayed as character or string data.
4878 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
4879 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
4882 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
4883 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
4884 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
4886 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
4889 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
4890 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
4891 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
4893 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
4895 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
4897 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
4898 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
4899 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
4901 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
4902 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
4904 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
4905 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
4906 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
4907 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
4908 Windows and SymbianOS).
4910 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
4911 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
4913 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
4914 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
4920 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
4921 when debugging using remote targets.
4923 set mem inaccessible-by-default
4924 show mem inaccessible-by-default
4925 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4926 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4927 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
4928 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
4929 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
4931 set breakpoint auto-hw
4932 show breakpoint auto-hw
4933 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4934 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4935 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
4936 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
4937 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
4938 including "next" and "finish".
4941 catch exception unhandled
4942 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
4945 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
4949 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
4950 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
4951 an alias to "set sysroot".
4954 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4955 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4958 * New native configurations
4960 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4963 unset tdesc filename
4965 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4966 not query the target for its built-in description.
4970 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4971 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4972 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4974 * New remote packets
4977 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4978 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4980 qXfer:features:read:
4981 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
4986 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
4987 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
4989 qXfer:libraries:read:
4990 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
4991 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
4992 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
4993 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
4997 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
5005 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
5006 i[34567]86-*-netware*
5007 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
5008 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
5010 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
5013 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
5014 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
5023 * Other removed features
5030 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
5037 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
5042 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
5043 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
5048 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
5049 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
5051 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
5053 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
5054 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
5055 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
5056 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
5058 MIPS ".pdr" sections
5060 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
5061 in debugging information.
5065 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
5066 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
5068 set mips stack-arg-size
5069 set mips saved-gpreg-size
5071 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
5073 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
5078 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
5080 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
5081 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
5082 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
5084 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
5085 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
5088 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
5089 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
5091 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
5092 stub provides the required support.
5094 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
5095 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
5100 unset substitute-path
5101 show substitute-path
5102 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
5103 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
5104 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
5105 between compilation and debugging.
5109 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
5110 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
5111 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
5115 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
5117 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
5118 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
5120 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
5122 * New remote packets
5125 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
5126 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
5127 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
5128 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
5132 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
5133 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
5135 qXfer:memory-map:read:
5136 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
5137 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
5142 Erase and program a flash memory device.
5144 * Removed remote packets
5147 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
5148 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
5150 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
5154 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
5156 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5160 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
5161 only if it doesn't already have a value.
5163 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
5165 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
5167 restart <n> Return the program state to a
5168 previously saved state.
5170 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
5172 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
5174 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
5175 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
5177 info forks List forks of the user program that
5178 are available to be debugged.
5180 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
5181 forks of the user program that are
5182 available to be debugged.
5184 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5185 that are available to be debugged (and
5186 kill the forked process).
5188 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5189 that are available to be debugged (and
5190 allow the process to continue).
5194 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
5196 * Improved Windows host support
5198 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
5199 native console support, and remote communications using either
5200 network sockets or serial ports.
5202 * Improved Modula-2 language support
5204 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
5205 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
5206 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
5207 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
5208 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
5209 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
5213 The ARM rdi-share module.
5215 The Netware NLM debug server.
5217 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
5219 * New native configurations
5221 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
5222 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
5226 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5228 * New command line options
5230 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
5231 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
5232 the child (debugged) program exited with.
5233 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
5234 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
5235 specified multiple times and in conjunction
5236 with the --command (-x) option.
5238 * Deprecated commands removed
5240 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
5244 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
5245 othernames set arm disassembler
5246 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
5247 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
5248 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
5251 * New BSD user-level threads support
5253 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
5254 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
5257 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5258 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
5259 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
5261 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
5262 are not yet supported.
5264 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
5265 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
5267 * REMOVED configurations and files
5269 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
5270 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5271 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
5273 * New "set print array-indexes" command
5275 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
5276 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
5279 * VAX floating point support
5281 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
5283 * User-defined command support
5285 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
5286 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
5287 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
5289 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
5291 * New command line option
5293 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
5296 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
5298 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
5299 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
5300 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
5301 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
5302 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
5304 * Internationalization
5306 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
5307 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
5308 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
5312 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
5313 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
5314 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
5316 * New native configurations
5318 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
5322 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
5323 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
5325 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
5327 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5328 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
5329 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
5332 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the registers[]
5333 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
5334 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
5344 powerpc bdm protocol
5346 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5347 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
5349 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5351 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5352 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5353 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5354 permanently REMOVED.
5363 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
5365 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
5367 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
5368 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
5371 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
5373 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
5374 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
5375 IRIX long double values).
5379 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
5380 command. This problem has been fixed.
5382 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
5384 * Fix for ``many threads''
5386 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
5387 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
5390 ptrace: No such process.
5391 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
5393 This problem has been fixed.
5395 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
5397 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
5400 * New ``start'' command.
5402 This command runs the program until the beginning of the main procedure.
5404 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
5406 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
5407 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
5408 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
5410 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5411 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
5412 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
5413 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
5414 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
5415 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5416 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
5417 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
5418 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5420 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
5422 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
5423 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
5424 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
5425 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
5426 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
5428 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
5429 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
5430 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
5432 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
5434 * New native configurations
5436 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
5437 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
5438 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
5439 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
5440 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
5441 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
5442 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
5444 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
5446 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5447 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
5448 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
5449 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
5450 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
5451 work, was also included.
5453 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
5454 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
5464 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5465 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
5467 * REMOVED configurations and files
5469 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5470 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5471 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5472 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5473 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5474 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5475 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5476 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5477 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5478 sonymips mips-sony-*
5479 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5481 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
5483 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
5485 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
5486 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
5487 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
5488 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
5491 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
5493 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
5494 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
5495 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
5496 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
5497 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
5498 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
5501 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
5503 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
5505 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
5506 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
5507 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
5509 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
5511 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
5512 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
5514 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
5516 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
5517 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
5518 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
5520 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
5522 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
5523 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
5525 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
5527 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
5528 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
5529 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
5531 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
5533 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
5534 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
5535 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
5537 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
5539 * Removed --with-mmalloc
5541 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
5542 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
5544 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
5546 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
5547 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
5548 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
5549 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
5551 * Revised SPARC target
5553 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
5554 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
5555 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
5556 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
5557 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
5561 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
5562 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
5563 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
5566 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5568 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
5569 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
5572 * C++ nested types and namespaces
5574 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
5575 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
5576 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
5577 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
5578 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
5579 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
5580 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
5581 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
5582 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
5584 * New native configurations
5586 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
5587 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5588 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
5589 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5590 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
5592 * New debugging protocols
5594 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
5596 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
5598 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
5599 and its very obscure effect on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
5600 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
5602 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5604 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5605 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5606 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5607 permanently REMOVED.
5609 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5610 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5611 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5612 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5613 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5614 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5615 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5616 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5617 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5618 sonymips mips-sony-*
5619 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5621 * REMOVED configurations and files
5623 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5624 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5625 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5626 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5627 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5628 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5629 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5630 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5631 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5632 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
5633 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5634 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5635 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5636 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
5637 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
5638 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5639 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5641 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
5645 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
5646 integrated into GDB.
5648 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
5650 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
5651 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
5652 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
5655 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
5656 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
5657 DWARF 2 CFI support.
5661 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
5662 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
5663 remote protocol documentation for details.
5665 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
5667 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
5668 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
5669 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
5672 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
5674 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
5675 per-thread variables.
5677 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
5679 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
5680 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
5682 * Separate debug info.
5684 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
5685 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
5686 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
5687 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
5688 and optional debug files.
5690 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5692 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
5693 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
5696 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
5697 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5701 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5702 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5703 considered "useable".
5705 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5707 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5708 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5711 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5713 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5714 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5716 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5718 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5719 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5722 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5724 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5725 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5729 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5730 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5731 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5732 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5733 data, for more informative profiling results.
5735 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5737 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5738 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5739 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5741 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5744 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5745 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5746 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5747 in a subsequent -var-update.
5749 * New native configurations.
5751 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5753 * Multi-arched targets.
5755 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5756 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5758 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5760 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5761 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5762 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5763 permanently REMOVED.
5765 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5766 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5767 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5768 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5769 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5770 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5771 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5772 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5773 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5774 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5775 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5776 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5778 * REMOVED configurations and files
5781 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5782 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5783 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5784 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5785 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5786 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5788 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5789 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5790 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5791 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5792 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5793 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5795 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5797 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5798 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5799 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5800 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5801 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5803 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5805 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5807 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5808 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5809 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5810 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5811 shared libs like mad''.
5813 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5815 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5816 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5817 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5818 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
5820 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
5822 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
5823 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
5826 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
5827 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
5829 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
5830 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
5832 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
5833 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
5834 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
5835 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
5837 * Multi-arched targets.
5839 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
5840 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
5842 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
5843 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
5844 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5848 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
5851 * New native configurations
5853 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
5854 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
5855 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
5856 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
5858 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5860 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5861 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5862 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5863 permanently REMOVED.
5865 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5866 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5867 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5868 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5869 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5870 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5871 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5872 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5873 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5874 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5876 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5877 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5879 * OBSOLETE languages
5881 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
5883 * REMOVED configurations and files
5885 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5886 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5887 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5888 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5889 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5891 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5893 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
5895 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
5896 commands. The default is 1024.
5898 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
5900 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
5902 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
5904 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
5905 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
5906 from a file into memory (restore).
5908 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
5910 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
5911 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
5912 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
5914 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
5922 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
5923 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
5924 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
5926 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
5927 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
5928 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
5930 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
5931 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
5932 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
5934 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
5935 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
5936 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
5938 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
5940 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
5942 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
5943 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
5944 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
5945 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
5946 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
5947 (notably embedded) targets.
5949 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
5951 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
5952 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
5953 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5954 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5956 * New command line option
5958 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5960 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5962 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5963 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5964 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5965 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5966 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5967 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5968 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5969 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5970 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5971 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5973 * Changes in ARM configurations.
5975 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5976 configuration is fully multi-arch.
5978 * New native configurations
5980 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
5981 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
5982 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
5983 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
5987 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
5989 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5991 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5992 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5993 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5994 permanently REMOVED.
5996 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5997 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5998 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5999 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6000 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6002 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
6004 * REMOVED configurations and files
6006 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6008 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6009 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6010 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6011 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6012 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6013 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6014 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6015 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6016 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6017 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6018 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
6020 * Changes to command line processing
6022 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
6023 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
6025 * Changes to key bindings
6027 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
6029 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
6031 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
6033 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
6036 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
6038 Numerous documentation fixes.
6040 Numerous testsuite fixes.
6042 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
6044 * New native configurations
6046 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
6047 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
6048 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
6049 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6050 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
6051 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
6055 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
6057 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
6059 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6061 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
6062 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6063 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6064 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6065 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6067 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6068 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6069 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6070 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6071 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6072 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6073 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6074 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
6076 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
6077 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
6079 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6080 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6081 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6082 permanently REMOVED.
6084 * REMOVED configurations and files
6086 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6087 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6089 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6093 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
6095 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
6096 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
6101 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
6103 * The MI enabled by default.
6105 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
6106 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
6107 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
6108 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
6109 which is now deprecated.
6111 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
6113 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
6114 main features are supported:
6116 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
6118 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
6121 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
6123 - a Pascal expression parser.
6125 However, some important features are not yet supported.
6127 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
6129 - there are some problems with boolean types;
6131 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
6132 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
6134 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
6136 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
6138 * Changes in completion.
6140 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
6141 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
6142 users expect at the shell prompt.
6144 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
6145 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
6146 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
6147 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
6148 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
6149 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
6150 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
6152 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
6154 * New platform-independent commands:
6156 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
6157 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
6158 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
6160 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
6162 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
6163 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
6164 many threads as your system allows you to have.
6166 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
6168 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
6169 multi-threaded programs though.
6171 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
6173 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
6175 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
6176 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
6179 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
6181 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
6182 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
6183 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
6184 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
6185 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
6188 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
6189 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
6190 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
6192 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
6194 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
6195 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
6197 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
6198 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
6201 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
6202 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
6203 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
6204 a given linear address.
6206 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
6207 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
6208 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
6210 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
6212 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
6214 * Changes in documentation.
6216 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
6217 Documentation License.
6219 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6222 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
6224 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6227 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
6228 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
6229 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
6231 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
6233 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
6234 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
6235 contents of this file.
6239 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
6241 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
6243 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
6245 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
6246 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
6247 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
6248 greater level of detail.
6250 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
6252 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
6253 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
6254 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
6257 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
6259 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
6260 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
6261 machines ``out of the box''.
6263 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
6264 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
6265 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
6266 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
6267 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
6269 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
6270 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
6271 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
6272 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
6273 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
6275 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
6276 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
6279 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
6282 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
6283 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
6284 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
6285 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
6287 * New native configurations
6289 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
6290 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6294 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
6295 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
6296 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
6297 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6299 * OBSOLETE configurations
6301 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6302 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6304 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6307 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6308 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6309 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6310 be permanently REMOVED.
6312 * Gould support removed
6314 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
6316 * New features for SVR4
6318 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
6319 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
6320 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
6322 * Many C++ enhancements
6324 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
6325 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
6327 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
6329 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
6330 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
6331 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
6332 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
6334 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
6335 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
6337 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
6339 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
6340 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
6341 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
6343 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
6344 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
6346 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
6348 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
6349 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
6350 include ``set remote P-packet''.
6352 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
6354 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
6355 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
6356 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
6358 * ``apropos'' command added.
6360 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
6361 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
6362 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
6366 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
6367 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
6368 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
6369 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
6370 enabled by configuring with:
6372 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
6374 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
6376 * New native configurations
6378 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
6379 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
6380 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
6384 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6385 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
6386 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6388 * OBSOLETE configurations
6390 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
6392 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6393 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6394 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6395 be permanently REMOVED.
6399 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
6400 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
6401 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
6402 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
6403 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
6404 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
6405 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
6410 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
6412 * set extension-language
6414 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
6415 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
6416 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
6417 set extension-language .c c++
6418 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
6419 and their associated languages.
6421 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
6423 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
6424 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
6425 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
6429 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
6430 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
6432 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
6433 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
6435 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
6436 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
6437 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
6438 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
6439 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
6440 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
6441 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
6442 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
6444 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
6445 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
6446 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
6447 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
6451 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
6452 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
6453 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
6454 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
6455 for xdb and dbx commands.
6459 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
6460 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
6461 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
6463 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
6464 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
6465 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
6467 * Debugging across forks
6469 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
6474 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
6475 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
6476 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
6478 * GDB remote protocol additions
6480 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
6481 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
6482 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
6483 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
6485 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
6486 full 64-bit address. The command
6488 set remoteaddresssize 32
6490 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
6491 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
6494 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
6495 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
6497 maint packet heythere
6499 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
6500 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
6503 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
6504 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
6505 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
6507 * Tracing can collect general expressions
6509 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
6510 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
6511 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
6513 * mask-address variable for Mips
6515 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
6516 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
6517 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
6519 * Higher serial baud rates
6521 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
6522 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
6523 to achieve all of these rates.)
6527 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
6528 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
6531 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
6533 * New native configurations
6535 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
6536 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
6537 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6538 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6539 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6540 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
6541 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
6545 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6546 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
6547 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6548 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
6549 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
6550 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
6551 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
6552 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
6553 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6554 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6555 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
6557 * New debugging protocols
6559 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
6560 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
6561 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
6562 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6563 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6564 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6568 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
6569 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
6574 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
6575 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
6577 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
6579 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
6580 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
6581 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
6583 * Live range splitting
6585 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
6586 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
6587 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
6591 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
6592 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
6596 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
6597 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
6598 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
6603 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
6608 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
6609 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
6610 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
6611 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
6612 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
6613 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
6617 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
6618 the symbol at the specified address.
6622 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
6623 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
6624 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
6625 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
6626 file tracepoint.c for more details.
6630 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
6631 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
6632 of most MIPS variants.
6636 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
6637 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
6638 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
6642 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
6643 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
6644 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
6645 the possible architectures.
6647 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
6649 * New native configurations
6651 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
6652 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
6653 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
6654 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
6655 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6656 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
6660 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
6661 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6662 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
6663 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
6664 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
6666 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6670 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
6671 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
6672 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
6673 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
6674 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
6678 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
6680 * Windows 95/NT native
6682 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
6683 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
6684 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
6685 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
6686 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
6688 * dont-repeat command
6690 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
6691 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
6692 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
6693 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
6695 * Send break instead of ^C
6697 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
6698 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
6699 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6701 * Remote protocol timeout
6703 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6704 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6705 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6707 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6709 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6710 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6711 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6712 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6713 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6715 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6716 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6717 automatically on hpux10.
6719 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6721 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6723 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6725 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6726 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6727 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6728 every character. The default value is 1050.
6730 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6732 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6733 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6734 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6735 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6736 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6737 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6739 * Speedups for remote debugging
6741 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6742 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6743 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6745 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6747 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6748 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6750 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6752 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6754 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6755 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6757 * Remote targets use caching
6759 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6760 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6761 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6762 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6763 off' turns the data cache off.
6765 * Remote targets may have threads
6767 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6768 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6769 gdb/remote.c for details.
6773 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6774 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6775 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6776 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6777 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6778 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6779 sequence is something like
6781 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6783 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6787 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6788 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6789 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6790 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6791 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6792 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6793 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6794 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6798 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6799 but does simplify configuration and building.
6803 GDB now supports hpux10.
6805 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6807 * New native configurations
6809 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6810 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6811 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6812 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6816 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6817 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6818 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
6819 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
6822 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
6824 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
6825 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
6826 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
6827 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
6828 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
6830 * Arguments to user-defined commands
6832 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
6833 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
6836 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
6838 To execute the command use:
6841 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
6842 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
6843 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
6845 * New `if' and `while' commands
6847 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
6848 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
6849 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
6850 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
6851 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
6852 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
6853 if the expression is zero.
6855 * Fortran source language mode
6857 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
6858 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
6859 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
6860 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
6863 * Better HPUX support
6865 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
6866 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
6867 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
6868 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
6869 that behavior do the following before running the program:
6875 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
6876 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
6882 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
6883 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
6886 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
6887 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
6889 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
6891 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
6892 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
6893 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
6894 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
6895 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
6896 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
6898 * New DOS host serial code
6900 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
6901 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
6904 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
6906 * New "complete" command
6908 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
6909 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
6911 * Trailing space optional in prompt
6913 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
6914 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
6916 * Breakpoint hit counts
6918 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
6919 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
6920 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
6921 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
6922 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
6925 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
6927 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
6928 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
6929 arrays actually contain only short strings.
6931 * Shared library breakpoints
6933 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
6934 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
6936 * Hardware watchpoints
6938 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
6939 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
6941 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
6945 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
6946 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
6948 * Improved Irix 5 support
6950 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
6952 * Improved HPPA support
6954 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6956 * New native configurations
6958 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6959 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6960 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6961 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6965 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6966 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6969 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6971 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6972 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6976 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6977 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6979 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6981 * Irix 5 is now supported
6985 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
6986 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
6987 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
6988 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
6989 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
6992 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
6994 * User visible changes:
6998 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
6999 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
7000 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
7001 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
7002 debugging info for the mips target).
7004 * DEC Alpha native support
7006 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
7007 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
7008 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
7009 Alpha-specific notes.
7011 * Preliminary thread implementation
7013 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
7015 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
7017 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
7018 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
7021 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
7023 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
7024 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
7025 call methods, ...etc.
7027 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
7029 * User visible changes:
7031 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
7032 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
7033 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
7034 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
7036 Filename completion now works.
7038 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
7039 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
7040 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
7042 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
7043 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
7044 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
7045 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
7046 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
7050 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
7051 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
7054 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
7058 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
7059 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
7060 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
7064 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
7065 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
7066 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
7067 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
7068 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
7072 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
7073 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
7074 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
7076 * New targets supported
7078 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7079 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
7080 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
7081 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
7082 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
7084 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
7085 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
7086 GO32 memory extender.
7088 * New remote protocols
7090 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
7092 * New source languages supported
7094 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
7095 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
7096 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
7099 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
7101 * HP Precision Architecture supported
7103 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
7104 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
7105 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
7106 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
7107 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
7108 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
7110 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
7112 * Faster and better demangling
7114 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
7115 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
7116 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
7117 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
7118 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
7119 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
7122 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
7123 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
7124 compiler does not actually implement.
7126 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
7128 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
7129 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
7130 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
7131 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
7132 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
7133 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
7136 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
7137 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
7139 * Improved configure script
7141 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
7142 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
7143 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
7144 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
7146 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
7147 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
7148 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
7149 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
7150 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
7151 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
7153 * Documentation improvements
7155 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
7156 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
7157 before submitting changes.
7159 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
7160 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
7161 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
7162 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
7163 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
7165 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
7166 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
7167 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
7168 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
7169 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
7170 around this problem.
7174 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
7175 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
7176 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
7179 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
7180 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
7182 * New native hosts supported
7184 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
7185 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
7187 * New targets supported
7189 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
7191 * New file formats supported
7193 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
7194 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
7198 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
7200 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
7201 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
7203 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
7204 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
7205 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
7207 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
7208 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
7210 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
7211 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
7212 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
7215 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
7216 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
7217 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
7218 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
7219 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
7221 * Internal improvements
7223 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
7224 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
7226 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
7227 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
7228 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
7229 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
7230 shared code that handles any of them.
7232 * New command line options
7234 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
7238 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
7239 General Public License.
7241 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
7243 * Host/native/target split
7245 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
7246 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
7247 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
7248 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
7249 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
7251 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
7252 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
7253 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
7254 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
7255 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
7256 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
7257 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
7259 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
7260 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
7261 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
7263 * New hosts supported
7265 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
7266 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
7267 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
7269 * New targets supported
7271 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
7272 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
7274 * New native hosts supported
7276 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
7277 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
7278 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
7280 * New file formats supported
7282 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
7283 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
7284 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
7288 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
7289 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
7290 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
7292 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
7294 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
7295 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
7296 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
7297 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
7301 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
7302 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
7303 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
7305 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
7309 The crash that occurred when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
7310 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
7313 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
7314 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
7316 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
7317 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
7318 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
7319 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
7320 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
7321 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
7323 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
7324 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
7325 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
7326 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
7330 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
7331 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
7332 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
7333 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
7334 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
7336 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
7337 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
7338 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
7339 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
7343 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
7344 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
7345 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
7346 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
7347 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
7348 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
7349 each instruction being stepped through.
7351 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
7352 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
7354 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
7355 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
7356 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
7357 processor with a serial port.
7361 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
7362 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
7363 supported, and what files each one uses.
7367 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
7368 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
7369 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
7370 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
7372 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
7373 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
7374 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
7375 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
7379 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
7380 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
7381 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
7382 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
7383 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
7384 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
7386 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
7389 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
7391 * Better support for C++ function names
7393 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
7394 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
7395 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
7396 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
7397 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
7399 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
7400 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
7401 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
7402 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
7403 for the list of formats.
7405 * G++ symbol mangling problem
7407 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
7408 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
7409 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
7410 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compiling gdb/symtab.c. The
7411 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
7412 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
7415 * New 'maintenance' command
7417 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
7418 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
7419 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
7421 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
7422 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
7423 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
7424 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
7425 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
7426 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
7428 The following commands are new:
7430 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
7431 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
7432 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
7434 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
7436 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
7437 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
7438 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
7439 read after argv processing.
7441 * New hosts supported
7443 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
7445 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
7447 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
7448 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
7449 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
7450 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
7451 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
7454 * New targets supported
7456 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7458 * More smarts about finding #include files
7460 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
7461 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
7462 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
7463 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
7464 the one that contains your sources.
7466 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
7467 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
7468 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
7470 * Interesting infernals change
7472 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
7473 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
7474 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
7475 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
7477 * Bug fixes (of course!)
7479 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
7480 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
7481 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
7483 See the ChangeLog for details.
7485 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
7487 * New machines supported (host and target)
7489 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
7491 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
7493 * New malloc package
7495 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
7496 Mmalloc is capable of handling multiple heaps of memory. It is also
7497 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
7498 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
7499 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
7500 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
7504 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
7505 'help info proc' for details.
7507 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
7509 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
7510 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
7513 * File name changes for MS-DOS
7515 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
7516 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
7517 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
7518 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
7519 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
7520 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
7522 * Cross byte order fixes
7524 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
7525 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
7527 * New -mapped and -readnow options
7529 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
7530 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
7531 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
7532 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
7533 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
7534 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
7535 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
7536 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
7537 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
7538 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
7540 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
7541 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
7542 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
7543 slower, but makes future operations faster.
7545 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
7546 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
7547 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
7550 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
7552 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
7553 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
7554 shared across multiple host platforms.
7556 * longjmp() handling
7558 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
7559 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
7560 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
7561 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
7565 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
7566 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
7571 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
7572 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
7573 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
7575 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
7577 * New machines supported (host and target)
7579 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7581 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
7582 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
7584 * New machines supported (target)
7586 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7590 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
7591 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
7592 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
7594 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
7595 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
7596 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
7597 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
7598 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
7601 * New features for SVR4
7603 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
7604 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
7605 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
7607 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
7608 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
7609 it prints the address mappings of the process.
7611 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
7612 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
7614 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
7616 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
7617 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
7618 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
7619 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
7620 same code linked statically.
7624 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
7625 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
7626 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
7627 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
7628 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
7629 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
7633 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7634 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7635 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7638 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
7640 * New machines supported (host and target)
7642 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
7643 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
7644 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7646 * Almost SCO Unix support
7648 We had hoped to support:
7649 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7650 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
7651 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
7652 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
7654 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
7656 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
7657 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
7658 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
7659 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
7664 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
7665 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
7666 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
7670 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7671 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7672 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7674 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
7676 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
7677 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
7678 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
7680 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
7681 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
7682 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
7683 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
7686 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
7687 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
7688 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
7689 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
7692 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
7693 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
7696 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
7697 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
7698 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7701 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7703 * Improved configuration
7705 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7706 Porting BFD is simpler.
7710 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7711 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7712 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7713 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7717 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7719 * New host supported (not target)
7721 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7724 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7726 * Multiple source language support
7728 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7729 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7730 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7731 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7732 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7733 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7737 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7738 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7739 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7740 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7742 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7743 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7744 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7746 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7747 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7751 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7752 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7753 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7754 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7757 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7759 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7760 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7761 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7762 examining core files.
7766 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7769 * New machines supported (host and target)
7771 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7772 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7773 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7775 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7777 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7779 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7781 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7782 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7783 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7785 * New remote interfaces
7791 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7795 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7797 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7798 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7799 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7800 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7801 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7802 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7803 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7804 stub on the target system.
7806 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7808 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7809 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7810 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7812 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7813 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7816 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7818 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
7819 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
7821 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
7822 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
7823 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
7825 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
7826 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
7827 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
7828 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
7830 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
7831 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
7832 it is already running. Default is ON.
7834 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
7835 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
7836 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
7837 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
7840 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
7841 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
7842 or the value of the environment variable
7845 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
7846 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
7849 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
7850 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
7851 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
7853 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
7854 history expansion will be performed on
7855 command line input. The default is OFF.
7857 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
7858 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
7859 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
7861 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
7862 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
7863 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7866 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
7867 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
7868 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7871 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
7872 ``set width'' instead.
7874 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
7875 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
7876 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
7877 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
7879 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
7882 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
7885 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
7888 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
7891 * Support for Epoch Environment.
7893 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
7894 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
7895 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
7899 * Support for Shared Libraries
7901 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
7902 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
7903 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
7904 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
7905 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
7906 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
7907 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
7908 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
7910 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
7911 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
7912 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
7914 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
7919 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
7920 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
7921 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
7922 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
7923 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
7924 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
7926 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
7928 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
7930 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7931 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7932 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7935 * C++ multiple inheritance
7937 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
7940 * C++ exception handling
7942 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
7943 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
7944 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
7947 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
7948 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
7949 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
7951 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
7952 current stack frame.
7955 * Minor command changes
7957 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7958 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7959 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7961 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7962 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7963 frames without printing.
7965 * New directory command
7967 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7968 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7969 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7970 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7971 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7973 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7975 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7978 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7979 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7980 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
7981 where the program that you are debugging will run.